electromagnetic radiation - What's the difference between low energy photons and high energy photons?

This is probably a dumb question. I guess what I'm trying to ask is if radio waves travel the same speed as gamma rays, how do gamma photons carry more energy than radio photons? Do they spin faster? What other energy sources could they carry if they are moving the same speed through space?

Answer

Higher energy photons have shorter wavelengths. This means they are higher frequency. We can look at the equations, like E=h𝜈, and see directly that shorter wavelengths have more energy, but I think you're going to want a more intuitive example. Let's haul out the ropes!

Battle ropes are an exercise tool. You try to set up waves that propagate down the ropes. If we visualize ourselves pumping these ropes, we see that if we want to create higher frequencies and shorter wavelengths, we have to put more energy into the system. We have to accelerate the ropes up and down at higher rates, and that requires more energy. This is true even if we keep the amplitude of the ropes the same.

Photons don't move up and down like this, but they do create oscillating electric and magnetic fields (which are often visualized in a form similar to battle ropes). Oscillating this field more rapidly involves more energy, in the same way as the higher frequency battle ropes did.

Like with the battle ropes, the light waves travel at the same speed, regardless of whether they are high frequency (high energy) or low frequency (low energy). The energy is seen in how rapidly the rope changes position (or the fields change strength).