Collision of light?

[cosmicmonk710]

Hi I am a real newbie to all of this and I was wondering if one of you more knowledgeable people out there might be able to answer a question for me? What would happen if two equal beams of light were to be pointed into each other and made to collide? Is it true that one beam would cancel out the other, or does one disolve into the other or do they bounce of each other and glow more, or what does actually happen?<br /><br />Also, how large would a planet have to be to have enough gravity to be to be able to trap light into it's orbit?<br /><br />Thanx in advance!<br />Allan

 

[kyle_baron]

<i><br />What would happen if two equal beams of light were to be pointed into each other and made to collide? Is it true that one beam would cancel out the other, or does one disolve into the other or do they bounce of each other and glow more, or what does actually happen? </i><br /><br />Nothing happens. Photons have no mass, so no bounce. The beams wouldn't cancel each other out, or brighten. The individual photon wavelengths could, if perfectly in phase or out of phase (Theoretically). <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

light has this near magical property of superposition which allows beams of light to pass through each other unaltered, there might be some interference in place where they superpose on each other but when they emerge from this encounter they are both as good as before it<br /><br />the interference doesn't result in some absorption of light rays of one into another or into mutual cancelation such that light rays would convert into some energy other than light<br /><br />basically the light ray ignores other light rays as it goes on its way, superposition phenomenon is one of the true marvels of physics<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[fingle]

Re: Also, how large would a planet have to be to have enough gravity to be to be able to trap light into it's orbit? <br /><br />as massive as a black hole.<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[siarad]

Doesn't just apply to light, 'electricity' does this too. Reflecting it to double the voltage is common especially to generate high voltage pulses, another use is in your PC PCI bus to reduce power consumption.