Re: feynman video and photons

Ancient_Hacker wrote:

For a Nobel prize, please explain how an electromagnetic wave, spread
out evenly over a square meter, can cause one electron to jump out.

For a second prize, explain why the electron sometimes jumps out after
1/10th of a second, when the electromagnetic wave hasnt delivered a
full second's worth of energy,

You're wrong; those aren't Nobel-grade discoveries... and apparently
both
were made decades ago and are long known by physicists. The
photoelectric
effect is not proof of photons. Heh. Everything we know, is wrong.
See:

Lamb W E and Scully M O 1969
The photoelectric effect without photons
Polarization, Matiere et Rayonnement edn
Soci´et´e Fran¸caise de Physique
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France)

That "Lamb" is WIllis Lamb, who got the Physics Nobel in 1955

Some physicists even complain about the misconceptions spread by
undergrad
texts, such as the misconception that "Einstein's photoelectric effect
proves
the existence of photons." In fact the photoelectric effect can be
explained by
Classical EM fields if we allow vacuum fluctuations to exist. Photons
may
exist, but it takes a much more subtle experiment to prove this. A
good article
on this topic is by the author of the textbook "Quantum Optics" and is
found
in the collection below:

The concept of the photon-revisited
A. Muthukrishnan, M. Scully, M. Zubairy

Found in "The Nature of Light: What Is a Photon?"
Oct 2003 Optical Soc. of Am, Optics/Photonics News
http://www.osa-opn.org/abstract.cfm?URI=OPN-14-10-49

Other papers in the above collection are excellent. The discuss the
real
evidence for photons, and get us questioning the old incorrect textbook
stuff
were taught never to question ...and force us to (gasp) Actually
Think!

Lest you assume that Lamb's paper was the last on this topic, please be
aware that physicsts are STILL arguing over whether EM fields are
quantized
(whether photons actually exist,) and are still looking for experiments
which
supply an unequivocal answer. Zubairy mentions that these issues are
discussed in Quantum Optics, but I've never tracked that one down. The
whole OPA/OSN collection above has lots on this. And a quick google
search turns up a recent paper from 2001:

Proposed experiment to test photon anticorrelation with quantitatively
controllable source emission rate
http://ej.iop.org/links/q50/5U25DXuTmMzsTPFxBvezCg/ob1411.pdf
Abstract
We describe a proposed experiment that will establish whether or not
the
optical field is quantized. We argue that previous attempts to
establish this
have not been conclusive. Quantum optics and Maxwell electrodynamics
predict different outcomes for the experiment which is an improved
version
of that performed by Brown and Twiss in 1956 (Nature 177 27-9). The
Brown-Twiss experiment did not distinguish between the two theories
because its source was classical. In the proposed experiment, a weak
light
signal is achieved without selective deletion, and it can be either
Poissonian
or sub-Poissonian.


Myself, I believe in photons 90%, but have learned enough that I
wouldn't
be suprised if EM fields turn out to be real, and photons turn out to
be
a big and long-running mistake. The last big mistake was the Aether
theory which was shot down by photons. It would be quite ironic if
the physicists of a hundred years hence become convinced that neither
Aether nor photons exist. :)

((((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( (o) ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty Research Engineer
beaty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx UW Chem Dept, Bagley Hall RM74
billb@xxxxxxxxxx Box 351700, Seattle, WA 98195-1700
ph425-222-5066 http//staff.washington.edu/wbeaty/

.

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