Particle Physics (34 of 41) What is a Photon? 18. Amplitude vs Intensity - How 'Big' is a Photon?

In this video I will explain how the concept of how “big” is a photon with respect to its energy, wavelength, and energy transfer.

Next video in the Particle Physics series can be seen at:

[leonhardtkristensen]

Sorry that I am coming to this one a little late as it is 2022 now but as you answered some body just 3 months ago I will put my 5c worth in anyway. First your intensity formula is for field strength of an omni directional signal. The signal can be made directional and there fore much stronger. In my opinion this is not one Photon but billions of photons. I have a table giving Wave length, Frequency and energy of Photons. I believe that one Photon has the same energy from it's birth to its death regardless how far it goes. If it dies or just combine with an electron when it makes an electron jump in an atom I don't know. The energy of the Photon get's absorbed by the jump.
What I think may be a better way to think about a Photon is as a pulsating blob. The size could have some thing to do with the wave length. It can only move in one direction unless some thing is pushing it in a different direction. It is not going omni directional at all
With the double slit experiment then are we really sure that it is not multiple photons interfering with each other? Reflecting Radio signals interfere with each other and that is with a delay much longer than the frequency as well as parts of the frequency. I don't think our detectors are sensitive enough to detect just one Photon.

[zakirhussain-jsku]

A photon is depicted as an oscillating electric & magnetic field confined in a 2 dimensional travelling sine wave which does not occupy any space. At the same time photon is a real physical entity which can carry energy, momentum & can also produce pair of mass bearing particles. Are photons made of space just as water waves are made of water. Can only fields i.e. electric, magnetic & gravitational travel at light speed. In water waves wave energy is carried by water molecules how is energy in electric field carried. Anything which can carry force, energy & momentum has to have some kind of physical nature.

[oneplaneteer]

I'm sorry I'm just not understanding why, If we can describe the wavelength of a photon then why can't we describe the waveheight?

[valeriereid]

Excellent! Thank you so much for making these concepts easy to understand. This certainly helps.

[terrymiller]

Using Planck's equation where Energy = hf  the units of h are Joule-sec and the units of f are cycles/sec.  Dividing both sides of the equation by "cycles" yields Energy/cycle = Joules.  Therefore a photon is a single cycle of the electromagnetic wave equal in length to a single wavelength (lambda), not a continuous wave or a "packet" of energy as often stated.

[specialmindset]

I wonder what is "P" from the I=P/A equation. Is that Electromagnetic Pressure by chance?

[clearbrain]

very good explanation...thanks for sharing knowledge with the human society.I have a question..Does a single photon travel in 2 dimension(like in polarized light....The electric field i mean)?

[johnmorpuss]

Not hard to see how mans wireless communications and remote sensing is warming the atmosphere . Did you know, the first microwave oven was called a RADAR range .

[feelingzhakkaas]

Where can i get more information on wavefunction?

[schmetterling]

A photon is a little bit of electromagnetic field energy. Energy doesn't have a size.

[moodmaker]

I still don't get it.
Can someone explain how the electromagnetic wave shape of one oscillation of an electron at the source look like? Is the result one photon with an electromagnetic wavefront of one wavelength? Or is it multiple wavefronts? Is the typical depiction of multiple wavesfronts a depiction of multiple oscillations behind each other or just one? Is it irrelevant? I'm going crazy over this.
1 oscillation = em wavefront with a wavelength = 1 photon?
1 oscillation = em wave of multiple wavefronts with respective wavelenghts = 1 photon?

[dmitriikozlov]

Is it really Emax of the electric field produced by one photon? Or since this lecture we speak about superposition of the electromagnetic fields induced by closely flying photons? I.e. higher the density of photons is, higher Emax is.

[akashlobog]

Saved my day. I respect your videos as they have helped me big time.

[CandidDate]

I've been pondering this very question: What exactly is "waving" in photonic electric and magnetic fields? My best guess is to give the electric field dimension=5 and magnetic field dimension=6. Therefore you have x, y, and z for 3 dimensions, time as 4th dimension and both the electric and magnetic fields making a total of 6 dimensions. The math can get quite interesting...

[NicosM]

Hi. It's a very intersting video. Would you have any knowledge of other video on this topic (size of photons, the way an electrons "feels" ad reacts to electromagnetic wave) ?
Anyway, it's a shame you don't have more followers ...

[ironuranium]

how we can find the amplitude of an electromagnetic radiation???

[tyroneslothdrop]

What is the correlation between an oscillating electric field and a molecule's ability to absorb photons? If the molecules do not absorb the incoming photons, are they not affected by the oscillating electric field?