What happens to photons when they hit your eye?

Human eyes are specifically designed to detect light. This happens when a photon enters the eye and is absorbed by one of the rod or cone cells that cover the retina on the inner back surface of the eye. When the photons strike your retina, your cone and rod cells detect this pattern and send it to your brain.

Is the visible light we see a wave or particle?

Light is neither a particle nor a wave. Instead it is a quantum field. As a general rule while light is travelling it appears as a wave, but when the light quantum field is exchanging energy with anything it does so in quanta that appear as particles i.e. photons.

Are photons really particles?

The identification of the photon as a particle seems to rest upon its delivery of energy and momentum to a point in space and time. nevertheless call a photon a particle because, just like massive particles, it obeys the laws of conservation of energy and momentum in collisions, with an electron say (Compton effect).”

How is a photon like a wave?

Like a wave, a photon experiences diffraction (bending around corners), interference (fringed patterns), refraction (bending when entering a material), reflection, dispersion (wave-shape spreading), coherence (lining up of phases), and has a frequency.

What happens to a photon when it hits the eye?

Answer Wiki. When a photon hits your eye, it’s a particle. When it hits your eye, it interacts with a particular electron in the retina of your eye. It energizes the electron with a lump of energy (a quantum), and this creates an electrical signal in your brain, contributing to a visual image.

What happens when a photon hits an electron?

When the photon hits one tiny spot, the electron, and when it activates the electron with a lump of energy, these are particle behaviors. Particles are highly localized and deliver energy in lumps. Waves are spread out. Light also has wave properties.

Is a photon a particle or a wave?

The wave-like and particle-like traits of a photon trade off according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. This means that the more you force a photon to act like a particle, for instance by confining it in a small box thereby lowering the uncertainty in its position, the less it acts like a wave.

How does a photon leave a mark on a plate?

This means that a single photon goes through both slits at the same time, interferes with itself in a wave-like way upon emerging from the slits, and then makes a single mark on the plate in a particle-like way. If this sounds nonsensical to you, it is because you are still picturing the photon as just a particle or a wave.