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Treczoks t1_j8h82nx wrote

This makes me wonder. So if photons travel through a non-vaccum medium by being absorbed and re-emitted, how the heck does the information travel through that medium? Who tells the emitting atom to generate photons of exactly this frequency and polarisation in exactly that direction? How does it actually generate that frequency, e.g. the 432.1THz of a ruby laser when passing through a pane of glas? If one adds unspecific energy to the same piece of glass, i.e. melts it, it glows in yellow or white. Is there any way to make that glass emitting photons of a certain frequency except shining the right frequency into it?

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MasterPatricko t1_j8j943n wrote

As far as I understand you, you're asking two different questions.

> So if photons travel through a non-vaccum medium by being absorbed and re-emitted, how the heck does the information travel through that medium? Who tells the emitting atom to generate photons of exactly this frequency and polarisation in exactly that direction? How does it actually generate that frequency, e.g. the 432.1THz of a ruby laser when passing through a pane of glas?

This is the wrong type of "absorbed and re-emitted". Photons are not completely absorbed and then re-emitted by a single atom, like you get when you cause fluorescence or something. See my longer explanation. So while you are correct to worry about random direction or energy in the case of classical particle absorption and re-emission, that's not what's happening.

> If one adds unspecific energy to the same piece of glass, i.e. melts it, it glows in yellow or white. Is there any way to make that glass emitting photons of a certain frequency except shining the right frequency into it?

If you had just a tiny amount, like a few atoms, of glass, you would pretty much only see photon emissions at their characteristic energy levels (associated with electron shells, vibrational modes, etc). But as you add more and more atoms, the modes get washed out and photons get absorbed and re-emitted within the glass itself many times before finally emerging (here I am talking about complete absorption and re-emission) such that the final spectrum always looks like black-body radiation. That's why objects of a certain temperature end up looking like certain colors.

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Treczoks t1_j8jvsaf wrote

> This is the wrong type of "absorbed and re-emitted". Photons are not completely absorbed and then re-emitted by a single atom, like you get when you cause fluorescence or something. See my longer explanation. So while you are correct to worry about random direction or energy in the case of classical particle absorption and re-emission, that's not what's happening.

That was exactly what I was wondering about. Thank you for the long explanation. So, basically, if a laser goes into the glass pane here it comes out there because this "there" is the most quantum-probably place, and the same with other parameters. Interesting approach, and it actually makes sense.

It is amazing to see the path that physics traverses through mathematics on the different layers. Basic algebra for laws of leverage, calculus when it comes to the relativistic stuff, and probability and information theory down below when things go quantum.

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