Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Evan haines II on 13/01/2009 13:17:42
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Evan haines II asked the Naked Scientists:
Me and one of my friends (at school) have been contemplating the problem for quite a few months now, we've each come up with various solutions but none could bare close examination, the problem is this:
Although light dosn't act like particles or waves, could Newton's 3rd law be applied to photons because they bounce?
What do you think?
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Newton's Third Law I think is:
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
To me it seems that this would apply to light. Poincare was calculating the effect of light bouncing off a target back around the turn of the century.
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momentum?
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Photons mathematically have a cylindrical solution its like a tube the wave is also rotating so the final solution actually looks like a coiled spring. One could imagine this coil being compressed at a surface and the energy in the compression being released when it bounces away. Food for thought.
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Interesting A D.
Here is an artistic interpretation of how a elementary particle might look like.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/23369
We can only guess at how a photon looks like, as I understands it.
We can look at electromagnetic waves (consisting of photons) and draw conclusions from there.
A electromagnetic wave has two properties. One electrical and one magnetic, perpendicular to each other.
That means that they are placed at a 90 degree angle to each other
(somewhat like two 'sine waves', one vertical, the other horizontal but bound together) .
http://rh5.clemson.edu/ropermtn/EMbasics.php
Maybe one could see it as a propagating electro-magnetic field, constantly creating itself as a pulsating 3D-bubble, as its 'two sine waves' interact with each other?
There is also the possibility that what we see as being photons just are expressions of 'something else', not existing as free 'entities' at all.
That as we only can prove them as existing when they 'interact' with something, like a eye:)
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But that doesn't really explain their 'particle like' properties as I see it.
On the other hand I can't see them as being the same as matter.
So?
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A electromagnetic wave has two properties. One electrical and one magnetic, perpendicular to each other.
That means that they are placed at a 90 degree angle to each other
(somewhat like two 'sine waves', one vertical, the other horizontal but bound together) .
http://rh5.clemson.edu/ropermtn/EMbasics.php
I made a little computer program that makes that kind of photon. It looks kinda like this:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fphotontheory.com%2Fphoton-01.jpg&hash=fdb8df20e4b0531ffc4c59573374c8c0)
Red represents the positive electric field; blue the negative electric field; and the other two colors are the magnetic field north and south polarities.
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But that doesn't really explain their 'particle like' properties as I see it.
On the other hand I can't see them as being the same as matter.
So?
To me it makes sense to think of the maxima of the wave where change is greatest as looking like a particle where the planes of the electric and magnetic cross.
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looking like, or being, a 'particle'?
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momentum?
I think it was momentum Poincare was studying, but I couldn't find my reference.
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I suspect that the EM wave is saturated at its peak amplitudes. That is what gives quantum phenomena to everything. If we determine the mass of a particle as m = hv / cc we're saying a photon is potential mass. The potential is realized any time we confine the photon. Such as bouncing it around inside a mirrored box or between atoms in any piece of mass. Here's Isaic Newton's take on it.
"Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the particles of Light which enter their Composition?
The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations. [...] And among such various and strange transmutations, why may not Nature change Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies?“
IsaacNewton - Optics 1704, Book Three, Part 1 Qu.30
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Newton's Third Law gives you the Momentum Conservation law directly.
Photons exhibit momentum.
So yes it should apply.
Vern:
Have you any 'size' for the picture you have drawn for a photon? How does it relate to the wavelength of the em, concerned?
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Vern:
Have you any 'size' for the picture you have drawn for a photon? How does it relate to the wavelength of the em, concerned?
Hi; yes the size in wavelength is from the forward tip to the rearward tip. This is the classical photon that was taught in school back some 40 years ago when I went to school.
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To yor_on and Vern you are both neglecting rotational polarisation all photons have rotational polarisation otherwise polaroid glasses wouldn't work. The normal solution is double rotation, which produces a circular tube within a tube so i did cheat a bit with the spring analogy it's for single rotational polarisation for the P1(cos(theta) solution but higher order solution do produce springs within springs even with double rotational polarisation P4(cos(theta) is a good example.
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To yor_on and Vern you are both neglecting rotational polarisation all photons have rotational polarisation otherwise polaroid glasses wouldn't work.
The photon depicted in the graphic is vertically polarized; in that the electric field is vertical; it could just as well be horizontal or even spinning; I can't see how this is neglecting it. I didn't mention it, but I know it is so as you say. Your spring analogy is interesting; I'll have to think about it.
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Vern:
Have you any 'size' for the picture you have drawn for a photon? How does it relate to the wavelength of the em, concerned?
