Why does energy travel in waves?

[JayJ]

TL;DR Summary

Why does energy travel in waves. Photons radio ect

Hi all-

Im new. Had a weird thought and when researched I only found the answer of bc that’s how we observe it.

question. Why does energy travel in waves?
Bc that’s how we see it?

can anyone explain to me why energy moves in waves and not a straight line?

Thanks to all who help me rid myself of this question.
If there isn’t already a defined answer would assuming it’s bc the plain or medium offers some sort of resistance or energy that creates the waves?

 

[Dale]

Energy doesn’t only travel in waves. Waves carry energy, but energy can also be passed in a non-wavelike manner by mechanical devices like levers and ropes and so forth. Even in electromagnetism energy can travel in static fields.

 

[JayJ]

Energy doesn’t only travel in waves. Waves carry energy, but energy can also be passed in a non-wavelike manner by mechanical devices like levers and ropes and so forth.

How about just photons.

when a photon leaves the sun. It’s moves in a wave bc the plain / medium itself is a wave?

 

[JayJ]

How about just photons.

when a photon leaves the sun. It’s moves in a wave bc the plain / medium itself is a wave?

Is this correct? If the wave was absent would the particles of photons have the ability to travel? Is it the wave itself that creates the force to keep it in motion?

 

[Dale]

How about just photons.

when a photon leaves the sun. It’s moves in a wave bc the plain / medium itself is a wave?

That is how photons behave by definition. Energy can travel through a static electromagnetic field but that isn’t a real photon. Real photons move in a wave because if you are talking about the parts of electromagnetism that don’t move in a wave then you don’t call it photons.

There is no medium for EM

 

[JayJ]

That is how photons behave by definition. Energy can travel through a static electromagnetic field but that isn’t a real photon. Real photons move in a wave because if you are talking about the parts of electromagnetism that don’t move in a wave then you don’t call it photons.

That’s my issue. Why does it behave in such a way?
What is creating the wave and keeping it constant?
Bc the universe has different waves in which different energy travels? Why are the waves there in the first place. It’s not the creation of the photon is it? Where are the waves created!?

 

[Dale]

Why does it behave in such a way?
What is creating the wave and keeping it constant?

Electromagnetism obeys Maxwell’s equations. Waves are one solution to Maxwell’s equations. They work because of the way that the fields interact with each other and their sources. There are other non-wavelike solutions to Maxwell’s equations. Both the wave and the non-wave solutions can transport energy.

Bc the universe has different waves in which different energy travels?

This is getting repetitive. I already told you that not all energy travels in waves.

 

[JayJ]

Electromagnetism obeys Maxwell’s equations. Waves are one solution to Maxwell’s equations. They work because of the way that the fields interact with each other and their sources. There are other non-wavelike solutions to Maxwell’s equations. Both the wave and the non-wave solutions can transport energy.

This is getting repetitive. I already told you that not all energy travels in waves.

lol why spend time answering if you’re going to get upset and rude when someone’s asking questions about something they don’t understand.
To be clear and stop assumptions ...

I understood your first statement. That’s when I asked to speak about photons specifically. We are no longer speaking about non wave energy. Just photons...

If you’re going to be rude let someone answer who isn’t going to be emotional and weird about it.

I understand if you shoot a gun it pushes the bullet out with energy from the gun powder and eventually that energy stops.

in the title I did say radio and photons ... nothing I stated referred to non wave energy. That is you assuming and answering your own questions.

if you don’t understand my question ask questions or just move on. Don’t need your bad day ruining others good days.
I came into this excited to ask questions and learn and got a mentor who’s acting like he’s above everyone bc the person trying to learn isn’t as educated as you are in the subject.

To be 100% clear and as stated three times previously: At this point and further statements will just be focused on photons or energy that travels in waves.

I truly appreciate your time but that statement about this being repetitive seems to come from you assuming I’m not speaking about non wave energy nor have I said a single statement making you think I’m talking about non wave energy. Why you are focused on this is beyond me.

I felt like my question was very simple and easy to understand. So let me ask it again..

Where do the waves come from?
where do the waves come from that carry the photons?

 

[JayJ]

Someone just messaged me directly and answered it for me. Ty for your time. It’s only a theory about where waves come from. No one has a defined proven solution to this question. Now I get why you answered a question no one asked.

 

[Dale]

We are no longer speaking about non wave energy. Just photons...

Ok, so please stop making generic statements about “the universe”. Let’s keep the discussion focused on electromagnetism. You should not get upset at someone for thinking that you are going back to talking about the universe as a whole when you explicitly say “the universe”.

that statement about this being repetitive seems to come from you assuming I’m not speaking about non wave energy nor have I said a single statement making you think I’m talking about non wave energy.

There is much more to the universe than photons. Your multiple mentions of the universe did indeed make me think that you were asking about energy in general, not specifically tied to electromagnetism. That is the source of my misunderstanding.

Where do the waves come from?
where do the waves come from that carry the photons?

Maxwell’s equations. Whether you are speaking classically or quantum mechanically, Maxwell’s equations govern the propagation of EM fields.

 

[DaveE]

If you’re going to be rude let someone answer who isn’t going to be emotional and weird about it.

Why would someone else answer they if this is what they might expect?

 

[trees and plants]

Photons as I know were considered as discrete packets and then as waves. Perhaps because waves are continuous and curved somehow they have applications too.Think of the wave differential equation or the Schrodinger differential equation were they have I think as solutions functions which are waves.

 

[vanhees71]

Schrödinger's equation doesn't apply to photons, because photons are utmost relativistic, because they are massless. In addition they have spin 1, and massless particles with spin $\geq 1$ do not have a position observable. That's why the point-particle picture is completely flawed for photons and not used anymore for decades now.

In fact, the discovery of relativistic QFT is as old as of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, because in one of the first papers by Born, Jordan, and Heisenberg (the famous "Dreimännerarbeit") Jordan already wrote a section about field quantization, which however was not immediately understood in the rapidly growing modern-quantum-theory community. It had to be reinvented by Dirac a few years later, using the general formalism of operators developed by him as the third formulation of the quantum theory (then dubbed "transformation theory").

With the advent of modern quantum theory the inconsistent ideas of the old quantum theory were immidiately made obsolete, particularly the socalled wave-particle duality. Unfortunately these outdated ideas are still alive "thanks" to many popular-science writers.

 

[Delta2]

Summary:: Why does energy travel in waves. Photons radio ect

can anyone explain to me why energy moves in waves and not a straight line?

In classical electromagnetism, energy usually travels in straight lines (the line can change angle when the wave changes medium, like for example when light changes medium from air to water). So electromagnetic energy does not travel in a wave like pattern, it is the value of amplitude of the electric and magnetic field that have the shape of a wave when we make the graph of the amplitude as a function of time or function of distance from the source.