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If a giant water wave can change the altitude of a boat, then why can't electron's position be changed by waves.

Afterall waves can make a ball rise and fall thus imparting energy to it.

Qmechanic
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Mini kute
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    Because the photoelectric effect has a cutoff frequency corresponding to the minimum kinetic energy of a photon needed to ionize an electron completely. No matter the intensity of the incoming light, there is zero photoelectric effect when the frequency is too low. This is incompatible with a wave description. – Marius Ladegård Meyer Feb 15 '22 at 17:43
  • but could a wave also ionize an atom? – Mini kute Feb 15 '22 at 17:46
  • For a classical wave the energy of the wave is proportional to the amplitude of the wave, not the frequency. That means that no matter what the frequency of the light is, as long as the amplitude (intensity) of the light is strong enough, we should see electrons flying off the metal. But that is not what is observed in reality. – Marius Ladegård Meyer Feb 15 '22 at 17:50
  • so are electrons repelled by EM waves as light carries no charge? – Mini kute Feb 15 '22 at 17:52
  • In short how wave nature can repel electrons? – Mini kute Feb 15 '22 at 17:57
  • see http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mod2.html – anna v Feb 15 '22 at 18:43
  • From a modern point of view it does not, you can derive a cutoff frequency for emission when modelling the electromagnetic field classically and handling the bound electrons quantum mechanically. But this was not known back then, so the assumption was to assume the light is quantized (which turned out to be true as well ...) – Sebastian Riese Feb 15 '22 at 20:56
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    Somewhat related question: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/68147/80706 – TL;DR: The photoeffect does not prove the quantization of the em-field. – Sebastian Riese Feb 15 '22 at 20:58
  • If you send FREE electrons through a slit experiment you will see a pattern form because the electrons are being guided by the billions of reflecting photons – Bill Alsept Feb 16 '22 at 06:09
  • @BillAlsept what? – Mini kute Feb 16 '22 at 08:29

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