Hi; yes the size in wavelength is from the forward tip to the rearward tip. This is the classical photon that was taught in school back some 40 years ago when I went to school.
That's' what I suspected.
It's a very poor place to start from if you want to advance understanding. Unless there is an infinite bandwidth, photons can't be regarded as taking up just one cycle. The interaction of a photon with an atom ( or something) must take time because it is a resonance phenomenon - the effect needs time to build up. So the photon, if it's going to exist on the way, must be a wavetrain of finite length. I haven't actually heard a really consistent argument for the existence of photons anywhere else than where they interact at either end of their journey.
The models presented in School are nearly all 'lowest common denomator' and passed on through the curriculum via a teacher who may (a very unfair generalization, I know) have never seriosly thought it through. A teacher from the 1960s may well have never had the benefit of being taught what was the state of understanding at the time.
If you want a good model then go for one from modern publications and then you need to read between the lines and note how non-commital Sciectists are when describing how things 'actually are'. That's often because there isn't and can't be an actual answer.
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To yor_on and Vern you are both neglecting rotational polarisation all photons have rotational polarisation otherwise polaroid glasses wouldn't work. The normal solution is double rotation, which produces a circular tube within a tube so i did cheat a bit with the spring analogy it's for single rotational polarisation for the P1(cos(theta) solution but higher order solution do produce springs within springs even with double rotational polarisation P4(cos(theta) is a good example.
That's yet another problem with insisting on the existence of photons 'on the way from a to b'. It involves more and more intricate descriptions compared with the more straightforward wave description. It puts me in mind of the desperate attempts to describe planetary orbits in terms of a complicated series of 'perfect' circles (epicycles) rather than ellipses.
Polarization is much more straightforwardly included using the wave model.
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That's yet another problem with insisting on the existence of photons 'on the way from a to b'.
Very interesting; this is the first I have seen of the notion that photons only exist at each end of their journey. I know that they can only be observed when they become mass.
If you allow one photon to be more than one wave length you lose the logical connection between relativity phenomena (http://photontheory.com/blogcms/) and the speed of light. I know that this is the current thinking in the scientific community, but it seems a great loss to me.
Edit: If a photon exists as more than one wave length, then how many wave lengths does it take? Infinite?
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To yor_on and Vern you are both neglecting rotational polarisation all photons have rotational polarisation otherwise polaroid glasses wouldn't work.
There isn't any need of circular polarization to describe a polaroid's functioning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization
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The interaction of a photon with an atom ( or something) must take time because it is a resonance phenomenon - the effect needs time to build up.
Yes; I agree; that's why I suspect a photon exists as just one cycle. One cycle takes just exactly the amount of time it takes to absorb a photon.
If the photon does not exist and only its effects exist, there still has to be communication between the transmitting atom and the receiving atom doesn't there. Otherwise how does the receiving atom "know" a packet of energy is available.
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Unless there is an infinite bandwidth, photons can't be regarded as taking up just one cycle.
I think this is one of the hazards of dwelling too much on the uncertainty principle. This is true if you insist on statistical analysis of the wave. Statistical analysis might not be as necessary in the real world as it is in the world of Quantumania. [:)]
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I am enjoying this, it definitely is food for thought, tell me more Sophie or give me a link. I still think that energy stored by an electron in an excited energy level is a good analogy to that of the energy stored in a spring, when the electron falls back down to it's original level it loses its energy and emits a photon the spring also lose it's compression energy.
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I am enjoying this, it definitely is food for thought, tell me more Sophie or give me a link. I still think that energy stored by an electron in an excited energy level is a good analogy to that of the energy stored in a spring...
That's an interesting way to think of it, but then wouldn't space itself need that tensor property. The electromagnetic wave would then be a moving disturbance of that property.
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Yep SC.
The photon is best described as a wave.
And waves are particles, electron waves:)
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/periodic_table/waves_vs_particles.html
Also it might be so that we can't assign a 'path' to that photon.
That as there have been experiments done with polarized photons wherein it been found that when you set up the experiment so that you split the 'photon streams' to be distributed two ways, each polarized differently, to the same goal there was no interference pattern shown. Without that 'two way marking' of the photons, and with only one polarization or none, the photon stream always created a interference pattern.
So marking them seems to destroy their 'free choice' :)
One system when observed after result.
Another if interfered with (polarizing and splitting the photon stream) before?
But in a way that's not the same as saying that they won't have a path, is it?
To me they may have 'paths' even though our 'observations/interactions' change the results.
Like HUP could be seen as stating that it isn't impossible for a particle to have all properties at the same 'time'.
