Re: Odd behavior of a Single Photon

<softwarelabus@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1116382997.083234.294080@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| FrediFizzx wrote:
| > > <frankli...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
| > > I think it should never be treated like a bullet like particle,
but
| it really is a
| > > wavepacket of fixed length spreading out spherically from the
| source
| > > of the emission and reducing in amplitude by the square of the
| distance.
| >
| > That doesn't look right. What makes you think a single photon "will
| > spread out in a spherical shell"? How could that be possible?
|
| That's a good question. Although I know in physics a photon is
| consider a wave. The photon is emmited and absorbed like a particle
| but during that intermediate transition the photon is a wave-- it
| moves, diffracts, and bends, and spreads out over space like a wave.
| >From our perspective, the photon may seem like a particle. For
| example, consider a high-energy photon such as from an x-ray or gamma
| ray photon. If we have an x-ray generator and an x-ray sensor grid
| near by then we would see single flashes from each single x-ray
photon,
| correct? I don't know-- that's the type of experiment I would like to
| read about. If x-rays were a wave then one would think that the
entire
| grid would light up. BUT, this is misleading. Perhaps this is just
| another confirmation of "Collapse of the wave function." Please read
| the section under " Do photons really exist?" in professor Richard A.
| Muller of Berkeley's article
|
http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/chapters_Jan_2005/Chapter10.htm
|
| Here is the section of text ->
| +++++++++++
| By Professor Richard A. Muller of Berkeley:
|
| Do photons really exist?
|
| We've been talking about photons as if they are particles. Yet we
know
| that they are electromagnetic waves. So how can we do that? Do
| photons really exist? Are they particles, waves, or both? Now we are
| discussing the heart of quantum physics. Don't expect simple answers
| to these simple questions. The answers are bound to be confusing.
But
| let's give it a try.
|
| Light behaves as a wave - except when it is emitted or absorbed. All
| the quantum features showed themselves only during these times. Of
| course, that is when we interact with them, so that is important. But
| in between - after emission and before absorption - the "photon"
nature
| of light doesn't seem to exist.
|
| If that strikes you as weird, then I am glad. It is weird, and it
| still bothers many physicists. Let me illustrate what it means with a
| simple example, the soap bubble.
|
| Recall that the colors of the soap bubble came about because some of
| the light wave bounced off the inner surface of the bubble, and some
| bounced off the front surface, and when these two waves came together,
| the waves interfered. Some colors (the ones that came out in phase
| with each other) were made stronger, and some (those that cancelled)
| were made weaker or nonexistent.
|
| How does this interference fit in with the picture of photons? Let's
| imagine that we turn down the intensity of the light until only one
| photon every minute is detected reflecting off the soap bubble. You
| might think that the photon was reflected off the outer surface of the
| bubble, or off the inner surface, but obviously it couldn't have been
| reflected off both. So at very low levels of light, you would think
| that all the colors that arise from wave cancellation would disappear.
| You can't possibly have beats when only one photon is present! Right?
| Wrong.
|
| THE EXPERIMENT HAS BEEN DONE, NOT WITH SOAP BUBBLES, but with mirrors.
| In fact, it is not hard to do, and can be done by undergraduate
physics
| majors in the upper division laboratory. The results are unambiguous.
| It is as if the photon split in half, and bounced off both surfaces.
| So the photon behaves like a wave, right up to the point where you
| detect it. Only then is the particle behavior evident.
|
| In fact, the best way to think of light is as a wave that can be
| emitted or absorbed only in quanta - but that in between, it is a
wave.
| It moves like a wave, diffracts like a wave, bends like a wave, and
| interferes like a wave. But it is not emitted and absorbed like a
| wave, but like a particle. This is, as I mentioned previously, the
| famous "wave-particle duality" of quantum mechanics that mystifies
many
| people. But it mystifies them only because they think particles and
| waves are different things. I like to use the term "particle-wave" or
| "wave-particle" because real things have some of the properties of
| both.
| +++++++++++

"Wavicle" is probably more appropriate. The fact that a photon doesn't
"spread out" as a spherical shell is probably why it has particle-like
properties. But there is more. If we take the quantum "vacuum" to be a
relativistic medium, then all there really are is fermions, virtual
fermions, and "less than virtual" fermions. Then re-interpretation is
necessary as fermions do have direct contact with each other. Photons
and other elementary bosons are just collective motions of this
fermionic medium.

FrediFizzx

http://www.vacuum-physics.com/QVC/quantum_vacuum_charge.pdf
or postscript
http://www.vacuum-physics.com/QVC/quantum_vacuum_charge.ps

.

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