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Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

Faster Than a Speeding Wave

How is the frequency of electromagnetic radiation related to its energy?

The frequency of a photon is related to its energy, E, by a pretty straightforward equation:

In this equation, h is Planck’s constant, which has a value of 6.626 × 10−34 J•s. The frequency term, , is the frequency of the radiation in Hz. As we can see from this equation, electromagnetic radiation with higher frequency has higher energy.