where does the light energy "go"?
968675
A question I have wondered myself.\n\nThe best I can manage is this...\n\nI know that it is a thought experiment but it is actually impossible for the waves to be perfectly recombined as you suggest.\n\nFor example, if one of them passes through a partially reflective surface with the other undergoing its phase shift and then being sent back to reflect from the surface into the path then some of this energy will be transmitted through the partial reflector while some of the original ray will reflect off it.  These will then interfere constructively (there will be an additional phase shift).\n\nI think that there will always be this kind of loop-hole, no matter how you do it.\n\nIf you only do it approximately, so that the waves are very close to converging (with a phase shift) then you get an interference pattern that is pretty much zero along the central path (ie the first order solution is destructive to zero as expected) but with constructive interference elsewhere so that energy is conserved overall.\n\nI hope this is clear!
522666
kinetic energy is: the energy of a moving object. the formula for this is 1/2*mass*velocity^2 in symbols 1/2*m*v^2\nFormul description: the work needed to accelerate a body from rest to its current velocity\n\nLight enegry: I've never heard of light energy before now if ur talking about the brightestness of the bulb than that is called luminosity a buy product of lighting sources is also heat energy, transfer of light is also done by photons you could say these carry the light energy.\n\nPotential energy: is energy which depends on mutual positions of bodies. The energy is defined as a work against a specific force such as gravity, an elastic force of a spring in a clockwork motor, electric force, etc (and is usually named after that specific force).\n\nchemical energy: Is a form of potential energy due to the breaking and forming of chemical bonds.\n\nGravitational potential energy:  the potential energy per unit mass of an object due to its position in a gravitational field.\n\nHope this helps
523878
The moon gets its light from the sun!  Way out in outer space, the sun produces light and heat.  The sun's energy is reflected off the surface of the moon and bounced back to the Earth.  What we see is the reflection of the sun's light on the moon.
875956
The energy of a photon is proportional to its frequency, the constant of proportionality being called Planck's constant who discovered this relation.\n\nE = h * Frequency\n\nIf you know the frequency (or wavelength) of the light you can calculate the corresponding energy.\n\nWhen an electron jumps from an excited state back to its ground state it will emit energy.  If the frequency is in the right range we will see that as light.
965176
http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/GBSSCI/PHYS/CLASS/light/u12l1e.html
987807
when light is thrown upon the atoms..it provides energy..which is taken up by the electrons and they escpae from the surface of the metal..called as photons.
285175
light is energy and, thus, has no mass.
400598
All of the light "floating" in the air is composed of photons which are eventually absorbed by the atoms in the room and converted into heat.  This heat eventually dissapates through the walls and radiates outside the room.  Of course, there is an imperceptable delay between when the last photon leaves the light and is absorbed by the walls, but this happens at the speed of light and can't be seen by you or me.
643023
excellet question. This got much deeper meaning then most people understand.\n\nIts energy, you see photons.  You touch and feel photon/photon exchanges.\n\nSince E=MCC, All matter are energy also, Photons.\n\nPhotons are travel at excatly the speed of light, and that makes them see the universe as a zero volume dot.\nIt takes no time at all to a photon to go from one end to the other end of the universe.\n\nThe next great question will be, where did all this energy came from.
1159681
The sun converts millions of tons of matter into energy every second via fussion processes; this energy is radiated out in every direction in the form of photons and a slew of other particles. \n\nWhen these photons reach earth, we call it "incident light". Light is easily reflected, refracted, and absorbed by many materials on earth, and at every level of interaction, energy is lost to heat.\n\nEdit - what's with all this "pan heating an egg" stuff? What does that even mean?
43650
Light travels through space as photons (tiny mass-less packets of energy).  Photons can interact only with the electrons surrounding an atom or molecule by kicking them to higher energy levels in higher orbits or shells.  If there is no matter with electrons (a perfect vacuum) the photons travel on unimpeded at the speed of light.  Space is almost a perfect vacuum and starlight (photons) can travel for thousands of light years without interacting with electrons to reach your eye.
