Unified light

Can one combine all the wavelengths of light into one directional beam?

Will it create unified light? More powerful than any laser, invented or not?

White light is supposed to be a beam with all wavelengths of the light spectrum combined.

ya, what the matrix said, ordinary white light already does this doesn't it?

does white light include UV, IR etc? i recall that being the theory of 'angel light', fusing together all these types of light ...

They are all fused together already, some spectrums just aren't visible to our eyes. What you're talking about is basically a flashlight..

A prism seperates light into its seperate colors, a leaf absorbes the red light from sun light as fuel so we see its leftovers as green light.

Its called the electro magnetic spectrum, its why we get burned in the sun (UV), white light is simply the visible spectrum natural state until it comes into contact with matter.

White light is supposed to be a beam with all wavelengths of the light spectrum combined.

actually there is no "white light" as we know it. the white light we percept is only an interpretation of our brain. see, because there is no white photon to begin with.

the cells in our eyes percept light only after at least 10 photons hit them. so any single light data we percept is actually formed of at least 10 photons, which naturally have different oscilations, colours. but our cells make an error-correction in this phase by averaging the various input data to produce a single output data.

lets assume that 4 red photons, 4 blue photons and 4 green photons hit a single receptor in our eye, what we see is very very dark grey (no colour). and assume that 4 zillion photons of each colour had hit the same receptor, then we have a very bright "white", again no colour as we see it, because our brain can not seperate any single colour from the input and disregards its colour but preserves the lumminance data.

Can one combine all the wavelengths of light into one directional beam?

One photon cannot be in red frequency and blue frequency at the same time. and for one photon to change its properties i.e. colour, oscilation, it has to interact with something else in its path.

the only way to as you put it "combine" the wavelengths of light into one directional beam, you have to emit photons each with different wavelengths. An what you come up with is a light beam that contains each wavelength, which possibly will be percepted as white by the human eye. but this is not "combining" waveforms. and this method in terms of laser and damage power, is like shooting cotton, wooden, ice, plastic, and metal bullets at the same time. kind of fruitless.

if you could make the photon change its frequency as it travels, like scanning UV, visible spectrum and IR back and forth this would be close to what you say, but I dont see what would be the point of it because it would be like again a bullet that slows and accelerates through its path, or like shooting metal and cotton bullets simultaneously. but you cannot program a photon to change its properties in its path (without physical interaction) so.

Look at the Sun. That's light in every single spectrum, together.

Wit aside, xu is right on target. Energy determines what 'type' of wave it is, and you cannot have a photon at every conceivable energy level.

That is of course, a common misconception.

visible light is not all of the wavelengths or spectrum combined, it is simply the only part of the spectrum that human eyes have evolved to see.

visible light does not contain infra red or gamma rays or any other rays past visible light. yes they are there, depending on what is radiating light there will be more of a certain part of the spectrum.

what i wanted to ask is if it were possible to radiate all or a a lot of the spectrum in a confined beam, creating a more intense, powerful kind of "radiation" or unified light

Originally posted by Shadow88

...what i wanted to ask is if it were possible to radiate all or a a lot of the spectrum in a confined beam, creating a more intense, powerful kind of "radiation" or unified light

Isn't that what a laser is though??

Quote:

"...Lasers take energy at (or near) the visible light spectrum and convert it to a very narrow and intense beam in the same region..."

Yes and no.

What im talking about is more like a super-laser. instead of taking the visible light spectrum i want to take the entire spectrum and focus it.

No, a laser contains light of only one wavelength.

HEY dont blame me! i didnt pick ne1 up on the lasers thing.

Also how dyu change yur mood below your name?


[edit on 11-4-2005 by Shadow88]

Originally posted by Shadow88...Also how dyu change yur mood below your name?...

go to the "Settings" and "edit Profile" tab - job done!!

Originally posted by xu
if you could make the photon change its frequency as it travels, like scanning UV, visible spectrum and IR back and forth this would be close to what you say, but I dont see what would be the point of it because it would be like again a bullet that slows and accelerates through its path, or like shooting metal and cotton bullets simultaneously. but you cannot program a photon to change its properties in its path (without physical interaction) so.

Sure you can. Using Quantum entanglement you could change the state of the photon mid-path by altering the state of it's pair. I suppose in a matter of speaking that would still be a form of interaction but not with the photon of the beam itself. Also, there wouldn't be the "downside" of normal types of interference either because the change would happen instantly regardless of distance. (As far as we know at this time anyway. But that could change of course. They always do.)