1

Chemistry / Re: A Question of oxidization in grape wine and not wine made from oranges.

« on: 10/02/2021 23:31:57 »

I once suggested this (in a New Scientist backpage answer) as the reason for shaking rather than stirring cocktails but my boss (an organic chemist) said the idea was ridiculous. A quick glance at textbooks suggests that ethanol -> acetaldehyde  requires a strong desiccant like H2SO4 to remove the H2O byproduct, or a high temperature and a catalyst with removal of the hydrogen product.

BBC "Bitesize" discusses low temperature oxidation:

Ethanol also undergoes bacterial oxidation to ethanoic acid. This form of oxidation is a problem for wine producers. Air contains a large proportion of bacteria called Acetobacter. Acetobacter bacteria use atmospheric oxygen from air to oxidise ethanol in wine, producing a weak solution of ethanoic acid (vinegar). So once a bottle of wine has been opened it can quickly turn to vinegar due to the large number of bacteria in the air. Wines with a high concentration of alcohol or fortified wines such as sherry and port are very resistant to bacterial oxidation. This is because the ethanol concentration is too high for the bacteria to tolerate[

which explains the need for a fermentation lock during brewing but suggests (a) more complete air oxidation of wine and (b) no bacterial oxidation of sherry.

Obviously I'd rather believe BC than the BBC (which as we all know is run by communist teetotallers) but Madeira does require heat treatment to oxidise, and cold-brewed wines do indeed turn into vinegar. Meanwhile at the back of the bar, we have a gadget that definitely adds £1 worth of character to cheap wine  by spraying it into a carafe with plenty of air - but don't tell the customers.

I'm also baffled by vitamin C, much heralded as an antioxidant but also a known oxidant in high physiological concentrations: its role in the preservation of orange wine is thus, to my mind, moot!

2

Chemistry / Re: A Question of oxidization in grape wine and not wine made from oranges.

« on: 10/02/2021 19:31:56 »

Last time I checked, a significant part of the flavour of sherry was acetaldehyde from oxidation of alcohol. It's a pretty easily spotted trait.

Oranges have a lot of vitamin C which is likely to retard oxidation of other components.

3

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: How did mink catch Covid-19? And what threat do their mutations pose?

« on: 18/11/2020 08:47:42 »

Are you sure the Astra Zeneca vaccine is mRNA based vaccine and not a protein based vaccine?

Since mRNA in a cell produces proteins, a mRNA vaccine is also a protein-based vaccine.
- Both the Astra-Zeneca and Moderna vaccine candidates ferry mRNA into human cells following vaccination.
- The human cells produce a protein, which appears on the surface of the cells
- This is a corona virus protein, which would only be visible there if the cell were infected with corona virus
- The immune system recognizes this protein as "foreign", and attacks it.
See, for example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-13/pfizer-pfe-astrazeneca-azn-moderna-mrna-covid-vaccines-leave-questions

Some traditional vaccines just inject the protein, and contain no mRNA
- While others inject a whole virus (perhaps in a weakened state)
- Often an adjuvant is added to the vaccine to better grab the attention of the immune system

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjuvant

4

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: How did mink catch Covid-19? And what threat do their mutations pose?

« on: 17/11/2020 20:34:47 »

There is confusing information ref the storage temperatures required for the vaccines,

There has been more information released on this recently...
Storage stability of the Astra-Zenica mRNA vaccine went something like this:
- Store for 6 months at -70°C (eg liquid nitrogen temperatures)
- Store for 1 month at -40°C (eg Dry Ice temperatures)
- Store for 5 days at 4°C (eg normal vaccine fridge at a doctor or pharmacy)
- So it degrades over time, becoming less effective as a vaccine

I assume that it is one or the other - you can't take one of each! (ie 6 months + 1 month + 5 days)
- This is due to the fact that mRNA is more fragile than DNA or proteins
- It is packaged in a lipid (fatty) membrane, without the various support structures that hold virus RNA together
- It is subject to radiation in the environment, from the decay of radioactive elements and cosmic rays
- As a non-living object, it has no repair mechanism

There are projects underway to deliver the vaccine in a more practical way, like an insulated box with dry ice inside.
There are projects underway to extend the vaccine lifetime, like additives in the vaccine to stabilize it, or a powdered form.

Some of the more traditional types of vaccines are better suited to the traditional vaccine refrigerator (4°C).
- But even a 4°C cold-chain is hard to maintain in some parts of the world...

