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Can light interact with light in empty space?


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Nor really, it's only strange if you think particles as billiard balls. However as shown light can interfere with itself by the dynamics of the wave equations in that link. Light does interact with light in terms of interference. Interference is an interaction.

Edited by Mordred
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1 hour ago, studiot said:

 

Who says it can't ?

How do you think colour projectors work?

Mix red light and green light, what colour light do you get and is that not an interaction?

You only get that effect because of the eye. Color perception is not an inherent property of light

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11 hours ago, Strange said:

I wouldn't say so. The light doesn't interact. It just mixes.

 

 

10 hours ago, swansont said:

You only get that effect because of the eye. Color perception is not an inherent property of light

"Mix"

"Effect"

 

The OP says interact, not interfere.

How is an effect not an interaction?

If you want interference, what about beat frequencies between nearby radio stations?

 

17 hours ago, avicenna said:

Say if I have a laser beam. If I shine another laser beam to intersect the first beam,
will this first beam be affected?

The OP asks about light, then laser beams.

Perhaps the first need is to explain the diference between light in general and laser beams in particular.

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20 minutes ago, studiot said:

How is an effect not an interaction?

The effect is in the eye and brain. Not between the photons of light.

If this is going to turn into another one of your arguments where you insist that a bizarre definition of a word is the only correct one, maybe you should start a new thread.

Quote

The OP says interact, not interfere.

So you think that colour perception in the human visual system (which can happen without the different coloured light being present at the same time) counts as interaction between light beams, but interference between those beams doesn't?

20 minutes ago, studiot said:

Perhaps the first need is to explain the diference between light in general and laser beams in particular.

Well do that then. 

22 minutes ago, studiot said:

The OP says interact, not interfere.

The OP says, "will this first beam be affected?"

Not, "will the photoreceptors of the human eye be affected differently?"

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1 hour ago, Strange said:

So you think that colour perception in the human visual system (which can happen without the different coloured light being present at the same time) counts as interaction between light beams, but interference between those beams doesn't?

Since you ask this as a question.

No.

If you insist on only discussing interference between two lasers as an interaction then read this

https://www.nature.com/articles/198255a0

Edited by studiot
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3 hours ago, studiot said:

The OP says interact, not interfere.

How is an effect not an interaction?

If you want interference, what about beat frequencies between nearby radio stations?

The title says in empty space (i.e. a vacuum). The effect involving the eye, and brain, is not in a vacuum.

(If you aren’t in a vacuum you can do four-wave mixing in a nonlinear crystal, and get photons at the sum or difference frequency.)

 

 

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