- #1
deepthishan
- 38
- 0
Do waves (all types of waves) cause heat (however minimal) when intercepted?
Simon Bridge said:@wdliwei: do you really think that a phonon (a collective vibrational mode) in a condensed-matter lattice exchanges energy like a photon in a vacuum? Don't you think the presence of all those other millions of particles may make a difference? Anyway - how can a single particle have heat - doesn't it just have kinetic energy? Isn't heat the randomized kinetic energy of many particles?
Can you provide an example of a photon scattering from a free electron which shows energy loss due to heat?
There are other kinds of waves too - like the probability waves of quantum wave-mechanics.
Eventually. Some electrons can travel a long way before their energy can be dissipated ... maybe from one end of the lab to the other, maybe across stars. There are scales where "heat" is not a part of a useful model for what happens.In reality, free electrons that are scattering photons bump into other free electrons as they oscillate and transfer their energy to heat in the process.
Waves are disturbances that travel through a medium, such as air or water, and carry energy from one place to another.
Waves can cause heat through a process called absorption, where the energy of the wave is transferred to the particles in the medium, causing them to vibrate and generate heat.
No, not all waves cause heat. Only certain types of waves, such as electromagnetic waves and sound waves, can cause heat through absorption.
The amount of heat produced by a wave depends on various factors, including the intensity and frequency of the wave, the properties of the medium it is traveling through, and the duration of exposure to the wave.
Yes, waves can be used to generate heat intentionally in various applications, such as in microwave ovens and industrial heating processes that use electromagnetic waves to heat materials.