Can a light ray bend if it passed through a magnetic field?

Question

I Googled it and found this:

http://van.physics.uiuc.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2009

But it doesn't actually make sense.

Layman terms, anyone?

Answer 1

In layman's terms, NO.

Did you skip the first sentence or two in the answer?

Answer 2

That's a no. Particles of light are photons. But they also travel as waves simulateously (it is very hard to get your head round that, but is what's known as wave particle duality.) The wave aspect of light is described as an oscillating electric field at right angels to an oscillating magnetic field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagn...

Look at the picture beside the paragraph that begins with 'In refraction'. The blue line shows the electric field, the red shows the magnetic field for a ray of light travelling to the right.

The 'linearity' mentioned in the article you found is similar to the passing of two waves through each other. Imagine ou have a wave moving to the left and a wave moving to the right. As they pass through each other the total amplitude of the wave is the amplitude of the two waves added together. But after they have passed each other, they both go back to having the same amplitude before they have passed.

http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos... The first diagram demonstrates this.

Well, it's similar with magnetic fields. As two magnetic fields pass through each other, the resulting magnetic field is the sum of the two fields. However, after they have passed through each other, they separate again and both magnetic fields are the same as they were before they passed through each other. So magnetic fields are not affected by other magnetic fields, which means that the magnetic field of a ray of light is not affected by another magnetic field and thus the ray will not bend.

Answer 3

"So there is no way that a magnetic field can bend light"

that should make sense and answer your question.

.

Answer 4

uuuhm, nope, cuz light is made of photons an they do not have any mass, so they cant be affected by magnetic fields. well actually mabey it could, but it would have to be one big- a s s magnetic field. it is however known that photons are affected by immense gravitational fields such as produced by large stars or even completely absorbed by black holes.