What does photon energy tell us about cellphone safety?
نویسنده
چکیده
It has been argued that cellphones are safe because a single microwave photon does not have enough energy to break a chemical bond. We show that cellphone technology operates in the classical wave limit, not the single photon limit. Based on energy densities relative to thermal energy, we estimate thresholds at which effects could be possible. These seem to correspond somewhat with many experimental observations. It has been argued repeatedly[Park 2001, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, Shermer 2010] that cellphones must be safe because a single microwave photon does not have enough energy to break a chemical bond. This argument would perhaps be convincing if the photon flux were less than 1 photon per square wavelength per photon period (equivalent to a photon density of < 1 per cubic wavelength). However, this condition, which holds for some common sources of ionizing radiation, does not hold for cellphone exposures (Table 1). This means that while ionizing radiation is typically in the pure quantum limit of low photon density, cellphones and cell towers operate in the classical wave limit of high photon densities. In this situation the energy of each photon is often irrelevant.
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