Usaf Moji said:What would happen if a photon moving in one direction were to meet another photon moving in a perpendicular direction? Would they behave like billiard balls and bounce off each other, would they just pass through each other, would they combine together somehow and move in some new direction, or something else?
No, photons do not have mass. They are considered to be massless particles because they do not have a rest mass. They only have energy and momentum.
Photons can interact with each other through the electromagnetic force. This can result in a phenomenon known as scattering, where photons change direction or energy after interacting with another photon.
No, photons do not collide with each other in the traditional sense. They can interact and change direction through scattering, but they do not have a physical collision like other particles with mass.
Yes, photons can cancel each other out through a process called destructive interference. When two photons of equal wavelength and amplitude are in phase, their electromagnetic waves can cancel each other out, resulting in no light being detected.
Yes, photons can bounce off of each other in a vacuum through the process of elastic scattering. This typically occurs at very high energies, such as in particle accelerators, where the photons have enough energy to interact with each other.