Some information here: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/17/covid-vaccines-how-much-they-cost-whos-bought-them-and-how-theyre-stored.html

Youngsters ... are very efficient breeders, carriers and spreaders, and thus guarantee the pool of infection that the virus requires.

This is certainly true of influenza.

I heard of a detailed population simulation of SARS-COV2 virus spread (from a team at Sydney University). It gave excessively high rates of spread if they assumed that children spread the virus as efficiently as adults.
When they wound back the infectivity of children, the rates of spread looked more realistic.
See: https://spectrum.ieee.org/artificial-intelligence/medical-ai/why-modeling-the-spread-of-covid19-is-so-damn-hard

So maybe children are less infectious?
- I heard that the virus spike protein must be cleaved before it can enter cells efficiently
- And the enzymes responsible are more common in adolescents and older

5

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: How did mink catch Covid-19? And what threat do their mutations pose?

« on: 12/11/2020 20:24:44 »

I understand in the UK ,sewage has been monitored to locate covid-19 outbreaks.

There was a report on sewage testing for COVID-19 in the Coronacast podcast today (12 minutes).
- Sewage testing appears to be very effective at detecting COVID-19 infections, even in non-symptomatic & pre-symptomatic cases
- It is estimated that it is sensitive enough to detect 1 infected individual in a population of 100,000 to 1,000,000.
- It has been applied to whole cities, individual university dormitories, prisons, cruise ships and airplane flights

Listen: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/everything-youve-wanted-to-know-about-sewage-testing/12878138

6

Chemistry / Re: Can Sulphites be removed from wine other than by adding hydrogen peroxide?

« on: 03/10/2020 18:13:18 »

K2O5S2 oxidizes to form what?

KHSO4
I can't see hydrogen peroxide working very well. It's got to find a few hundred ppm of sulfite among a few percent of alcohol, not to mention all the other stuff it could react with.

I do not understand how k-meta can be removed by aeration or splash racking as is claimed by some.

The sulphite is in equilibrium with SO2.
And aeration will remove that as a gas.

7

Chemistry / Re: Can Sulphites be removed from wine other than by adding hydrogen peroxide?

« on: 02/10/2020 15:17:27 »

sulfites (sulphites) are unlikely to volatilize--you can get rid of them by oxidation, but why do you want to? They are protecting the wine by essentially serving as sacrificial reducing agents (oxygen in the air will react with sulfite before it oxidizes components of the wine)

8

Chemistry / Re: Can Sulphites be removed from wine other than by adding hydrogen peroxide?

« on: 02/10/2020 15:14:37 »

The whole point of adding metabisulfites to wine is to preserve the flavor and inhibit secondary fermentation. Boiling the wine will leave you with a residue of sticky grape sugars and a tiny trace of potassium sulfite, and some rather raw brandy with a hint of sulfur dioxide in the distillate.

Given the choice, I'd rather drink my Mouton Rothschild as it came in the bottle, along with whatever additives the good burghers of Pauillac have deemed fit to use for the last 170 years.

My own garden produces an adequate grape juice, and I sometimes add a hint of  Na₂S₂O₅  to stop it turning into Chateau Calverd, or after adequate fermentation to prevent the Grand Cru turning into expensive vinegar - Sarson's Malt is a better match with chips.

[Spoiler:]

9

New Theories / Re: where is your consciousness located?

« on: 30/03/2020 09:21:54 »

The video is titled "The Self - A Thought Experiment".

Spoiler: show

An omniscient conscious being doesn't have subjectivity.

Professor Patrick Stokes of Deakin University gives a thought experiment from Thomas Nagel. This comes from a talk given at the Ethics Centre from an episode of the podcast The Philosopher's Zone.

10

Chemistry / Re: What is the difference between Phosphate and Phosphorous ?

« on: 11/03/2020 18:42:17 »

"phosphorus" refers to the element (atomic # 15) specifically. This can be used as reference to an atom of phosphorus in another compound, or as elemental phosphorus (there are a few different ways that P atoms can bond with each other, including diatomic P₂ molecules, which are like N₂, tetrahedral P₄ molecules "white phosphorus," a 1-D polymerized form consisting of vertex-sharing tetrahedra "red phosphorus," 2-D networks "black phosphorus" etc. etc.)

