- #1
dlevanchuk
- 29
- 0
short wavelengths carry no energy?
Hey guys (and girls),
I'm reading the book "The Black hole war", by Leonard Susskind and on the page 208 it has written something that kind of surprised me. I ll just quote an entire paragraph:
"The hypothesis that light is composed of indivisible photos whose energy is proportional to their frequency solved the problem (refering to ultraviolet catastrophe). Applying Boltzmann's statistical mechanics to these photons, Eisntein found that the very short wavelengths (high frequency) have less than a single photon. Less that one means none. So the very short wavelengths carry no energy, and the ultraviolet catastropphe ceased to exist."
The part where the author said that high frequency em waves carry no energy gives me a trouble to understand. Was the author referring to the wavelength equal to gamma rays (which I though have extremely high energy) or was the reference made to the wavelengths beyond gamma rays??
Hey guys (and girls),
I'm reading the book "The Black hole war", by Leonard Susskind and on the page 208 it has written something that kind of surprised me. I ll just quote an entire paragraph:
"The hypothesis that light is composed of indivisible photos whose energy is proportional to their frequency solved the problem (refering to ultraviolet catastrophe). Applying Boltzmann's statistical mechanics to these photons, Eisntein found that the very short wavelengths (high frequency) have less than a single photon. Less that one means none. So the very short wavelengths carry no energy, and the ultraviolet catastropphe ceased to exist."
The part where the author said that high frequency em waves carry no energy gives me a trouble to understand. Was the author referring to the wavelength equal to gamma rays (which I though have extremely high energy) or was the reference made to the wavelengths beyond gamma rays??