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Old 30-04-2010, 07:54 PM
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Robh (Rob)
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Blue Mountains, Australia
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As Bojan stated, photons don't interact with each other. Photons have no rest mass but they do have energy (momentum) and can react with particles that have mass.
Consider this ...
The Sun emits radiation (photons). On Earth, energy is absorbed (and/or reflected) by various surfaces around us. The reason we can see these bodies is from re-emitted photons. However, photons are transmitted in essentially random directions and are crisscrossing each other continually from surrounding bodies. If photons were to interact or interfere with each other, we could make no visual sense of our environment. As it is, our eye processes direct and apparently un-interfered light from each object and this is confirmed by our sense of touch.
The brighter the light energy, the more strongly an object re-emits energy and the brighter everything appears. A green laser illuminates small particles in air. At right-angles to the beam at any point there are much fewer particles and the laser appears transparent i.e. invisible.

I think I read somewhere that bosons, which include photons, can occupy the same space i.e if their paths intersect, they simply pass through each other. Anyone know if this is a correct assumption?

Regards, Rob.
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