Phosphate refers to a phosphorus atom bound to 4 oxygen atoms. The phosphate anion PO₄^3– is the simplest form, and generally is what is meant by phosphate. But there are also phosphate esters (like trimethyl phosphate, (H₃CO)₃PO, and different protonation states of phosphate/phosphoric acid, like H₃PO₄, H₂PO₄^–, and HPO₄^2–.

Depending on the context, "total phosphate" may be used to describe a mixture of different compounds and/or ions containing the PO₄ subunit, regardless of what is (or isn't) bound to it. Also, there are polymeric forms of phosphates, like pyrophosphate, and metaphosphate (orthophosphate, in this case is used to specify that monomer).

11

New Theories / Re: Are all photons mediated in the same way through the quantum vacuum

« on: 09/09/2019 18:12:34 »

Catching up after being away, so short reply:

"In QFT, a photon is transmitted through the vacuum by ripping electron positron pairs from the vacuum." came from memory ....should have read "the bare photon propagates while tearing electron positron pairs from the vacuum" .

I think you’ll agree that these 2 sentences convey very different meanings so it’s important not to misquote. Mention of bare photon sounds as though you are going through renormalisation at this stage. I also assume you understand bare particles, if not it’s important to go through the derivation because it gives some insights into the models being used and why adjustments are necessary.

It was an illustration offered by the authors to illustrate how a photon is propagated in QED via a creator and annihilator virtual particle pair. One of the authors is from Durham university and the other from Oxford university

This sounds like Stephen Blundell’s book. Because this is aimed at the amateur they quite rightly stick to the formal (shorthand) Feynman descriptions of the calculations, but it does a good job of showing the calculations that lie behind the jargon. Feynman used a very restricted pallet of operations and creation and annihilation are at some of the vertices of the diagrams. The photon is not propagated in QED by creation annihilation operators, they only describe its creation at point eg at A(x,t) and annihilation at say B(x,t) - unlike QM, in QFT/QED the probability of finding an electron or a photon integrated over space does not have to be one, it can change with time. Remember, QED (charged particle interactions) is a simplified subset of QFT - in QFT the photon propagation is described by quantisation of the em field as per Maxwell’s equations.

Why do we, and the science advisors on main Physics fora, plus  top physicists like John Baez, Matt Strassler, etc, say that virtual particles are shorthand for the calculations rather than objects - the legendary Sidney Coleman described them as fairy tales. Well for one it’s what Freeman Dyson said and he was the person who developed Feynman diagrams into the form we see today. When we were undergraduates Feynman’s papers were required reading and in there Feynman says that the particles, eg electrons, interact directly via their fields (no virtual mediation). So what we are looking at are the complex and dynamic interactions of those fields as described by the Feynman diagrams and the underlying calculations. Also, as you will also know from your book, an internal line doesn’t represent a single interaction or even a specific time ordering, unlike the external lines. Interpretation of the internal lines is a temptation but fraught with pitfalls, this is why Feynman said “shut up and calculate. Quite rightly the book you have is teaching you what every student of QED needs to know; how to calculate.

As discussed with Alan the words electron and positron might not be exactly correct, perhaps virtual particle pairs or electron hole pairs would have been a better analogy.

There are a lot of models used in physics and some historical ones are still used in teaching because they can help understanding (eg Bohr atom, although no one now thinks of atoms as small solar systems).
Dirac’s model which used electron holes underwent a number of changes, but never really hit the mark. It was left to Feynman who, under John Wheeler, began to look at the electron under time symmetry (as you know, many models in physics are time symmetric). He found that if you modelled an electron going backwards in time you end up with a positron going forward in time - this is why you will note in the diagrams an antiparticle goes in the opposite direction to its particle, moving backwards against the time axis.

Vacuum polarization via virtual particles is confirmed via the Lamb shift measured in Hydrogen atoms.

Yes, you can model the Lamb Shift  via the Feynman diagrams (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/lamb.html) and it does confirm the accuracy of those calculations using QED, but does not confirm the existence of virtual particles.
Vacuum polarization describes changes in the distribution of charges and currents of an em field by those generating the original electromagnetic field, it is also sometimes referred to as the self-energy. Again you can model this shielding using the Feynman diagrams and virtual particles, but the Lamb shift only confirms the accuracy of the calculations not the existence of virtual particles as objects.
Again it’s worth understanding the bare electron and why we have to postulate shielding  and renormalisation in the models to reduce the infinities of mass and charge.
Remember, the Shrodinger/Dirac model did not predict Lamb shift, it predicted that the energy levels were only determined by the primary quantum number. This is a problem with the model which considered the electron to be a free electron with point charge, when this is used to model interactions between fields, eg between electron and proton, you end up with infinities for charge and mass. The big contribution of Lamb and particularly Hans Bethe was being able to derive the Lamb shift using the idea of renormalization, which allowed him to calculate the observed energy shift as the difference between the shift of a bound electron and the shift of a free electron. If you look at the 2S & 2P orbitals you can see a difference of how closely the electron approaches the proton and hence the difference in the field interaction/modification.

