Light travels in the form of a wave.It has masless photons travelling at the speed of light.Does it mean that tha photons travels in the trajectory same as that of a wave.
1 Answers
Light travels in the form of a wave.
This is beautifully fitted for electromagnetic radiation with solutions of the Maxell equations, yes it has varying electric and magnetic fields.
This drawing from wikipedia for polarized light might enlighten you.
The red arrow is the direction of the maximum of the electric field which, with the perpendicular magnetic field form the classical light.
It has masless photons travelling at the speed of light.Does it mean that tha photons travels in the trajectory same as that of a wave.
No, the myriads of photons that make up the classical beam are described by their zero mass, and their spin direction. It is not waving. In the diagram above the photon is in the middle, and the relation with the classical wave is that the polarization direction of the classical wave is built up by the spins of the photons.
The myriads of photons build the classical wave by a superposition of their wave functions, which do have the electric and magnetic fields, and to understand the way this happens needs the mathematics of quantum electrodynamics.
What is "waving" for the photon is the probability of finding it at a given (x,y,z,t), which is the complex conjugate square of the wavefunction.
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