Hi,

 

How do photons and the amount of energy they carry relate to the wavelength and amplitude of light waves? For example, if you compare light with a wavelength of 400nm and one with 800 nm, what can be said about the photons? Do the photons of the 800 nm light wave carry twice the energy or are there just twice as many photons (i.e. is the amount of energy one photon carries constant or variable)? Or does the wavelength not determine anything about the amount of energy a photon carries or how many photons there are? What about amplitude?

E = hf

 

E = energy of a photon

h = planks constant

f = frequency of the wave

 

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Photon.html

And then

 

[math]c = f \lambda[/math]

 

c = speed of light

f = frequency

[math]\lambda[/math] (lambda) = wavelength

 

to switch between f and [math]\lambda[/math]

Hi' date='

 

How do photons and the amount of energy they carry relate to the wavelength and amplitude of light waves? For example, if you compare light with a wavelength of 400nm and one with 800 nm, what can be said about the photons? Do the photons of the 800 nm light wave carry twice the energy or are there just twice as many photons (i.e. is the amount of energy one photon carries constant or variable)? Or does the wavelength not determine anything about the amount of energy a photon carries or how many photons there are? What about amplitude?[/quote']

 

 

Energy per photon relates to wavelength [math]E = hc/\lambda [/math]

 

Amplitude relates to number of photons. For a stream of photons at 400 nm and 800 nm, if there is the same intensity (energy/area) then there are twice as many 800nm photons.