Vacuum polarisation looks like a radio wave to me, but I might be wrong.

Very wrong. Radio waves are em radiation same as IR, visible light, UV, x rays and gamma rays.
I know you have a personal theory that radio waves are not part of the em spectrum and cannot be described by a photon model, but this goes against all of current QFT. In fact the Lamb Shift experiment is a good example of the existence of radio frequency photons.

My understanding is that space is not an empty vacuum it is full of quantum fluctuations. Also my QFT book used the term in the intro quantum vacuum of space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state . My terminology might be incorrect, but I think ive got the right end of the stick.

I’m not saying you’ve got totally the wrong end of the stick, although it’s worth noting what the science advisors on one physicsforum say about the Wiki quantum vacuum articles  “written by someone who has only read popsci articles and doesn’t understand real physics”.
What I am saying is the the quantum vacuum is not the energy of space, but of a quantum vacuum in space eg for QED this is the lowest state of the quantised electromagnetic field. It may seem a subtle difference, but it is similar to saying “the stage speaks the authors words” when in fact the stage (space) is where the actors (fields, vacuums, particles, etc) exist. It is also important to recognise that quantum vacuums can exist for any quantum system so it’s important to be specific, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_(disambiguation)

12

Chemistry / Re: Where does the spent car tire rubber go?

« on: 06/09/2019 17:47:46 »

One thing to keep in mind is that the rubber will decompose over time.   A car tire will completely decompose in 50-80 yrs.
But this doesn't mean that there should still be 50-80 yrs worth of accumulation of worn tire rubber left around.  That 50-80 yr figure is for a tire that is still one large single lump of rubber not already broken up into innumerable small particles.
An analogy is like dropping a salt lick block whole into a lake and grinding it to a powder first and scattering it over the whole lake. The block will take a lot longer to dissolve than the powder will.

Stupid question but micro plastics hang around and never completely disappear. They apparently wind up back in the food chain. Does rubber and plastic not decompose in a similar way, do we have micro rubbers:) in the food chain as well as plastics.

No, rubber and plastic do not decompose the same way, not even all plastics decompose the same.  As stated, an automobile tire will decompose entirely in 50-80 years. A plastic bottle will take ~450 yrs to decompose. Styrofoam doesn't decompose at all.  So it is Styrofoam and like materials that produce the "everlasting" micro-plastics, not all plastics.  That is not to say you can't have micro-particles of rubber or plastics in the food chain, especially if we are producing the materials at a faster rate than they decompose. 

13

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How Can This Black Hole Be So Big Ton 618 ?

« on: 21/08/2019 16:33:12 »

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole#Formation

If black holes evaporate via Hawking radiation, a supermassive black hole with a mass of 1011 (100 billion) M☉ will evaporate in around 2×10^100 years . Would galaxies drift apart without their blackholes??

Estimated mass of SMBH at center of our galaxy: 4 million solar masses.
Total estimated mass of our galaxy 700 billion solar masses.
So the SMBH only makes up 0.0006% of the mass of the galaxy.  It's loss would have an insignificant effect on the dynamics of the galaxy.
For comparison the Sun converts about the same percentage of its mass to light in just under 1,000,000 years.  Ergo, A galaxy would loose mass via radiation loss at a faster rate than it would by SMBH evaporation, even if the SMBH were free to evaporate. 
Secondly, For a BH to even lose net mass via evaporation, It would need to lose energy/mass at a faster rate than it takes in.  Matter, starlight, and even the Cosmic background radiation all all sources which will feed the BH. 
The basic rule is that the Hawking temp of the BH has to higher than the average ambient temp of its surroundings.  Even if we remove all other sources, the CMBR still remains.  Hawking Temp goes down with size, and beyond a certain size, a BH will be below the CMBR temp.    This mass is approximately equal to that of our moon.

