5 ms·
At the risk of sounding like an idiot, why doesn't this happen when you point two flashlights at each other? Or point a flashlight at the sun? Or when light fro
by turdnagel 5y ago
At the risk of sounding like an idiot, why doesn't this happen when you point two flashlights at each other? Or point a flashlight at the sun? Or when light from one star reaches another? Etc etc.
- platz 5y agodoes your flashlight emit gamma rays
- choeger 5y agoIt's funny that you ask, but I have this flashlight that I found in my weird neighbor's garage/machine shop...
- stronglikedan 5y agoIs your weird neighbor's surname, Smith, by any chance?
- turdnagel 5y agoI also mentioned stars, but thanks.
- Y_Y 5y agoYou need to have enough energy (aka. mass, physicist will use the two interchangably) to pay for whatever particle you want. An electron weighs about 10^-30 kg, or about half a megaelectronvolt, but because of cosmic balance you'll want to make a positron at the same time. So your total bill will be about 1 MeV. Visible light photons have about 1 eV of energy, if you want a photon with an MeV then you're past even hard x-rays and into gamma rays. This process is the same as matter-antimatter annihilation, except backwards. A proper explanation would take several years. By the way, you can use more than one photon at a time, but to my knowledge nobody has managed to fuse the million flashlight photons you'd need to do pair-production.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]