What is the width of a photon?

Tigershark79

As far as I can tell, since a photon doesn't have volume, it doesn't have width either. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/27337-does-a-photon-have-physical-volume-or-geometrical-size/ Feb 20 13, 6:16 AM

mehaul

Photons are the expression of the transmission of electromagnetic waves. They represent a vehicle that allows for the solution to whether light is a wave or a particle (from Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity). If you are looking for a physical value to be applied to a photon's width, it may be said that the value depends on the frequency of the photon's electromagnetic radiation. In that case the wavelength would be synonymous (but only representative, not actual) to a width. Wavelength is calculated using the inverse of the frequency, so the higher the frequency, the smaller the width. Since higher frequency photons are considered to be more "energetic" than their lower frequency twins, applying Einstein's equation of General Relativity, it can be manipulated to show that a higher frequency photon would have more relative mass than the lower version, but that mass is a calculation and not a reality, therefore in that regard it has no width. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Feb 20 13, 12:02 PM