Ergo, before any SMBH at the center of any galaxy can even start to experience a net loss of mass via Hawking radiation, the universe will have to have expanded and cooled by a great deal, the galaxies would have had to used up their source of hydrogen for forming new stars, and remaining husks of old stars will have to have cooled significantly.( considering the fact that small red dwarfs can burn for trillions of years, and It can take a quadrillion years (or longer) for the white dwarf formed at the end of solar mass range stars to cool to black dwarf stage, you are going to be for a long wait.   If the "Big Rip" hypothesis is correct, run away expansion of the universe would have torn galaxies, star systems and even stars themselves apart before then, so it would be a bit of a moot point.

14

New Theories / Re: Are all photons mediated in the same way through the quantum vacuum

« on: 18/07/2019 08:51:32 »

I sorry, but we don’t have the time to run a detailed course on QED/QFT but I’ll try to answer as much as time allows and then suggest that you spend time trying to understand the theory via a course in Quantum Systems.

Feynmans virtual photons are just mathematical simplifications of field interactions, for peasants, which I think I realized already.

you obviously have a very poor opinion of students of quantum theory 
Feynman originally developed the diagrams as a calculation aid for students on his course on quantum theory. Just as Einstein had a ‘thing’ about quantum theory, Feynman had a ‘thing’ about field theory and wanted to express the interactions as particles - there are indications that he later regretted this terminology. The virtual particles are internal processes and are only metaphors for multivariate integrals. The term is often used between researchers as jargon/shorthand rather than meaning particles as we think of them eg electron. The real problem is that in physics a lot of prior understanding is taken for granted, so a QED/QFT text book doesn’t expect you to leap in without studying a few years of physics and quantum theory and so doesn’t bother to explain the background.

I am correct in concluding that Feynmans virtual particles do not exist in reality,

Correct.
The virtual particles are metaphors for multivariate integrals, there are no 'time processes of virtual particles. Nobody ever has written down an equation for the time evolution of virtual particles. While a case can be made that virtual particles exist at least as lines on paper, no such case can be made for their time evolution.

and are not the same virtual particles as those predicted to exist in space by Casimir via calculations based on the uncertainty principle, supported experimentally. Giving rise to various quantum foam/gravity theories.

They are the very same, but their ‘existence’ is not predicted or supported experimentally. Experiments can confirm that results of the calculations represented by the shorthand/diagrams are correct (real).

Further more virtual particle pairs borrowing there energy from the quantum vacuum of space momentarily, are nothing to do with QFT, other than they both use the term virtual particles.

They are the same.

You keep mentioning space when referring to vacuum.
3D space (which can have a vacuum) is not the same as quantum vacuum. A quantum vacuum is the lowest energy state of a quantum system, any quantum system eg molecular bonds, it is not the same as spacial vacuum. If we take a simple Newtonian system eg a weight hanging from a string it has zero energy as it hangs there (disregarding the energy in the mass of the weight and the potential energy which would be released if you cut the string); if you set this system oscillating it will have its maximum ke at the bottom and its minimum at the top of the arc - where it spends most of its time.
The quantum version of this oscillator has its minimum energy at the bottom - where it spends most of its time - but this energy is not zero. This none zero minimum energy is a feature of all quantum systems and is due to the fact that there is uncertainty in the position and momentum of the particles. It’s not that they are flitting about, it’s a way of handling the uncertainty of a probabilistic system.
You don’t really borrow energy from the quantum vacuum, the correct way to look at this is with time/energy uncertainty ie Δt ≥ h/2ΔE . What this is telling you is that if you want to detect the presence or absence of a particle whose rest mass energy (E = mc²) is equal to ΔE, you need to look for at least a time Δt. You can look for longer if you like, but this is the minimum observation time needed to ensure that the uncertainty in your measurement is less than the energy of the particle. If you look for less time, your energy uncertainty will be bigger than the mass energy, and you can't be sure whether the particle was really there or not and in QM the probability is nonzero, but if you look for a longer time they aren’t there - you didn’t see them. Again this is a way of handling uncertainty in the equations.

