Re: Critique of the "photon" theory of electromagnetic radiation
- From: Oz <Oz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 00:53:45 +0000 (UTC)
FrediFizzx <fredifizzx@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>"Oz" <Oz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>| 1) For any give emission of a photon by an atom we can locally obtain
>| the direction of emission from the recoil of the emitting atom (to some
>| level of accuracy).
>
>However, this limits the energy of a photon to that range which would
>recoil just one atom. Can a lower energy photon recoil just one atom?
No, and interestingly nor can a higher energy photon.
The range of energies of absorbable photons is as narrow as the range of
emitted photons. This is because, in effect (and actually)
absorbtion/emission is a matched tuned/resonant system.
Of course one can brutally strip electrons from atoms by applying an
adequately large electric field, but this is many orders of magnitude
higher fields than pertain to the resonant system.
>| 3) Similarly for any given absorption (why is this not spelled
>| absorbtion to go with absorb?) we can locally obtain the direction the
>| photon came from by measuring the recoil.
>
>Same argument. And a noticable recoil of an atom would maybe require a
>photon in the range of going from soft to hard photons.
Maybe. I did once ask for , and IIRC offered a simple analysis for, the
recoil from a cold emitting H atom. It was indeed rather small.
>| Unfortunately this description is just that, a description, and isn't
>| much help in predicting. Predictive techniques have been developed..
>|
>| Even worse I suspect that a QM description of a single photon with a
>| reasonably well-defined momentum (ie direction) would be somewhat non-
>| trivial to set up. A complex function of an infinity of states with
>| expectation one, whether its done in particle or wave formulation. I
>| find it odd that such a simple, in fact the simplest, photon interaction
>| requires such a heavyweight description at the 'fundamental' level. One
>| would think such a description would be a simple basic function of QM.
>| But I digress....
>
>In the relativistic medium picture, it is even more complex. Photons in
>QED looks like a simplification compared to that. ;-)
Somehow this doesn't surprise me at all.
>Photons in the
>relativistic medium picture have to have a mix of both electroweak and
>strong in them.
Ugh!
>With low energy photons not have very much of the
>strong force mixed in but high energy photons should have a higher
>degree of the strong force mixed in. Seems logical since high energy
>photons can produce hadrons. Charge is charge. We just happen to have
>different kinds of charge. It's a mechanical process even if it is
>quantum *mechanical*.
Waves are perfectly mechanical objects.
I suspect particle waves are not trivial though,
else it would be well understood by now.
>Yes, it is easy to take the viewpoint that the quantum nature of photons
>is from the emitters and detectors. For me that seems to go against the
>Standard Model where all the elementary particles are excitations of the
>quantum "vacuum".
The standard model is a descriptor.
A potent and powerful descriptor.
But it uses the particulate description for all the (very good) reasons
I gave earlier.
>This indicates to me that space-time and matter are
>"composed" of the same stuff. Just configured differently. If that is
>the case, then hbar has to be a "vacuum" process just like c. This
>means a free space electromagnetic field can be quantized. IMHO, it is.
Maybe. However I don't have any serious evidence to support that, whilst
there is reams of evidence for photons being entirely wavelike. Massive
particles are clearly different and have something 'extra', ie rest
mass. This appears to result in an inability to disperse. One
instinctively reaches for a soliton-like description for these, hence my
longstanding (if shallow) interest in these. One can imagine that a
soliton-like description would give an object where if it disperses
spatially it condenses temporally and vice-versa. That could neatly
express h in an elemental way.
>There is very little doubt in my mind that both space-time and matter
>are quantized and composed of the same "stuff".
I would not disagree. In fact I would go further and say that matter
makes spacetime, the two are identical.
>If you haven't read it
>yet, I highly suggest Volovik's "The Universe in a Helium Droplet". He
>concludes with the proposal that all physics is emergent from analogies
>of superfluid helium studies with the quantum "vacuum" except for hbar.
>Hbar remains fundamental.
I'm currently struggling through the koran. Its very heavy weather but
the most shocking religious document I have ever read. I may be some
time in completing it.
>For now. I can see that what is might be
>more fundamental than hbar is a fractal of the sqrt(hbar). The key is
>the the geometrical configuration of the interactions of the fundamental
>entities that make all of this. Is string theory the answer to the hbar
>question?
Hey!
You aren't allowed random cranky speculation,
that's my job.
--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Use oz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [ozacoohdb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx functions].
BTOPENWORLD address has ceased. DEMON address has ceased.
.
- References:
- Critique of the "photon" theory of electromagnetic radiation
- From: Robin Whittle
- Critique of the "photon" theory of electromagnetic radiation
- Prev by Date: Re: Renormalization
- Next by Date: Re: Finite time calculation in QED
- Previous by thread: Re: Critique of the "photon" theory of electromagnetic radiation
- Next by thread: Re: Critique of the "photon" theory of electromagnetic radiation
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
