What Happens to Light when Heated - Baking Samosas

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SUMMARY

This discussion centers on the behavior of photons in relation to heat, particularly in the context of baking samosas. It establishes that photons do not possess mass and therefore cannot be heated in the traditional sense. Instead, photons are packets of energy, and their energy is proportional to their frequency. The conversation also touches on concepts such as Planck's constant and black body radiation, emphasizing that heat energy is carried by photons across various frequencies.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of basic physics concepts, including energy and mass.
  • Familiarity with Planck's constant and its implications in quantum mechanics.
  • Knowledge of black body radiation and its significance in thermodynamics.
  • Basic comprehension of the electromagnetic spectrum, particularly the visible light range.
NEXT STEPS
  • Research the implications of Planck's constant in quantum physics.
  • Explore the principles of black body radiation and its applications in real-world scenarios.
  • Study the electromagnetic spectrum to understand the properties of different types of photons.
  • Investigate the relationship between frequency and energy in photons, including the formula E=hf.
USEFUL FOR

Students of physics, educators, and anyone interested in the fundamental properties of light and heat, particularly in the context of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

amt
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So, I was baking this Indian delicacy I got at the local Indian grocery store commonly known as 'samosas'. I switched the light inside the oven to observe the progress and then suddenly this thought occurred to me. What happens to light when it gets heated up?

What does photons do under extremem heat?
What happens to the photons when they leave the Sun and travel further and further away?

As for the samosas they came out great! :-p
 
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Unless I am mistaken, photons don't really "heat up". Only atoms have temperatures so you can't heat up photons.
 
Photons are heat(edit: I may get hit for being too simplistic there...), so the question is redundant. Anyway, the photons from the light in the oven are much, much hotter (higher energy) than the temperature of the oven itself.
 
Last edited:
Guess I am mistaken!
 
Thermal energy (heat) is kinetic energy from disorderly motions and vibrations of little particles. It has to be mass that is doing the shaking. Photons, the light particles, have no mass, so we can't call them hot or not.
 
How about Planks constant and black body radiation? Don't they mean heat from light that is proportional to the frequency?


This light thing looks stranger and stranger the more and more I learn about it. I was thinking about the ramifications of photons being effected by heat if that was true. Life would not be possible in that case. Seems like it was deliberately designed for us...strange... :rolleyes:
 
Ant, do you realize that photons (of a certain frequency) ARE a form of heat? I'm not certain whether you'd picked that up from russ's post.
 
Photons are basically packets of energy. The energy is of course, proportional to the frequency of the photon. Heat is a form of energy. Heat energy that is radiated - either from the sun, or some other ideal black-body, or even a non-ideal radiator like the one in your oven - is carried by photons (of all frequencies - some frequencies more than others). So, it is meaningless to talk of photons getting heated up. That's like asking if electrons can get charged by static. (electrons carry charge; photons carry heat).

'Light' is just a specific name assigned to photons of a particular frequency/wavelength range - the range that is "visible" to the human eye.
 

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