Re: wave and light
From: tadchem (tadchemNOSPAM_at_comcast.net)
Date: 09/17/04
- Next message: mitch perkins: "Re: Russia Getting Set To Pull An Uncle Al?"
- Previous message: mmeron_at_cars3.uchicago.edu: "Re: Aether is the empty space in which the Universe sits"
- In reply to: Old Man: "Re: wave and light"
- Next in thread: Andr? Michaud: "Re: wave and light"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 04:17:02 -0400
"Old Man" <nomail@nomail.net> wrote in message
news:GfSdnbhfCMVdvtfcRVn-tw@prairiewave.com...
<snip repost>
> Old Man doesn't get-it.
Apparently.
> A standing wave has E and B at 90 degrees out-of-
> phase, but, in that case, there's no met energy
> propagation or wave front.
There is also a "90 degree" phase shift in *time* as the photon propagates.
The energy oscillates between electric and magnetic fields, and the fields
themselves alternate in polarity. Imagine you are looking along a line
parallel to the motion of the photon, and its electric vector is polarized
in the vertical plane. The orientation of the EM field will cyclically
change from the 12 o'clock orientation (electric) to 3 o'clock (magnetic) to
6 o'clock (reversed electric) to 9 o'clock (reversed magnetic) and back to
12 o'clock again. Energy will be conserved even as the energy oscillates
between the two types of fields in SHO fashion. The angular momentum
pseudovector will be directed paralle to the line of travel.
> A traveling EM wave consists of coherently arranged
> photons, and while it might be empirically impossible
> to define a wave front of zero photon energy density,
> Old Man knows of no theoretical limitations against
> doing so.
A single photon is a travelling EM wave, but it cannot be called "coherent"
(i.e. sharing the polarization and phase of its travelling companions).
> Furthermore, it seems that having a wave front of
> maximal intensity involves a discontinuity in the field,
> whereas a wave front of zero intensity involves, at
> most, a discontinuity in the field gradient.
And from which of your bodily orifices does this arise?
A "wavefront of zero intensity" is a null problem. There is no wavefront
there, just an election-year promise.
Can you demonstrate the "discontinuities" of which you speak, and establish
that they are frame-independent? The only applicable "discontinuities" I
can think of at the moment are those involved in the boundaries of media
(and the corresponding boundary conditions of the wave functions), and are
therefore not applicable to photons in free space. Even those are
"discontinuities" only on the macro scale, and become gradual transitions
when prehended on an atomic scale.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
- Next message: mitch perkins: "Re: Russia Getting Set To Pull An Uncle Al?"
- Previous message: mmeron_at_cars3.uchicago.edu: "Re: Aether is the empty space in which the Universe sits"
- In reply to: Old Man: "Re: wave and light"
- Next in thread: Andr? Michaud: "Re: wave and light"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