Adding further to my confusion I googled for a link on evidence for the Casimir effect experiment which I know exists, and stumbled across this link https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-virtual-particles-rea/ Which leads me to think perhaps the terminology used by different Quantum theories leads to further confusion

.
He was criticised by a number of physicists for this article as being misleading. Remember also the difference between physics and the maths we use to describe it - "existence" for physics means "measurable", for mathematics "possible to be included in a self consistent theory”, quite often there is confusion in the use of these terms.
I’ve already given you links on the problems of virtual particles being considered real (in the physics sense) and the problem of considering them as cause of Hawking radiation, but here is another link explaining, try to read and understand beyond where it says “this visualization is not for real particles, but virtual ones. They are calculational tools only, not physically observable entities”. https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-how-do-hawking-radiation-and-relativistic-jets-escape-from-a-black-hole-b7a4ef7d9bdf

Just to recap on virtual particles and vacuum fluctuation, important to read and understand before diving into your QED book:
https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/misconceptions-virtual-particles/
https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/physics-virtual-particles/
https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/vacuum-fluctuation-myth/
Also some comments by Prof Baez http://physicsfaq.co.uk/Relativity/BlackHoles/hawking.html

No. They are real photons.

This statement disagrees with my text book, section on QED. I will re read the section very slowly, I do not think I have misunderstood what I read.

Are you possibly redefining what a photon is, and giving it EM characteristics?

I think you must be misreading, it would be unusual for a book on QED to mention antenna and radio waves specifically, all em fields are treated in the same way no matter what their energy. Are you sure your not looking at the evanescent field close to the antenna?
A photon does not need to be redefined to have em characteristics, they are embedded in its Maxwell equation source where a photon is just a quantisation of the em gauge field (in other words it is the field measured with a value of one quanta when detected). See first few paragraphs of: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/research-centres-and-groups/theoretical-physics/msc/current/qed/Photons.pdf

15

New Theories / Re: Are all photons mediated in the same way through the quantum vacuum

« on: 16/07/2019 00:01:52 »

Now some food for thought. From here https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/misconceptions-virtual-particles/

"States involving virtual particles cannot be created since quantum field theory has creation operators only for observable particles whose 4-momentum satisfies the mass-shell constraint. For lack of a state, virtual particles have none of the usual physical characteristics of real particles: They cannot be said to exist in space and time, have no position, no meaningful probabilities to be created or destroyed anywhere, no life-time, cannot cause anything, interact with anything or affect anything. Therefore there is also no dynamics, speed of motion, or world lines. (In physics, dynamics is always tied to states and an equation of motion. Neither exists for virtual particles.)"

That sums it up in a nutshell, or off-shell if you prefer. If you wish to argue otherwise feel free to but in new theories.

16

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Can Special Relativity be derived from Newtonian Mechanics?

« on: 07/05/2019 02:53:02 »

Am I correct in thinking acceleration is to do with general relativity and not special relativity? Special relativity deals with none accelerating objects does it not.

Special relativity deals with acceleration just fine.  General relativity introduce the equivalence principle with allowed the properties of gravitational fields to be (locally) described in terms of accelerating reference frames.
Newton's equations did not cap speed of mass at c.  F=ma.  If you continue to apply force to an object, the acceleration will continue up to any beyond c.  With SR, acceleration (not proper acceleration) drops off and that same force just drives up m after a while.  They do this in particle accelerators where getting a particle to near light speed is easy, but then they just add mass to the thing until up to the limits of the magnetic field to hold it in its path.

Using simple algebra and tracing the path of a photon between two moving mirrors, will result in time dilation for an observer in a stationary reference frame.

Reference frames are not stationary.  Things are stationary relative to them.
That said, I see what you are getting at.  Newton probably wouldn't consider the light device to be a clock since without knowing its speed, there is no way to tell how far the light needs to travel.  Not like there is any real light clock anyway.  How would you get it to work?  You can't measure a photon going between mirrors, counting cycles.  A photon can be measured but once.

17

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Can Special Relativity be derived from Newtonian Mechanics?

« on: 06/05/2019 23:04:16 »

The photon moves further and so ticks slower for a stationary observer.

Perhaps you are thinking that Newton could have discovered the Doppler effect long before Doppler: the frequency of light shifts towards the red when you are moving away from an object.

But this depends on understanding light as a wave - and Newton came down on the side of the debate that said "light is a particle".

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpuscular_theory_of_light#Isaac_Newton

Now we understand that light has characteristics of both a wave and a particle, so we can apply Doppler shift to light (such as in Police radar).

But this is a long way from understanding that:
- Light has a specific speed (in a vacuum): would not have been known until Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism
- Every observer sees light with this speed (in their own lab)
- This paradox is related to time dilation of observers moving relative to each other
- The existence of this paradox would not have been understood before the Michelson-Morley experiment
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment#Most_famous_%22failed%22_experiment

18

New Theories / Re: Can a photon be visualized ?

