How many photons of sunlight are striking a 1 square meter surface per second, if it is receiving 600 watts of power?
To calculate the number of photons of sunlight striking a surface per second, you need to use the formula:
Photon flux = Power / Energy per photon
First, we need to determine the energy per photon using the equation:
Energy per photon = Planck's constant * Speed of light / Wavelength of light
The wavelength of sunlight falls in the visible light range, which is approximately 400-700 nanometers. To simplify, we can use an average wavelength of 550 nanometers (since the frequencies across this range are similar).
Now, let's calculate the energy per photon:
Energy per photon = 6.626 × 10^(-34) J·s * 3 × 10^8 m/s / (550 × 10^(-9) m)
Energy per photon ≈ 3.63 × 10^(-19) Joules
Next, we can find the photon flux using the given power of 600 watts:
Photon flux = 600 / (3.63 × 10^(-19)) photons per second
Calculating this value gives us the number of photons of sunlight striking a 1 square meter surface per second.