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When light travels from air to another medium, why does the energy of the wave (photon) not change if the new medium is more resistive water, oil etc?

Qmechanic
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Josh Pointon
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    Your question is similar to the one in the link: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/76240/does-light-loses-its-energy-when-it-passes-through-denser-medium – DarkMatter Jan 05 '18 at 17:22

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Photons have no mass, but they have energy E = hf = hc/λ. When light travels from one medium to another, the speed changes, as does the wavelength. The index of refraction can also be stated in terms of wavelength. From first equation and by change of medium both change in speed and wavelength is same for a sinusoidal wave of photon resulting in constant energy or no change in energy. Also rest mass of photon is Zero, so if by changing medium there would be change in energy of photon then it can be brought to rest. But we know photon is never at rest so there is no change in it's wave energy subjected to any condition.

yv nitesh
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