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The virtual particles that populate the vacuum are just that - virtual, not real, beasts that we invent to model the Casimir effect. If there were indeed collisions between photons and virtual particles, light would be dispersed in a vacuum and not travel in straight lines or at a constant speed.
The particle model doesn't predict the speed of light in vacuo because there is nothing there to absorb and re-emit particles.
Please correct where I am wrong.Maxwells equations describe the classical view of electromagnetic waves.A single photon can be viewed as a quantum particle.
0 spin connotes zero angular momentum
sub elementary particles in the space/time fabric are in a ground state
Quote from: alancalverd on 07/04/2019 14:43:51The particle model doesn't predict the speed of light in vacuo because there is nothing there to absorb and re-emit particles.Let a source emit a photon at A and it arrive at B where a detector registers it. The particle model states that the photon is emitted at and absorbed at B. No need to re-emit. And this holds for distances from 1 nm to any number of light years.
Its not possible to state whether a photon is a particle or a wave unless you state how its observed. That's the essence of the wave-particle duality.
Quote from: flummoxed on 08/04/2019 01:12:30Please correct where I am wrong.Maxwells equations describe the classical view of electromagnetic waves.A single photon can be viewed as a quantum particle. Its not possible to state whether a photon is a particle or a wave unless you state how its observed. That's the essence of the wave-particle duality.Note that the Schrodinger equation only holds for non-relativistic particles and photons are relativistic particles.
At the time of reaching the slit, our projectile has no way of knowing how or even whether it is going to be detected, so the implications of "duality" don't make sense.
You might get away with that for a photon, but not a buckyball.
Why would you think a buckyball double slit experiment would be any different?
The wave interaction is theorized to exist after multiple particles go through one or the other slit producing the waves
With QED the interaction is before the particle goes through the slits and doesnt require wave particle duality, which is hard to visualize, and not very appealing when there is a simpler way of viewing photons and particles.
Unlike Maxwell, the particle model doesn't predict the speed of light, nor that it is constant for all photons, unless you accept the conclusion of general relativity, i.e. that massless particles must all travel at c.
Quote from: flummoxed on Yesterday at 10:52:26Why would you think a buckyball double slit experiment would be any different?Because a buckyball is not a "distributed lump of energy" but a projectile with mass and a very definite structure.
The wave interaction is theorized to exist after multiple particles go through one or the other slit producing the waves So an interaction B which occurs after event A determines the outcome of A? I think not. Or does B hang around the slits waiting to direct the second particle, whenever it turns up, based on the message left behind by the first one?
So now you want a wave W that travels ahead of a photon p. This can only happen if W travels faster than c, which itself demands some explanation. It also implies that after a sufficiently long distance (say 1000 lightyears) W and p will have become substantially separated. Now suppose p bumps into some interstellar gas. You have a pilot wave entirely independent of its photon, and thus capable of determining the performance of some other photon. Has this ever been detected?
Quote from: alancalverd on 08/04/2019 08:17:37Unlike Maxwell, the particle model doesn't predict the speed of light, nor that it is constant for all photons, unless you accept the conclusion of general relativity, i.e. that massless particles must all travel at c. I said that not to argue that the standard model predicts c but that your argument was fallacious.BTW - its SR that c is invariant, nor GR. In GR the speed of light varies with the gravitational potential. Einstein showed this in 1907 and 1911.