« on: 06/05/2019 18:12:56 »

Sorry, missed this

Can I just clarify this, are you saying there is no clear link between virtual particle pairs around the transmitter, acquiring energy, momentum. Followed by them becoming real photons due to either instability or coming back together and annihilating each, not unlike a positron electron collision, but at much lower energy levels.

If you look at the fields in the near field you see something akin to what sailors call a confused sea, many small (compared to a propagating photon) disturbances with no clear relationship. The E field is often greater than the H and then this will reverse, the phase relationship between E and H varies, and all polarisations are present. Although all these field disturbances will superpose there is not enough consistency to generate  a regular supply of photons - although some can be found in this zone - and the confused disturbances will be viewed as virtual photons. As the fields get further from the influence of the inductance and capacitance of the antenna the fields become more coherent with E and H becoming orthogonal and having a clear phase relationship, polarisation settles to that of the antenna and we begin to see what we would describe as coherent photons (as with a laser).
By the way, you might want to read this which puts what Strassler was saying in different words. https://www.livescience.com/55833-what-are-virtual-particles.html
One of my pet hates is the way people take physics shorthand and reinterpret it as a ‘thing’.

Are you viewing the photons in a quantized radio wave as individual photons, or something else?

They are individual photons. Not so obvious as the low energy means they are in the thermal noise and you need cooled detectors to find them.

Since the electromagnetic field of Maxwell's theory based on Faraday's induction effect is expanding, how do you depict the particle STRUCTURE of a Planck's EM photon, Einstein's EM photon, QM photon, QED photon, QFT photon or a string photon.

The em field is only expanding for a point source spherical wave. The photon is a plane wave group so propagates in one direction only.

For instance maxwells equations state an EM wave travels from A to B, and shows how it spreads out.

Maxwell’s equations do not show how an em wave spreads out. The inverse sq law spread is only valid for point source spherical waves. Maxwell’s equations are equally valid for plane waves, which do not spread out. Photon equations in qft use Maxwell’s equations.

19

New Theories / Re: Can a photon be visualized ?

« on: 28/04/2019 09:34:50 »

I think I stumbled on the answer in wiki

Glad you’ve found what you are looking for. From our point of view these things are ‘givens’ and it’s hard to know quite what you are looking for amid all your searchings.
To clarify some things and hopefully help your understanding:

Would I be correct in thinking that virtual particle pairs coming into existence momentarily around the transmitting antennae, are separated by the electro magnetic field, become real, but not stable so decay into real photons.

The best way to visualise this is to start with the standard illustration of the em wave/photon. In this the oscillating electric and magnetic field vectors have a definite amplitude/phase relationship and the 2 field vectors are clearly linked and interdependent.
Around the antenna, there are high intensity (relatively) electric and magnetic fields and some of these can be thought of as feeding back both into the antenna and into the near fields - similar to back emf in a coil. So there is no clear, stable relationship between the field vectors and the field intensities are irregular, and so no stable propagation.

Does the receiving antennae, absorb the inertia of the photons, or is their some other virtual particle interaction.?

As Alan said, best not to call it inertia, therein lies confusion.
When the photon/wave reaches the receiving antenna the oscillating fields move the free electrons in a similar oscillating motion. Because we are not trying to explain particle creation or anything esoteric there is no reason to propose a virtual particle interaction.

I was in the middle of replying to some of your earlier post, so I’ll put them in to help your visualisation.

In any case when a single photon is absorbed it ceases to exist. When part of a radio wave is absorbed by a receiver, the rest of the radio wave continues to exist. There is no instantaneous wave function collapse.

If you switch on a light bulb it illuminates the whole room, just because some photons hit your eye and cease to exist (wave function collapse) doesn’t mean the room goes dark.

A single photon is not a radio wave.

No one ever said it is, just that radio waves also consist of photons.
You quote: “Here is a good link explaining the history of what we have been waffling on about, with a photo of a photon https://www.b.com/science/what-is-photon-definition-04322/ “
If you look at the end of that link you will see it says:
Not only is light made up of photons, but all electromagnetic energy (i.e. microwaves, radio waves, X-rays) is made up of photons.

You are misunderstanding the meaning of the wave particle duality.

No, you are misunderstanding the meaning. At the end of the same article it says:
The theory that states that light behaves both like a wave and a particle is called the wave-particle duality theory.
It is the behaviour that is important.

