I understand that one side of the beam will enter the glass first and will slow down first but why does each individual photon need to change direction when entering glass?
Wouldn't the photons carry on in the same direction but the photons that entered the glass afterwards be slightly behind?
Why does light bend when refracting?
Liam Powell
Brody Smith
Light just knows the shortest path.
Wyatt Fisher
How does it just "know" the shortest path?
Hudson Carter
God is all knowing
Thomas Butler
Light gives 0 hoots about causality
en.wikipedia.org
Note: This applies to everything, not just photons.
Elijah Moore
Light's medium is empty space. Take another wave, one that propagates with matter, and see it refracting the same way as it moves from low density to high density matter. To understand refraction you need to model light as an electromagnetic wave produced by oscillating electrical charges. This way we can model reflection, diffraction, refraction without magic.
Jacob Parker
>need to
Christopher Hernandez
ayyo hold up
are you saying we can use light to solve TSP?
Daniel Davis
No.
Joshua Bennett
I think the issue here is that there are several useful models of light available here: the ray model, the electromagnetic wavefront model, and the quantum electrodynamic model (i.e. photons). In the context of the ray model, the law of refraction can be derived from Fermat's principle. In the context of the electromagnetic model, refraction can be derived from solving Maxwell's equations within regions of multiple dielectrics (including free space). Idk enough about QED to describe how it explains refraction. Anyways, the point is, in physics all we have are models. Some are applicable in certain regions of a certain parameter space, while others are not, but none can be known to be truly and completely right. And in this case, we have multiple models that have valid explanations of a single phenomenon.
Adam White
It happens to the individual photons, not the beam.
A photon is not a point, it is an electromagnetic wave and affected by the "surface" of the electron shell of the atoms it interacts with. The electric wave or magnetic wave will transmit its energy to the "shell" before the other and at different points. When this energy is "transmitted" on the other side of the "shell", the waves will have a different "alignment" and thus direction.
Isaiah Martinez
Shut the fuck up, you dumb little bitch
Ian Smith
why, it is the right answer
Jackson Lewis
Actually it goes all over the place
Jonathan Russell
An electromagnetic wave is an electric wave and a magnetic wave oscillating about each other.
When it hits the medium at an angle, one is slowed down before the other, changing the direction of the electromagnetic wave when it is reemitted.
Luis Wilson
It's the same thing as gravitational lensing
How do you THINK light would know anything if it's just passing in the space BETWEEN atoms and particles?
Easton Nelson
How large is the amplitudes of the electric and magnetic waves?
Oliver Carter
Because different speed in different medium.
light speed in f.g Diamond is almost 2 times slower, than in vacuum.
google it you can find you self rest.
Brayden Kelly
larger than your dick you fucking moron
Isaac Rodriguez
Oh yeah? You'll regret saying that when I ram my bullet train up your ass.
Ethan Cox
come at me you fucking loser
William Gutierrez
This image might seem intuitive, but mostly useless. The axle has no physical counterpart, and that's what the intuition hinges on; remove the axel, and the image makes no sense. Throw this garbage graphic out.
The proper way to treat reflection and refraction of a plane wave at an interface is to break the fields down into their normal and tangential components, and then note that the phase of the wave along the tangential direction (along the interface) must be equal on either side of the interface (phase matching condition).
You can figure out amplitudes based on the analysis I just described. The math is slightly tedious, but not difficult.
Cooper Kelly
wouldn't this be shortest path?
Matthew Davis
>Light has been slowed to one mile per hour (.0000000015c) in an unusual form of matter known as a Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC).
>In 2001, physicists for the first time managed to stop light in a vapor of rubidium gas.
physicscentral.com
what the fugg
Landon Wright
Fermat's principle is based on shortest time, not shortest path (unless you apply differential geometry to warp your space to match the amount of time it would take to traverse it).
Gabriel Williams
So when the photon hits the surface of the solid, it gains information on the quickest route through the solid? How does that work if it's not regularly shaped?
Josiah Rivera
So basically the blue wave slows down before the red wave, and because they're anchored together, this causes the whole wave to swivel towards the normal? Like if a car had its left tire going faster than its right tire it would turn right?
Liam Richardson
its because light is a wave
when the waves hit the block, they change shape, which changes the angle of the corresponding beam
Jaxson Jenkins
ayyo posto moro o thato slutto
Leo White
dont wannan enrage those Doing It For Free you know so youshould probably go to /lolg/ over at Veeky Forums maybe
Isaiah Reyes
>each individual photon
L0Lno, light transmission is not about "each individual photon".
Get thee back unto the Eighteenth Centurie, thou fool.
Gavin Howard
post more friend
Jaxon Torres
This is the answer a high school physics teacher will give, and its wrong.
The speed of the medium does not directly explain the change of direction.