Does radiation have fluid dynamics?

I've searched a little, but did not find a satisfying answer.

Is radiation always straight line?

Or is it subject to fluid dynamics ( resistance influenced flow) ?

Any idears?

a reply to: EartOccupant

For fluid dynamics you need a fluid, which radiation is not.

a reply to: moebius

I'm sorry.

I did not intended it to be taken literally. More like the concept.
Besides.. gasses responds to "fluid dynamics" in their own gassius environment..

Hence my question, is radiation also in it's own "fluid" ?

Photons can be cooled and trapped. Light can move in both directions at many frequencies in a glass fiber at the same time without interaction. X rays can be bent and focused by diffraction. Charged particle beams can be deflected and focused. Charged particles can be crowded in a beam and will repel eachother. Some of these might be argued as acting as a “fluid”. Gas at pressures greater than about1000 micron of pressure will act kineticly and be swept along by gas and containment interaction. Below 1000 microns the gas will move in a Brownian random motion

Depends on the type of radiation. For instance gamma radiation is composed of photons, and behave just like photons do: they radiate. Ionizing radiation (and I'm oversimplifying this greatly) is composed of massive particles. Alpha particles are essentially helium nuclei which, under the right circumstances, could exhibit fluid-like properties like laminar flow, turbulence, etc... Beta particles are high-energy electrons. The field of study you probably want to look into is plasma physics, which deals extensively with ionized particles. Many principles in plasma physics rely on the same equations that fluid dynamics does. Good luck and enjoy!

z

So, am I to understand that the term "radiation" is a too wide brush to answer my question?

a reply to: EartOccupant

Yes. Radiation describes things that radiate, and that implies a radial direction from a source.

a reply to: Zelun

Yes. Radiation describes things that radiate, and that implies a radial direction from a source.

This confuses me.

Does it radiate in a straight line?
Or can that line be influenced ( no matter what resolution) ?

a reply to: EartOccupant

Radiation is unstable molecules and energetic particles.
It's pre-fluid, if that makes any sense.

No, it is not beholden to fluid dynamics.

a reply to: EartOccupant

So on the infinitesimal scale, a unit of radiation, be it a photon or a massive particle, begins in a straight line, well more specifically a ray. The nature of the unit, and the medium through which it propagates, determines its path thereafter.

On the scale of humans, most radiation goes in a straight "line" because of the relatively high energies involved. On stellar or cosmic scales, I imagine that picture changes significantly.

a reply to: watchitburn

Ok, so next level..

I've heard of lead being able to stop (slow down?) radiation.
So if that is a full stop ... as it is not fluid dynamics, in what does it convert? Heat ?
If it is not a full stop.. why? The lead letting it true? In a straight line? Can it get diverted ?

Can it be bend? Reflected?

a reply to: Zelun

That makes sense!

So it's a matter of definition, determent by scale , to separate it from waves?

originally posted by: EartOccupant
a reply to: watchitburn

Ok, so next level..

I've heard of lead being able to stop (slow down?) radiation.
So if that is a full stop ... as it is not fluid dynamics, in what does it convert? Heat ?
If it is not a full stop.. why? The lead letting it true? In a straight line? Can it get diverted ?

Can it be bend? Reflected?

Lead scatters radiation because lead the electrons are highly stable and its very dense.When radiation attempts to pass through lead, its electrons absorb and scatter the energy. Though beta radiation makes lead lethal it creates bremsstrahlung radiation. This is where are particle is slowed down and do to the conservation of energy the momentum is turned into radiation. So lead isnt effective against all types of radiation.

a reply to: EartOccupant

I can see we have a bit of groundwork to lay. First, let me ask you what is your understanding between a particle and a wave?

Also let's define a 'fluid' being: "a substance that has no fixed shape and yields easily to external pressure; a gas or (especially) a liquid."

So from this definition, let's reframe your original question. In order for fluid dynamics to apply to radiation, it must display the qualities of a fluid.

So does radiation have a fixed shape? No. It is a collection of charged massive particles or photons emanating from a source.

Does radiation yield easily to external pressure? Yes! For instance ionized particles can be confined in externally applied magnetic fields, or even partial vacuum tubes as in the case of fluorescent light bulbs. Electromagnetic radiation, on the other hand, requires more difficult trickery in order to confine it to a particular volume, but it can and has been done, for instance photons have been confined to a region of supercooled Rubidium particles, just as an example.

Is radiation a gas or a liquid. Well, no. Ionized particles present as a plasma, and EM radiation is light.

originally posted by: Zelun
a reply to: EartOccupant

I can see we have a bit of groundwork to lay. First, let me ask you what is your understanding between a particle and a wave?

That is not easy.. but i guess the main thing for me would be that a particle is a thing of "matter" and a wave a thing of "influence"

Also let's define a 'fluid' being: "a substance that has no fixed shape and yields easily to external pressure; a gas or (especially) a liquid."

