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Old 09-05-2007, 11:08 AM
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robagar
lost in Calabi-Yau space

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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Cairns
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Come to think of it, the electron and positrons will go on to hit each other and annihilate, producing two more photons, each with half the energy of the original one. So the photon does literally split in two, in an indirect kind of way.

(Conservation of energy and momentum prevents them from combining back into one photon. In the first interaction where one photon becomes two particles, the nucleus takes the left over momentum.)
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