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Light exerts physical pressure on objects in its path, a phenomenon which can be deduced by Maxwell's equations, but can be more easily explained by the particle nature of light: photons strike and transfer their momentum. Light pressure is equal to the power of the light beam divided by c, the speed of light.
The process inverse to particle annihilation can be called matter creation; more precisely, we are considering here the process obtained under time reversal of the annihilation process. This process is also known as pair production , and can be described as the conversion of light particles (i.e., photons) into one or more massive particles .
The observation that matter occupies space goes back to antiquity. However, an explanation for why matter occupies space is recent, and is argued to be a result of the phenomenon described in the Pauli exclusion principle, [33] [34] which applies to fermions. Two particular examples where the exclusion principle clearly relates matter to the ...
Light of different frequencies may travel through matter at different speeds; this is called dispersion (not to be confused with scattering). In some cases, it can result in extremely slow speeds of light in matter.
In this description, the propagation of light is transportation of matter. However by the turn of the century, beginning with Thomas Young 's double-slit experiment in 1801, more evidence in the form of novel experiments on diffraction , interference , and polarization showcased issues with the theory.
Optically shaped matter waves Optical manipulation of matter plays a critical role in matter wave optics: "Light waves can act as refractive, reflective, and absorptive structures for matter waves, just as glass interacts with light waves." [72] Laser light momentum transfer can cool matter particles and alter the internal excitation state of ...
Dark matter is called ‘dark’ because it’s invisible to us and does not measurably interact with anything other than gravity. It could be interspersed between the atoms that make up the Earth ...
1. First postulate (principle of relativity) The laws of physics take the same form in all inertial frames of reference.. 2. Second postulate (invariance of c) . As measured in any inertial frame of reference, light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c that is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.