Re: The physical motions of photons in free space!


harry wrote:
> surrealistic-dream@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > Harry wrote:
> > > <surrealistic-dream@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
....
> > >
> > > > Einstein made it very clear in his essays, even if SR books do not. To
> > > > Einstein, such an absolute space (i.e., inertial frame) would imply
> > > > that Nature has arbitrarily selected one inertial frame out of an
> > > > infinite number of them to be special (i.e., the laws of
> > > > electrodynamics are "true" in that frame only because measuring rods
> > > > and clocks are undistorted in that frame). Einstein regarded such a
> > > > possibility as a violation of his philosophic notion of the harmony of
> > > > nature and the egalitarianism of inertial frames (PoR). He also claimed
> > > > that nature does not seem to reveal any such frame in practice: Neither
> > > > the mechanics of Newton nor any experiment in electrodynamics seems to
> > > > reveal that any inertial frame is any different for the invention of
> > > > the laws of physics from any other inertial frame. So, to Einstein, at
> > > > heart Nature acts to rigorously maintain the PoR and the Light
> > > > Principle (locally), but not the dependence of light speed on the
> > > > source's motion. I emphasize that when I say "speed," I mean actual
> > > > measured speed, not some hypothetical, unmeasurable speed.
> > >
> > > I also read all that. But what I meant, can you clarify the physical light
> > > propagation model that Einstein had in mind?
> >
> > I can't. And I don't think it can be done, for reasons I gave above.
> > Einstein referred to SR as a principle (as opposed to a constructive)
> > theory because it lacked any attempt whatsoever to provide a
> > hypothetical model of propagation of E&M effects.
>
> There is a difference between not doing something, claiming that it
> can't be done, and the fact if something may be possible or not, in
> principle.

I am referring to inventing a model of a "true" photon path with the
photon modeled as a point particle.

>
> > He said that SR was
> > the logical step away from Maxwell's mechanical ether, taking in the
> > practice of late ninteenth century physicists to treat the E and B
> > fields as irreducible to mechanical explanation. In other words, their
> > habit was to treat the E and B fields as described solely by the
> > so-called Maxwell equations and leave it at that, leaving the ether as
> > superfluous to calculation. If you want a model of light propagation
> > based on SR, see Feynman's treatment in his book QED.
>
> As I remarked in another posting, Feynman admitted that QED is not
> capable of doing that - at least not at that time, and I never read
> something new. I now quote him:
>
> "The situation today is, we haven't got a good model to explain partial
> reflection by two surfaces; we just calculate the probability"


I'm talking about SOME model, "good" or not good: Feynman's model of
light propagation was that light takes all paths through spacetime to
get from source to destination. This model does a lot of good
prediction though. All you're admitting to is that commonsense models
of quantum phenomena can be difficult, to say the least. Commonsense
may not ever work at this level.

Commonsense has been shown to be a detriment to understanding physics
in the first place. There is extensive liturature on this.

>
> > I may be wrong, but I think that it was Heaviside who said, poetically,
> > that electrodynamics and Maxwell's equations are the same thing.
> >
> > > Don't forget that Einstein
> > > believed that photons really travel from A to B, and that light speed is
> > > dictated by space.
> >
> > My only answer to that is to reply that Einstein said that the MMX null
> > result is strange. He knew that light was not obeying commonsense,
> > whatever it was really obeying.
>
> Perhaps he *thought* so. Belief in magic makes one just give up trying
> to find commonsense explanations - but Einstein did try to find
> commonsense explanations of quantum physics.

I didn't say "magic." Einstein attempted to find field-theoretic
solutions to the problems he wanted to work on in the second have of
his life, but the field concept is a recent invention in physics, thus
it is not commonsensical.

.

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