ive been trying to figure out why some photons possess more energy than others, and my research keeps coming back to “the frequency is directly proportional to the energy present within the photon” however i am struggling to find any explanations as to why this is. i suppose that this links to my secondary question of what type of energy do photons even posess, because clearly there is energy that is able to have tangible impacts on the world, but i dont really understand what form it takes.
In: Physics
Kind of a tough one, but i think you may be looking for a intuitive connection where there sort of isn’t one. A photon stores energy as frequency because *thats what a photon is*! I realize this is basically a non-answer but I’m not sure how else to describe it.
If you wan’t to know *why* some photons have more energy than others, its because photons are created when charged particles transition between energy states, the energy of the photon is equal to the difference of energy between the states, so some photons *must* have higher energy than others. The way that photons “have energy” is in their frequency, thats just how that energy manifests.
Regular old objects with mass can have kinetic energy, but kinetic energy with massless particles doesn’t really make any sense, so they have this instead.
If it makes it *feel* any better, *massive* particles (literally – as in particles that have mass) also have frequencies, we call these [DeBroglie waves](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_wave).
Idk if any of this actually helps you. I’m no expert, but i can try again if you have follow up Qs.
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