It just states that it is impossible to observe it.
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It seems to me that there is an important difference there?
Either it is impossible according to HUP with or without observation.
And then there is something 'really strange' going on:)
Or it is just that we too are one of the 'interactions' in spacetime.
And will change results as we change the experiments 'pre-requisites'?
Not that this isn't strange too:)
But it is to me 'simpler' to understand.
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The interaction of a photon with an atom ( or something) must take time because it is a resonance phenomenon - the effect needs time to build up.
Yes; I agree; that's why I suspect a photon exists as just one cycle. One cycle takes just exactly the amount of time it takes to absorb a photon.
But it's so difficult to make a little computation? For visible light at 600 nm (~ orange colour) the frequency is 5*1014 Hz, that is, the period (= duration of a single cycle) is 2*10-15 seconds. Have you ever heard about a pulse of light so short? Usually atomic transitions last ~ 10-8 seconds...
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Have you ever heard about a pulse of light so short?
Yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtosecond_laser Though these are generated through interference, not through a single atomic transition.
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But it's so difficult to make a little computation? For visible light at 600 nm (~ orange colour) the frequency is 5*1014 Hz, that is, the period (= duration of a single cycle) is 2*10-15 seconds. Have you ever heard about a pulse of light so short? Usually atomic transitions last ~ 10-8 seconds...
I had not thought about this before. It is interesting. Are we saying that single photons can not exist? Or is it that single photons must be composed of multiple cycles? If it is multiple cycles, would it always be the same amount of cycles?
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That's a idea which, yet again, brings into the question how you can possible regard what goes from a to b as being any sort of a particle? I claim that the time for a transition in one atom could be different for the transition in another atom (no reason why it should be the same). That would imply the photon, produced by one atom would be a 'particular size / extent' but it might need to be a 'different size' to be absorbed by another atom.(Same quantum energy, of course).
That, again, suggests that the only time you need to invoke the quantum idea is during the actual interaction.
I am still waiting for someone to refute my idea on any grounds other than that's what we were taught.
I have a feeling that anyone who really knows their stuff avoids the noddy particle idea. We must avoid relying on 'faith' in matters like this.
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Have you ever heard about a pulse of light so short?
Yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtosecond_laser Though these are generated through interference, not through a single atomic transition.
Exactly, I referred to atomic transitions (of course).
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That's a idea which, yet again, brings into the question how you can possible regard what goes from a to b as being any sort of a particle?
Well, I don't but I suspect there might be an electromagnetic disturbance that goes from a to b that has the potential of becoming mass. Either directly when there is enough of it or indirectly by contributing to the mass of another particle.
This idea of nothing existing in between as a contributes something to b seems a little alien but I can see that it could be consistent with QM type observations.
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But it's so difficult to make a little computation? For visible light at 600 nm (~ orange colour) the frequency is 5*1014 Hz, that is, the period (= duration of a single cycle) is 2*10-15 seconds. Have you ever heard about a pulse of light so short? Usually atomic transitions last ~ 10-8 seconds...
I had not thought about this before. It is interesting. Are we saying that single photons can not exist? Or is it that single photons must be composed of multiple cycles? If it is multiple cycles, would it always be the same amount of cycles?
Sincerely I don't know how a photon is made, but I don't think it could be thought as been simply made of EM waves. Anyway, IF you identified a photon with a train of EM waves, the number of cycles would depend on the kind of transition and so it wouldn't be fixed. Atomic transitions' (average) lifetimes can vary a lot; think, e.g., to metastable states (those used in lasers) which can be millions of times longer than the "usual" transitions' lifetimes of 10-8 s.
Photons are very complex "beasts".
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If we start off with the proviso that we will never have it all sewn up and that we can't hang on, regardless, to any of the existing models and have the possibility of making progress with understanding.
I couldn't be less surprised that you should say that my idea is 'alien', Vern. You have to be prepared to ditch so many established ideas and to ditch them on a regular basis.
But it isn't so hard if you realise that each model may only be a temporary one.
I don't say that 'nothing exists in between'. The energy is there and the wave model tells what is going on. Classical em theory describes so many phenomena very adequately - including radiation pressure. The quantum theory only needs to be invoked at times of interaction.
Why should we hang on to 'corpuscles' except for the reason that they are eminently acceptable and familiar.
Apart from reasons of 'comfort' I can't think of any reason why photons should all have the same length - particularly if they only need to 'exist' in order to describe the interactions each end.
Lightarrow - photons don't have to be just made up of waves if they are only there whilst there are both waves AND matter involved. To use a term which is often used elsewhere, you could, perhaps, say that photons 'mediate' the interaction between waves and matter rather than between charge systems.
