this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
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Why they have momentum or why laser weapons would have recoil?
It would make sense IMHO if it's to create airflow for cooling
There's no reason for that to be a directed force, just suck in air from multiple directions and eject it in multiple directions to cancel out all net forces. Or ramp it up slowly so it isn't so jerky. But even if it's set up in the worst way possible, the forces will be significantly less than shooting a relatively massive bullet.
I'm no psysicist, but I suppose you would create more heat energy, than you'd be able to dissipate anyway
Nah, active air cooling is a thing that computers have been using successfully for decades. It does create more heat overall, but it moves heat away from the parts you don't want to melt.
Even liquid cooling or phase change cooling relies on air cooling eventually, those techs can just move heat quicker to a temporary heat reservoir that is then air cooled. If the cooling on the reservoir is slower than the heating, the cooling system will eventually saturate and fail to continue cooling the heat source faster than the reservoir cooling.
Even liquid nitrogen or dry ice cooling does this, it just dumps that heat earlier when the N2 or CO2 is condensed. And for those, you either have limited cooling time or need to top up the coolant as it evaporates.
Edit: not sure why you were downvoted... Your assumption was wrong but IMO worthy of discussion.
Why they have momentum since they don't have mass
You know that old E=mc² equation? That's actually only the simplified "rest" half of it. The full equation that relativity gives us says E²=m²c⁴+p²c². Meaning if it has energy, it definitely has mass (m), momentum (p), or both.
For a massless particle like a photon, that means E=pc, and its momentum is proportional to its energy and therefore frequency/wavelength.
Weird math bullshit.
But in essence, because they carry energy they must have momentum. It's why they can impart momentum on what they hit, because momentum must be preserved.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-physics/chapter/29-4-photon-momentum/