Eli5: Are photons “dangerous”, as in are they cutting through things, based on the fact that some lasers can damage solid materials?
In: Technology
Photons *can* be dangerous. But they can also be completely safe.
Just like how water *can* be dangerous but I think we all agree that being afraid of consuming any water would be utterly insane.
There’s two ways photons can be dangerous. In a pretty major simplification, it’s when each individual photon has a ton of energy or where there’s a huge number of photons.
For the first thing you have probably heard of UV light, that’s why it’s dangerous. Each individual photon can do damage. This is also the case for x-rays, and gamma rays. But *not* the case for other types of light. Like visible light, infrared, microwaves, radio waves, etc.
The 2nd thing is mostly how lasers work (at least the visible light ones), you just blast a ton of photons at something. And each time a photon hits the object the object heats up just a tiny bit but is otherwise fine. Under normal conditions this is completely harmless. But when that’s unrelenting the object starts heating up more and more and doesn’t have a chance to cool down.
Of course, you can combine both of these together, and they you have something really dangerous.
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