Perhaps the 'Feynman diagram' should be elaborated with a wave phase in between two photons rather than just a photon. I wonder what he would have had to say to that.
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Or the photons might just be 'froth' on the surface SC:) And the outcomes depending on our handling/expectations of the experiments? As a state 'matter' have very peculiar properties. It allows us for example. And it includes several types of 'living material', both flora and fauna.
The only reason I can see to that we are so comfortable with it, is that we are born into it.
To me it's still very strange. I've seen some ideas where 'matter' foremost might be a concept of geometry.
But then, I guess? We would be 'geometric anomalies', as we so freely and 'consciously' can navigate our 3D world in time.
There are definite differences between matter and what we call light.
You might want to say that a computer, if clearing the Turing test, could be seen as 'intelligent'.
But then again, it's not light, it's matter.
Maybe a quantum computer could be seen as 'in between' though?
But photons are very strange, they are also 'in between'.
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Sincerely I don't know how a photon is made, but I don't think it could be thought as been simply made of EM waves. Anyway, IF you identified a photon with a train of EM waves, the number of cycles would depend on the kind of transition and so it wouldn't be fixed.
Very interesting lightarrow; I think we have identified the most basic reality of the universe; the photon. If we can understand that, we will have that illusive principal that John Wheeler postulated:
Some principal uniquely right and uniquely simple must, when one knows it, be also so obvious that it is clear that the universe is built, and must be built, in such and such a way and that it could not possibly be otherwise.
I have a hunch (http://photontheory.com/blogcms/) about what that principal may be but it depends upon a single cycle of an EM wave to comprise one photon. Otherwise the hunch loses the ability to predict quantum phenomena, relativity phenomena, and all else.
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I couldn't be less surprised that you should say that my idea is 'alien', Vern. You have to be prepared to ditch so many established ideas and to ditch them on a regular basis.
But it isn't so hard if you realise that each model may only be a temporary one.
It is a very interesting idea as I said. I sometimes speculate about a possibility that a sender atom sends out some kind of signal that it has available a packet of energy and that it only sends that packet if it finds a suitable receiver.
I guess that concept could be tested if it could be determined whether a neutron would delay its demise if there was not a receiver for the energy it must release to do so.
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Jeez, yor-on
What was all that about?
I have read it several times.
Help me.
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As far as duality is concerned - it is possible that we must really look for something which is 'outside' both sets of Wave and Particle. They are both, themselves, only models, in any case. They are things with which we are familiar - that's all. We've never actually seen a wave (even a wave of visible light is only detectable by its electrochemical effect).
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Jeez, yor-on
What was all that about?
I have read it several times.
Help me.
Deep huh?
Yep, oh yes, that's me, a deep dude:)
To deep for myself here possibly::))
(He*k, how shall I dig myself out this time?:)
Nah, it was just me thinking about if photons have all those different paths.
Why not take the next step and say that they really are everywhere.
Although they will only 'materialize' as an interaction, and some interactions are more probable than others:)
Also that those interactions not only are related to the 'firsthand' interactions, but as much related to in which way we choose to observe that 'firsthand' interaction.
If it would be so, then what is this 'space' containing all those 'paths'?
Would it f ex. be possible to manipulate space to show a photon where it shouldn't be as seen from what we are used to expect?
But I do find matter strange:)
So I was wondering what could be seen as a 'intelligence' without matter involved.
And maybe a quantum computer could be it?
If one manipulate light.
A ordinary computer is just a piece of matter working electromagnetically.
So it doesn't fulfill my expectations.
As far as I know 'matter' is a must for any type of life we know of?
But you're correct SC, that hole was a little deep:)
Btw: I asked if all matter expands when 'energized' in another thread
(sort of, at least:)
Not all expands it seems.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041119015323.htm
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As for geometry, well I've seen some ideas.
One is string theory as i understands it.
And you have others discussing 'knots' and other topological 'transformations'.
Not that I find them impossible.
Some are very difficult for me to understand though.
Ah well, next life perhaps.
(Joking, I think?:)
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As far as duality is concerned - it is possible that we must really look for something which is 'outside' both sets of Wave and Particle. They are both, themselves, only models, in any case. They are things with which we are familiar - that's all. We've never actually seen a wave (even a wave of visible light is only detectable by its electrochemical effect).
