When a radio signal is fired off into space at what point does it act as individual photons?

Question

Suppose I fire off a radio signal, in all directions, into space. Conventionally we would imagine it as a continuous wavefront propagating through space. But when does it "break-up" into individual photons?

Suppose again that I was trying to contact a specific alien planet far away. If my radio signal breaks into individual photons then the angular coverage provided by the individual photons might not cover the planet I am attempting to contact! In which case the Aliens never hear my message of peace &or friendship & or demands for Oil drilling rights!

Answer 1

Electro-magnetic waves of which radio wave is one part in the spectrum, is the first candiate which worked as both waves and particles in different experiment, resulting in the theory of dual-nature of light waves.

So, it is just convention to think of them being waves at some place and photos at others. It has both properties all the time.

To answer your question about contact with aliens, what is involved is the signal strength of your signal, distance it has to travel and the sensitivity of the antenna the aliens are using.

Best of luck about your message of peace!

Answer 2

As others have stated radio waves are both photons and waves. So technically speaking the wave never breaks up it just looses strength as the area that it coverd increases( signal strength is 1/4 each time you double the distance based on an original distance for 1sq unit.)

But you actually can condense a wave down to a photon. This is a very odd experiment and you can find pictures of it online, but basicly if you place a screen with two openings in it and measure the waves/particles passing through you can get two different results. If you are looking for waves you will see the waves pass through the holes and interest each other and interfer with each other. Proceding in this way you can clearly see that the single wave passes through both holes at the same time. But if you try and count the photons of the same wave, you only get one photon going through one hole at a time. And these results appear to continue even after the counter has been turned off.

Not the best explanation of wave/particle theory but it might give you a slight view into the concept.

But for the purposes of talking to you friends, just make sure you have a very large transmitter and reciever.

Answer 3

What a beautiful question

I would like to assume that the particles of radio waves are entangled but see no action to cause or create that entanglement. However, the message you send is not one photon, but a series and as that series is in effect following its predecessor the signal although being delivered one photon at a time would be delivered as a string.

So in the first photon wave he might receive p and the second e etc.

Horizontally, across the p as it were I suspect entanglement and until mankind sees the illusion of this phenomenon he will remain deceived.

So the answer is never walk in front of someone having a "p"

I will think further on your question.

Answer 4

All electromagnetic influences are conveyed by photons - light and radio waves are really the same particles at vastly different frequencies. Given the frequency and amplitude of the initial signal, and the energy with which you broadcast it, you could determine the number of photons that would be created and assume an even distribution in all directions, and determine the likelihood of enough of them reaching a given source - this would require some physics and mathematics knowledge. If you continually broadcast the same signal, even a badly deteriorated signal could be deciphered by a sufficiently advanced civilization.

Answer 5

The energy of a photon is Planck's constant h times its frequency f. If you're sending an interstellar message, you'll use a fairly high frequency to ensure it is highly directional, say 3 gigahertz. Then the energy of each photon will be 6.67x10^-34x 3x10^9=6.67x10 ^-25joules. But you'll have sent an extremely powerful signal, otherwise it will be undetectable at interstellar distances. Say 100 kilowatts. So you're sending 100000divided by 6.67x10^-25=1.5x10^29 photons/second, so they won't look like individual photons. More like a continuous stream of energy. Assume a gain of 60dB with your 100 metre transmitting dish. Your signal will be down to a few photons per sq. metre per second at a distance of about 10^11 km.

Answer 6

The wave is photonic in nature at all times and places. However, the energy of a radio wave photon is very small, so most instruments require to capture a large number of them to generate a response. If you have a large number of photons, the wave properties are more obvious because the fine details of the photonic structure average out.

Answer 7

First of all, you would need to convert your propagating signal into a signal that wont break up into individual photons. I have found changing the propagating signal into a indirect all dimensional red laser beam works best. I have also concluded through my studies that when contacting other forms of life with in our solar system the red laser beam needs to be juiced up a bit for maximum clarification. Now this is where it gets tricky. You need the red laser beam, six octagonal mirrors, a large source of electricity (I like to capture a cloud to ground bolt of lighting)and a small block Chevy (something from the late 70s works best) nitrous equipped of course. Now wait for a clear night with a harvest moon fire up the small block, shoot the beam thru the mirrors, unleash the lighting bolt and bingo you have Aliens in HD. Good Luck.

Answer 8

all kinds of issues will be anticipated to decay a radio signal - interstellar dirt, intervening nebulae, etc. a significant corrupting pressure is perhaps the ambience - if the signal can make it by skill of 60 miles of air (and fantastically the ionosphere), then it would want to do nice. we are able to, in spite of everything, communicate with the Voyager 1000000000 miles away and many times pilot the observers on Mars utilising radio signals, so that is not not achievable to deliver a sparkling signal. even if, the conventional reason for decay is distance - the intensity of the signal decreases with the sq. of the area from the source, so a radio signal from Earth would quickly grow to be unresolvable into an easily software.

Answer 9

Are radio signals really photons? I thought photons were light.

Answer 10

Does sound travel in a vacuum?

Is it converted into photons in order for it to traverse space?

I dont know the answer.