604389
Light doesn't have a rest mass, that is an inherent mass that it would have it it were at rest relative to you, but it does have a mass equivalence due to its energy. \n\nE=MC^2 gives the relationship between mass and energy, so you can rearrange this to M=E/C^2 to find the mass equivalence of a given amount of light.  The energy of light can be calculated a number of ways, and then this number can be plugged into the mass-energy equation.  Needless to say, it takes a whole lot of light to add up to a significant amount of mass.\n\nEdit:  Sorry, Mathematician, you're incorrect.  Light does have mass and it can be calculated using the mass energy equivalence.  Your argument is basically circular since you're using the definition of light not having a *rest*\n mass to say that it has no momentum, and the statement that it has no momentum to claim that it therefore has no mass.  You're right in that it has no rest mass, but that's not the only kind of mass there is.  If you've ever seen a radiometer work you've seen direct evidence of the momentum of light.
452909
Believe it or not, we already have it and use it everyday. I want to answer this in detail, but I cant disclose the true nature of how light travels until I publish.\nI will say that light that is propagated within a closed system can and does move at superluminal speeds relative to a location outside the closed system.\n\nI know-Everybody has a theory, but I can also explain why light bends at every instance without once referring to the fabric of space/time.\n\nWhat if Einstein was WRONG...errr...ok... (just so I dont offend anyone) not completely correct? What if light actually didnt travel by propelling itself into the electromagnetic field created by....itself? What if there was no such thing as a pure vacuum with zero atomic content? (by the way, there is no such vacuum.)\nResearch it, its true, there are always atoms left over to fill the space left by the vacated ones.\nDon't you find that at least a little interesting?  No such thing as a pure vacuum?
502955
This is one of the questions that spurred the early development of quantum mechanics.  \n\nAccording to classical mechanics and Maxwell's electromagnetics, electrons give off light as they rotate in their orbits.  However, in doing so, they would lose energy (the energy keeping them in orbit), and, as you said, would collapse inward.  Another implication of this would be that light would have continuous values of energy as it rotated around and inward.  \n\nPlanck discovered that the energy of light could only have discrete, or integer, values, though he was confounded as to why.  Einstein figured out that light was a particle, a photon, with energy n.  \n\nSorry to drag the answer out, but I find the story behind the story just as interesting and also it was this realization that resulted in the discovery that electrons give off light as they jumped from (discrete) orbit to (discrete) orbit.  Though the means of jumping from orbit to orbit were unknown, it became clear, that by travelling in this fashion, electrons would not lose energy as they rotated, and their orbit would be preserved, maintained by centripital force much like a bucket swung around on a string.\n\nSo, long story short, as mentioned in a previous answer, just as the earth travels around the sun and is preserved in its orbit by its own inertia (which would cause it to fly outward away from the sun) countered by gravity from the sun (pulling it inward), electrons' inertia is countered by the magnetic force of the protons pulling inward.  The key, however, is that the electrons do not lose energy and collapse as they give off light.
520492
Who says that light cools in space?\n\nIt would not make any sense that it would.\nIn the vacuum of space, the only way for the light to "cool" (give off heat energy) would be through radiation.  The light would have to radiate energy in the form of a photon of light, in the process loosing some of the original photon's energy.  When the original photon looses energy, the wavelength and frequency of the light will change.  So if this were true, as we look off into space at very far distances, all we should see is very low energy light, which is not true....we can still see the entire spectrum.
416072
It depends on the wavelength of the light and its energy.
847126
the light energy is obvious-sun\n\nbut others like thermal -carbon compunds formed over millions of years using light, gravity etc may be even big bang energy(just a blind guess)\n\nwind energy-i guess its temperature diff created by sun\n\nnuclear energy-probably formed during formation of universe & soler system