I believe this to be correct. The first thing we have to throw out the window is the picture of the electromagnetic field such as was used above in the diagram of an EM wave. According to one text, instead of the E and M vector values at each point in space (and time), upon which virtually all the foregoing discussion is based, we must instead think in terms of a quantum Psi which is a function of E and M, and also of X, Y, Z, and T. This Psi is calculated by the wave-like Shroedinger equation very similar to the way an electromagnetic wave would be calculated from the classical Maxwell's equations, except that now E and M are additional independent variables (actually, six independent variables, because they are vectors), so that the resulting "wave" has sinusoidal and similar forms not only in space and time, but also with respect to each of the 6 new variables, namely field strength. Because energy is proportional to field strength squared, Shroedinger's equation requires that the wave function be "bounded" in each of these six nonspatial "directions", with the interesting consequence that, just as with a classical wave contained in a box, only certain modes are possible. Since these are in the "direction" of field strength, they correspond to different classical wave amplitudes, the result being that only certain amplitudes are possible. This is the way the classical electromagnetic field, when viewed under quantum formulation, becomes quantized, and admits of only discrete energy levels (at any one classical wavelength). How do you "draw" a diagram of such a form of electromagnetism? I do not know, but the important thing is that such a wave function can absorbe and reliece energy only in discrete quantites -- hence PHOTONS. The photons thus are derived from wave considerations, using a completely reformulated understanding of what the electromagnetic equations are like, the key to which lies in the bizarre notion that the field vectors are not independent functions of space and time as in the classical formulation, but are themselves additional independent domain variables of which the field is a function. Such a mathematical object satisfies both of the seemingly contradictory requirements: that the energy travel in the manner of a classical wave, but be absorbed and emitted only in discrete quanta.
(Strictly speaking, this calculation is carried out not with the E and M vectors themselves, but with the closely related scalar and vector potential values -- the time-derivatives of the three vector potential components (per point), and the three space derivatives of the scalar potential.) Itis put in this form to make it compatible with Shroedinger's equation.
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Atomic-s, I agree on the fact that photons are not simply EM waves, but it's also quite difficult to describe them with a wavefunction. Since a position operator doesn't exist for photons, you can't write a wavefunction which square modulus represent the probability density to find the particle in space.
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Very interesting Atomic-S; I don't find myself at odds with anything there but don't see how it means we must discard the classic model. (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fphotontheory.com%2Fphot.gif&hash=70d0f001e01f1755c149bf636c2e7ed7)
Amplitude in the model is represented by the height and width of the curves. If it is one cycle, amplitude must be constant; this gives us the source of quantum phenomena.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fphotontheory.com%2FphotBT.jpg&hash=5019734af14f46b7bd56bf653fe5b93e)
Then if we allow one photon's fields to contribute to the saturation amplitude of another, we have a good candidate for the phenomena of gravity. The contribution of external fields would cause the point of saturation to be offset toward increasing field strength of the external fields.
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A unified theory, even! That's very ambitious, my friend. Good luck with it.
What happens with your diagram when photons are spaced well apart - when the energy flux is low? The region of influence of a photon would have to be far greater than one wavelength, wouldn't it?
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A unified theory, even! That's very ambitious, my friend. Good luck with it.
What happens with your diagram when photons are spaced well apart - when the energy flux is low? The region of influence of a photon would have to be far greater than one wavelength, wouldn't it?
It's not a theory [:)] maybe just a hunch put together for my own piece of mind. The influence of a photon would be the fields that surround the saturated points and they have to extend outward forever in space just to satisfy observations.
My Blog (http://photontheory.com/blogcms/) has links to all the thinking I've done on this.
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Vern, in what way do you see photons as creating gravity?
You say "Then if we allow one photon's fields to contribute to the saturation amplitude of another, we have a good candidate for the phenomena of gravity."
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Vern, in what way do you see photons as creating gravity?
You say "Then if we allow one photon's fields to contribute to the saturation amplitude of another, we have a good candidate for the phenomena of gravity."
Hi yor_on; consider the photon model; it is an electromagnetically saturated point surrounded by electromagnetic fields that are changing in amplitude to drive the saturated point forward. As the point moves through the fields of other photons the other fields contribute to the saturation of the point so it reaches saturation at a slight offset toward increasing field strength of the other fields.
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an electromagnetically saturated point
This new term would need an accurate definition. Do you mean a singularity?
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This new term would need an accurate definition. Do you mean a singularity?
No; not a singularity. It is the maximum electric and magnetic force that space can support. Dr. Robert Kemp (http://photontheory.com/Kemp/Kemp.html) claims to have worked out the physics of it. I suspect saturation exists because amplitude is missing from calculations for Plancks Constant. E = hv.