Individual Photons which transmit the electro magnetic force perhaps interact, and the emf is a stronger effect than the gravity effect 

Nooooo. Photons do not experience emf interaction between one another.
They do carry energy and under GR would create a grav field, but it is so minuscule that it will not influence the divergence. Wheeler did some work on this and concluded that parallel photons do not attract,  but anti-parallel do.

On the contrary, photons move through space in absolutely straight lines (alright, geodesics if you must) at a constant speed. Nothing remotely erratic about it.

I dont think Feynman would agree with you. But photons bashing their way through the atmosphere are deflected, by air molecules, and there is no such thing as empty space, its got dust and a very small amount of hydrogen. You also have the dark matter effect, causing allsorts of speculation.

Feynman would agree. He developed the many paths integral which considers the total possible paths the photon can take and shows that the most likely is the shortest distance between 2 points - usually a straight line - all the other paths destructively interfering and cancelling out. Although there is a finite, but extremely small probability the photon takes a different path it does not wander around.

Since you are not going to correct this i will, Photons have no charge or magnetic field and are not deflected by them in any way. Which leaves you with > they are deflected by something else, like the air they are moving through or quantum foam.

If you are going to correct your error the at least correct it correctly.
Let’s take the laser beam which is the least divergent light source we have. Its divergence is determined by diffraction as the beam leaves the aperture/front face of the source and is determined by both the wavelength of the light and inversely by the diameter of the aperture.
Once the beam is on its way then, yes, it will be subject to scattering etc by material on its path.

A photon is a quantum thing best explained at the quantum level, and movement is best predicted by a probaility wave,

The wave is a mathematical probability wave of finding a particle along that path. It s not a real thing,

It is important to be clear which ‘wave’ we are talking about.
A wave function allows you to calculate the probabilities of the various values of measured characteristics of a system, however, the textbook interpretation of Schrodinger wavefunctions is not applicable to photons. In particular it is impossible to find, for photons, a vector-valued position operator with commuting coordinates which transforms under rotations like a vector. This implies that there is no consistent notion of probability density for a photon along its path. However, it is possible to define a probability of detecting a photon at a particular location.

In QFT particles are waves and a photon is now described under QFT which uses the normal modes of the (source-free) electromagnetic field from Maxwell’s equations and views them as quantum oscillators. So the waves we are talking about are the same waves as described by Maxwell, and the photon as a quantisation of this wave.

Am I correct "the superposition of particles is not required to explain the double slit experiment" ? 

On the contrary, in QFT superposition (interference) is key to double slit description and is treated in a similar way to the classical view of a plane wave passing through both slits and interfering.


Note: Inertia is an intrinsic characteristic of the object related to its mass. Inertia tells you how much force it will take to cause a particular acceleration on the object. Momentum is a function of an object's mass and velocity. Momentum is a measure of the kinetic energy of the object

20

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How do black holes evaporate?

« on: 18/04/2019 23:33:09 »

I was looking for an example of an imbalance event where matter is created or destroyed without respectively creating or destroying an equal amount of antimatter.

A few Nobel Prizes have been awarded for discovering events that are not totally symmetric between matter and antimatter.
However, the degree of asymmetry is quite small in these scenarios, and these are not thought to be nearly strong enough to account for the total dominance of matter in out part of the universe (and the amount of matter in relation to the amount of photons).
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_violation#Direct_CP_violation

the 'nothing passes in' argument

This is true from the view of distant observers, and does solve the information paradox for distant observers.
But from the viewpoint of someone falling into a black hole, there is no information paradox, and they do pass the location of the event horizon (from the viewpoint of a distant observer).

but the impact (of 2 black holes) may also have slowed the spin of the internal undefined stuff inside the resultant BH

When black holes collide, their total angular momentum is conserved.
- Angular momentum is a vector - it has both direction and magnitude.

It is most likely that two black holes from different sources would have quite different directions and magnitudes of angular momentum.
- So when they collide, the angular momentum partially cancels out, resulting in an intermediate direction and a reduced magnitude
- In the extremely unlikely event that two black holes had equal and opposite angular momentum, and collided along their equators, you could end up with a non-spinning black hole.

but the impact may also have slowed the spin of the internal undefined stuff inside the resultant BH, causing it to lose energy via the gravitational wave.

Radiation of gravitational energy is related to conservation of energy: Gravitational potential energy and gravitational waves.
- The gravitational waves convey information about the angular momentum of the black holes, but gravitational waves are not primarily caused by conservation of angular momentum.