Monday, August 7, 2017

image processing - Why are light rays able to cross each other?


See the image first: See the image


Why are light rays able to cross each other? Air isn't able to.




Answer



Note: this answer was in response to the original question:


My question is that Why the light rays able to cross each other weather water waves and air could not cross each other


Other waves pass through each other just as with light. This is easy to test. Place four people at the corner of a large room. Have two of them, at adjacent corners talk to the person at a diagonal corner. Use a cone such as a cheerleader might use to somewhat channel the sound. You may be a bit distracted by the other voice but you will clearly hear the voice from the opposite corner.


Here's a standard demo in a high school science class. Have two students hold each end of a moderately stretched slinky resting on a smooth floor. Have each student give the slinky a sharp snap to their right. Since the students are facing each other, the pulses will be opposite one another as they travel toward opposite ends. When the two pulses meet in the middle the slinky will appear relatively straight but only for an instant. The two pulses will continue to travel past one another as if they never had met.


Waves of the same kind traveling through one another maintain their original identity after the encounter. This is a basic property of waves, you can read about it in any introductory Physics text.


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