Edit: It doesen't really have to be the maximum; it might just be a constant of EM fields akin to Plancks. Plancks Constant would derive from this more basic constant.
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Is there any reason why you would 'want' a photon to be something which travels through space? (Apart from the fact that it is a very easy concept involving some very cosy ideas - sorry for the patronising tone)
You see, the only quantisation that I can see is needed is the energy - nothing else.
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Is there any reason why you would 'want' a photon to be something which travels through space? (Apart from the fact that it is a very easy concept involving some very cosy ideas - sorry for the patronising tone)
You see, the only quantisation that I can see is needed is the energy - nothing else.
I had not thought about that before I saw your previous post where you point out that there is really no need to visualize something going from a to b. But I need a visualization like that to suggest that the Fine Structure Constant is the ratio of the bend radius of the path of an electron's comprising photon and the charge of the electron.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fphotontheory.com%2Fbending.jpg&hash=f9dfbb816ca97ee16ea02724672c7175)
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Vern, how does your model explain the fact a photon's wavelenght and amplitude would vary from one reference frame to another?
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Hi Vern you surprise me at times you are very close to the answer I don't know if you can get hold of the book by Stratton on Electromagnetic Radiation it was written about 60 years ago, it gives the solution for electromagnetic radiation inside a sphere, the maths gives spherical harmonics look at the phi solution.
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Vern, how does your model explain the fact a photon's wavelenght and amplitude would vary from one reference frame to another?
My view of nature needs a fixed frame of reference. That would probably be the frame of the CMB which in this scheme is just the natural temperature of space debris heated by starlight. Eddington estimated this to be about 4K.
Relativity phenomena results from the natural construct of mass which is as H. Ziegler proposed back in 1909. (http://photontheory.com/Einstein/Einstein06.html#Ziegler)
It needs flat space-time in order for relativity phenomena to develop from the invariance of the speed of the elementary constituents of mass.
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Hi Vern you surprise me at times you are very close to the answer I don't know if you can get hold of the book by Stratton on Electromagnetic Radiation it was written about 60 years ago, it gives the solution for electromagnetic radiation inside a sphere, the maths gives spherical harmonics look at the phi solution.
Thanks for the reference; I had not seen that work; I'll look for it.
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Vern, in what way do you see photons as creating gravity?
You say "Then if we allow one photon's fields to contribute to the saturation amplitude of another, we have a good candidate for the phenomena of gravity."
Hi yor_on; consider the photon model; it is an electromagnetically saturated point surrounded by electromagnetic fields that are changing in amplitude to drive the saturated point forward. As the point moves through the fields of other photons the other fields contribute to the saturation of the point so it reaches saturation at a slight offset toward increasing field strength of the other fields.
Hi Vern:)
Are you proposing that gravity is a electromagnetic force?
Shouldn't then gravity be propagated at 'c', at all times?
But gravity react 'instantly' in many situations?
" anyone with a computer and orbit computation or numerical integration software can verify the consequences of introducing a delay into gravitational interactions. The effect on computed orbits is usually disastrous because conservation of angular momentum is destroyed.
Expressed less technically by Sir Arthur Eddington, this means: “If the Sun attracts Jupiter towards its present position S, and Jupiter attracts the Sun towards its present position J, the two forces are in the same line and balance. But if the Sun attracts Jupiter toward its previous position S’, and Jupiter attracts the Sun towards its previous position J’, when the force of attraction started out to cross the gulf, then the two forces give a couple.
This couple will tend to increase the angular momentum of the system, and, acting cumulatively, will soon cause an appreciable change of period, disagreeing with observations if the speed is at all comparable with that of light.” (Eddington, 1920, p. 94) See Figure 1.
Indeed, it is widely accepted, even if less widely known, that the speed of gravity in Newton’s Universal Law is unconditionally infinite. (E.g., Misner et al., 1973, p. 177) This is usually not mentioned in proximity to the statement that GR reduces to Newtonian gravity in the low-velocity, weak-field limit because of the obvious question it begs about how that can be true if the propagation speed in one model is the speed of light, and in the other model it is infinite.
The same dilemma comes up in many guises: Why do photons from the Sun travel in directions that are not parallel to the direction of Earth’s gravitational acceleration toward the Sun?
Why do total eclipses of the Sun by the Moon reach maximum eclipse about 40 seconds before the Sun and Moon’s gravitational forces align?
How do binary pulsars anticipate each other’s future position, velocity, and acceleration faster than the light time between them would allow?
How can black holes have gravity when nothing can get out because escape speed is greater than the speed of light?"
