Re: How many photons in one airy disc?



On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 17:48:43 -0700, Jürgen Appel
<jappel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>What you probably mean is, that a photon does not have to be localized.

I agree with that, but it isn't what I meant, which was that there is no
such thing as a "ray" consisting of a stream of photons, because no two
photons will be in exactly the same path. I suppose you could create
some definition of ray that included a non-zero width (radius), and the
resulting finite volume could be seen as containing a stream of photons.
But I can't think of any particularly useful reason for doing that.

My sense was that the OP was viewing a ray as if it were some sort of
physical entity.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
.



Relevant Pages

  • Re: stochastic algorithm query?
    ... lights - a real light floods the environment with photons in all directions, ... but I'm relying on the chance that a back-traced ray might hit a light. ... on the subtleties of indirect illumination. ... In this approach you will construct paths of photons from the ...
    (comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing)
  • Re: How many photons in one airy disc?
    ... >The photons in one light ray has the same angle. ... So an airy disc has all the photons ... Now in a second ray of light, ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Which Polarizer?
    ... z-axis and in the same plane, it retards the phase of this wave by 1/4 ... It is, BTW, conventional to refer to the first of your two directions as the ordinary ray and the one retarded relative to it as the extraordinary ray. ... Explanations of polarisation always ... seemed that confusion was arising between the phase coherence between different photons, and the phase coherence of the two orthogonal vector directions of any given photon. ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)
  • Re: Which Polarizer?
    ... provided it is understood that the retardation is ... the one retarded relative to it as the extraordinary ray. ... and the phase coherence of the two orthogonal vector ... I do not see the need to discuss photons (in addition to ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)
  • Re: How many photons in one airy disc?
    ... Chris L Peterson wrote: ... > such thing as a "ray" consisting of a stream of photons, ... > photons will be in exactly the same path. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)

Loading