So from this definition, let's reframe your original question. In order for fluid dynamics to apply to radiation, it must display the qualities of a fluid.

So does radiation have a fixed shape? No. It is a collection of charged massive particles or photons emanating from a source.

Does radiation yield easily to external pressure? Yes! For instance ionized particles can be confined in externally applied magnetic fields, or even partial vacuum tubes as in the case of fluorescent light bulbs. Electromagnetic radiation, on the other hand, requires more difficult trickery in order to confine it to a particular volume, but it can and has been done, for instance photons have been confined to a region of supercooled Rubidium particles, just as an example.

Is radiation a gas or a liquid. Well, no. Ionized particles present as a plasma, and EM radiation is light.

Just trying. to get my head around it.

I would say yes, in what I think you are looking for.
Everyone has heard of a radiation cloud. So if a nuke plant had a melt down, and the wind was 50 mph out of the north, you would not want to evacuate south because the “radiation cloud” would be following the wind, which would make it fluid.

a reply to: TexasTruth

That is a good one.

I guess the counter would be that the "Arial dust" particles are contaminated at the side and the wind diraction will ruin your life.

originally posted by: EartOccupant
That is not easy.. but i guess the main thing for me would be that a particle is a thing of "matter" and a wave a thing of "influence"

I think this is a great starting point! My only correction would be instead of "influence" I would use the term "potential." See, as it turns out, matter seems to operate by the same rules that light does, as far as potentiality. It's like an orthographic plinko board, if your remember that game from The Price is Right. The destination of a single plinko puck is purely random, but for the entire population, you get a general distribution, just like shining a flashlight on a photon detector. So we know that even massive bodies operate according to similar principles as to non-massive photons. At least, that's a fair hypothesis. And this bears out.

Wave physics, in one aspect, describe potentiality, as in what are the chances we see a particle show up here. That goes for both massive and non-massive(such as photons.) Schrodinger's wave equation describes a generalization of assessing quantum phenomena not precisely, but rather probabilistic, and this makes sense. As groundbreaking it would be to be able to predict the motion of every discrete particle, to include the massless, it would require a computer basically the size of the universe itself to do so with any certainty. This is why Feynman was purported to say famously "shut up and calculate." He's saying "an exact answer is unreasonable, best we can do is approximate very precisely."

To be fair, this was also with respect to whether the Copenhagen interpretation of collapsing wave potential upon observation was a viable interpretation, which I don't personally believe to be so. I don't believe there is any metaphysical connection between observation and measurement. I think experiments that supposedly demonstrate fundamental observational influence are fundamentally flawed. See the double-slit experiment as a primer about what I'm talking about here. I think a truly passive detection experiment would clear this whole thing up.

Then there's the wholly confusing abuse of notation of describing the propagation of energy(light) through space as a self-sustaining oscillation between E and B fields, which Maxwell intuited. He's wasn't wrong. That's exactly how light works, as an oscillation between two perpendicular potential fields, and those perpendicular fields have a common third axis, being the axis of propagation, which is where the directional nature of light comes from, and time determines it's direction.

I know i'm describing this all pretty upside down and sideways, I'm trying to lay out some stuff you can come back and look over as our conversation progresses. I hope you remain interested.

I'll leave you on one last thought: Einstein famously concluded that E=mc^2. A true statement, derived from notions regarding the permeability and permitivity of free space. It all holds up so far, based upon experimental observation. Einstein was describing space itself as a fabric which has a certain elasticity, a capacity to absorb and transmit energy, and that as a consequence matter, and thus mass, was fundamentally tied to this universal truth. So when you ask whether radiation has fluid-like properties, I think you're asking the same questions Einstein was asking himself while working as a patent clerk. Never stop.

originally posted by: TexasTruth
I would say yes, in what I think you are looking for.
Everyone has heard of a radiation cloud. So if a nuke plant had a melt down, and the wind was 50 mph out of the north, you would not want to evacuate south because the “radiation cloud” would be following the wind, which would make it fluid.

What you described is fluid dynamics of a contaminated atmosphere, not any kind of radiation fluid.

If the atmosphere had smog or dust or any other contaminants along for the ride it's the atmosphere that's got fluid properties, not the contaminants. To put it another way, without the atmosphere the non-EM radiation particles would just follow a trajectory based on their momentum and gravity, and electromagnetic radiation would just go in more or less a straight line, so no particular fluid properties of either type of radiation.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Well now we are getting deep, because air would do the exact same thing without an influence of heat, cold, rotation of the planet, or pull of the moon, or whatever causes it. Same with anything for that matter. Heat radiates out of an object equally until acted upon by an outside influence, which could be just a cooler atmosphere.
Deep shower thoughts.....