Also, as the link points out, gravity has no aberration
http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/speed_of_gravity.asp
One doesn't have to accept all of it, but the questions stated there are relevant to your idea.
If you propose gravity to be electromagnetic you will need to explain them.
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Hi yor_on; I think gravity propagates at the speed of light. I don't see the problem you say that Eddington had with that. My thread (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=19366.0) in the New Theories section expands on my views. I'm reluctant to discuss them here since they are highly speculative.
Or you can just Google: Brown Photonic Theory (http://photontheory.com/pte.html) and it will be right on top [:)]
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It's strange I have no problems at all the solution for the photon is cylindrical and electromagnetic, curl up the photon into a spherical solution and one produces a Particle and the process is reversible, the duality principle. When an electron joins with a nucleus it uncurls and produces a wave function De Broglie and Quantum Mechanics.
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Have you thought about a possible 'size' for this curled up jobbie?
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Have you thought about a possible 'size' for this curled up jobbie?
I'm not sure I understand the idea A Davis is contemplating. In my view the size of any particle resulting from a curled up photon would be a circumference equal to one wave length of the photon. It is pure speculation of course.
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The solution is called half integer spin, and has the equation is 2.π.r = λ/2. the circumference is produced in half a wavelength, the circle is not centered at the origin but is shifted by r from the origin, along −x if you like but it is actually in the phi plane. The full maths is described in the book by Stratton and the solution of Maxwells equations inside a sphere was solved by Debye.. The actual radius depends upon how fast the velocity of light is inside the solution and reduces with increasing n value when solving the half integer bessel functions J(n+1/2).
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The solution is called half integer spin, and has the equation is 2.π.r = λ/2. the circumference is produced in half a wavelength, the circle is not centered at the origin but is shifted by r from the origin, along −x if you like but it is actually in the phi plane. The full maths is described in the book by Stratton and the solution of Maxwells equations inside a sphere was solved by Debye.. The actual radius depends upon how fast the velocity of light is inside the solution and reduces with increasing n value when solving the half integer bessel functions J(n+1/2).
I thought half integer spin would require 720 degrees for the observed state to repeat itself.
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No it's 180 degrees half of 360. This means that the soluton repeats it self every half cycle and produces a monopole, the solution has charge because the positive and negative variations of a sinusoid are lost in this type of solution. It's difficult to show this without drawings but I can't do it on this platform.
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A Davis
I haven't read Stratton's / Debye's solution for a wave in a sphere but what are his boundary conditions? Are they for a wave, bound within a conducting box? I don't see how such a solution would result with no boundary (i.e. a container with 377ohms impedance). Why would the wave not just propagate / radiate away? Your mention of Bessel functions reminds me of other bounded wave solutions - drum skins etc.
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No it's 180 degrees half of 360. This means that the soluton repeats it self every half cycle and produces a monopole, the solution has charge because the positive and negative variations of a sinusoid are lost in this type of solution. It's difficult to show this without drawings but I can't do it on this platform.
That makes more sense. I don't know where I got the two-turn notion from, but I read a lot of kooky stuff [:)]
Are you saying soluton or solution; I see you have it both ways; I'm thinking you mean solution.
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You are correct most modern books give the solution within a conducting sphere including stratton and they also neglect any variation in phi a simpler solution. Once one understands the solution physically and can see that the radiation at the center is rotating then two forces act on the radiated wave E x H and E . E they force the radiated wave into a circular path, equating these two forces gives a precession angle of 54deg the same as in quantum mechanics h/2 and h√(1(1+1)) the solution doesn't need a boundary, in higher solutions μr and εr change so there is an elecrical boundary between free space and inside the solution.
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How can the solution for a diff equation not involve boundary conditions? I don't understand.
And are you implying that you have, what is, effectively, a standing wave, traveling through space at c? A sort of vortex / smoke ring?
I would have a problem with that because the time involved in the wave equation describing your circular wave would be non existent, bearing in mind the photon is going at c. This is hard.
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I may have misled you have read Stratton again at first he gives the general solution for any boundary from an insulator to a conductor, he then gives a conducting solution, no electric field at the boundary. The first solution has no boundary it's free space inside and outside it may not even exist physically, but the fourth solution describes what is happening inside the Electron and has been solved completely. There is strong mathematical evidence that the twelth solution is the Proton, but the maths is horrendous, my calculations have a small error which I can't get rid of, still I will keep on trying.
(Note free space is an insulator)
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This is interesting. How does it all tie in with the photon traveling and the macroscopic wave behaviour of em waves. Then there's the issue of quantum behaviour when diffraction occurs.
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It's time for you to educate me Sophie I don't understand the macroscopic behaviour of EM waves unless you mean they radiate in all directions, never heard of QM in diffraction unless you mean the slit experiment, to me this is due to the rotating EM wave inside the electrons at the surface of the slit acting upon the rotating EM field of the photon, one can never predict when thier maximum or minimum values will coincide and they will produce a diffraction pattern.
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It's time for you to educate me Sophie I don't understand the macroscopic behaviour of EM waves unless you mean they radiate in all directions, never heard of QM in diffraction unless you mean the slit experiment, to me this is due to the rotating EM wave inside the electrons at the surface of the slit acting upon the rotating EM field of the photon, one can never predict when thier maximum or minimum values will coincide and they will produce a diffraction pattern.
The behaviour of em waves when they go through slits or through / around any obstruction can be described very well using diffraction theory. The simplest situation to describe is with two slits, when we call it 'interference' but it's all diffraction, really.
So, my point is that, by assuming light (and the rest) are actually waves, you can predict and describe more or less any situation. Are you suggesting that this wave interpretation is compatible with yet another 'layer' of wave theory (involving photons which are curled up versions of em waves?
I just can't see how this works from what I have understood so far.
In my view of the business, you don't need photons at all, to describes what goes on as the energy is travelling around - just for the actual interactions. It may be that your curled up thingeys are way of describing what happens actually during the time the transmitting and receiving systems are transferring the energy.
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I have problems understanding you at times Sophie but you definitely have an inquiring mind. There is no argument about interference or diffraction, you seem to be saying that a photon doesn't exist except at a source and it's destination, it sounds like Feynmans multiple path theory but I am not sure. Is this what you mean by layers. The curled up Photon produces a Particle such as Electron, Proton etc. I taught my self QM about 12 years ago, disappointed to find that it couldn't calculate the energy level of the second electron in Helium it could only be done by successive approximations, the theory wasn't correct at that point in time. I have not kept up with current theory, can it be done now.
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As far as I am aware there just isn't a closed solution to the wave equation for anything more than Hydrogen.
I don't think there is anything to indicate that an electron has been characterised as just some EM waves. Where does it's mass come from? The QM you learned 12 years ago wouldn't have told you that, surely.
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The book I read was written by a Chemist, he did point out wher QM was failing and started with Schrodingers solution by saying that it was wrong to consider that the Proton was a point charge and went on to describe how Dirac had addressed the problem, I didn't understand Diracs solution, he gave the equation but no derivation, never did follow it up. He quoted three Scientists solutions to the Helium problem with varying degrees of accuracy, but no solution for the parametric solution, reverse electron spin in the second orbit. I think I am beginning to understand layers, is a layer one integer solution(n = 1,2,3,4)etc. I cannot answer the mass question at this point in time, have a theory on gravity in the new theory forum, I will have to answer the question eventually.
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Getting back to the OP, yes, photons have momentum: p=E/c, and Newton's third law applies.
An atom absorbing or emitting a photon will recoil, which is the concept behind laser cooling (Nobel prize 1997), and the momentum transfer during reflection is the concept behind a solar sail.
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Getting back to the OP, yes, photons have momentum: p=E/c, and Newton's third law applies.
An atom absorbing or emitting a photon will recoil, which is the concept behind laser cooling (Nobel prize 1997), and the momentum transfer during reflection is the concept behind a solar sail.
I think that most of us who should know will agree with you.
Something came up in another thread that you might lend some insight to since you know about the photon's momentum. It was postulated that two photons moving relative to each other in a closed system would cause the system to be massive, while two photons moving together with no relative motion between them would not.
The reason given was that with photons moving relative to each other there is always a frame in which they are moving opposite each other so that momentum cancels leaving only their energy which could be viewed as mass.
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Is there any reason why you would 'want' a photon to be something which travels through space? (Apart from the fact that it is a very easy concept involving some very cosy ideas - sorry for the patronising tone)
You see, the only quantisation that I can see is needed is the energy - nothing else.
I had not thought about that before I saw your previous post where you point out that there is really no need to visualize something going from a to b. But I need a visualization like that to suggest that the Fine Structure Constant is the ratio of the bend radius of the path of an electron's comprising photon and the charge of the electron.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fphotontheory.com%2Fbending.jpg&hash=f9dfbb816ca97ee16ea02724672c7175)
Excellent model Vern, and this is why I personally don't see any difference between energy and matter. Someone has mentioned geometry, and that is the distinguishing difference between the photon and the electron. Matter is only "Localized orbital energy flux" and this is why I view matter as nothing more than captured energy. There is really no difference between the two except for the geometry involved.