Re: Two-slit experiment


"Timo Nieminen" <timo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.50.0608231217460.9714-100000@xxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Ron Baker, Pluralitas! wrote:

"Timo A. Nieminen" <timo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006, Ron Baker, Pluralitas! wrote:

hf is only continuously variable insofar as f is variable. h is a
fundamental constant (so it seems). For exchange of energy between of
monochromatic field (or a mode of a total field) to be restricted to
chunks of hf does indeed imply only certain allowed sizes.

And this is a Schroedinger/quantum leap view, isn't it?

That depends on exactly what you mean by that. It isn't Schroedingerism,
strictu sensu.

Yeah, I guess I'm fuzzy on Schroedingerism.

It is a quantum leap view, implicitly, since E=hf implies
that energy exchanges happen _instantly_ (at least, on any accessible time
scale).

And I've expressed my objection to that before.


If I express the rest
of my view it sounds similar and is perhaps the same as your
intention. Towit: when energy is transfered from a massive
charged particle into radiation in the EM field any constraint
on the amount of energy is determined by the charged
particle and not by an intrinsic nature of the EM field
and that that EM radiation energy is somehow 'bundled' or has a unique
identity and acts as a unit and does not act with other such
quanta.

I don't believe it; I think it's a far more complex and irrational
explanation that this being a result of the nature of EM fields.

Hmm. I'm no Shakespear but I thought I was basically just
restating the collapse of the wave function.

I think it goes beyond that. I read your statement as "the collapse of the
wavefunction is caused _solely_ by the matter that the wavefunction
interacts with" rather than "the collapse of the wavefunction happens
because wavefunctions work that way". Whatever one might actually mean by
"collapse of a wavefunction", I think there's a big difference between
saying that it's a result of charged particles doing things or that's the
way that fields work.

I'd say you can't separate them. One can't say it is one or the other.
Collapse only happens when there is interaction with matter. I wouldn't
say that it is solely the matter or solely the wavefunction that establishes
the character.


Anyway, I initially read your statement as (determinded by the charged
particle) and not by (...), rather than (determined ...) and not by (...)
and that (EM ...). If you meant the latter, I don't see how the how "not
instrinsic"

There is nothing intrinsic in the EM field that makes
the energy of photons in the first Balmer line be what it
is. It is determined by the mass and charge of the electron
and proton of the hydrogen atom which make a resonant
system.

and "bundled" can co-exist. I'm not sure how either could be a
restatement of the collapse of the wavefunction.

Bundled in that when the bundle (photon, wavefunction, whatever)
interacts with matter it affects the whole bundle even if
part of it is on the other side of the universe. That interaction
can be total conversion/absorbtion or partial (Compton) with
associated frequency change.


One rule for EM fields vs many different rules for many different kinds
of
matter giving the same result - which is simpler?

If 'one rule for EM fields' is what you have been saying
and 'many different rules for many different kinds
of matter giving the same result' is what you say I've
been saying then I disagree with your characterization
of both.

You don't have 'one rule'. You have two 'descriptions', i.e.
'photons' and wave functions that don't have a resolvable
relationship and you have rather arbitrary rules for when
you use one description or the other. You also have
things of spatial extent appearing
and disappearing instantaneously.

No. The fields are described by Maxwell at all times. The addition/removal
of energy is what is quantised - this is the only place where photons
intrude.

Right there. You spoke of the field and the photon as
separate things.

Previously you have said:
"The wavefunction is what we calculate; the photon is what
we measure. Perhaps this means that the photon is real and the
wavefunction is mathematical. OTOH, the photon is merely the quantum of
excitation of the wavefunction, so vice versa."

When I asked how changing a component of the wavefunction
changes the photon you said you didn't know. You seem to
be viewing them as separate.

Seems to me an EM quantum (alternatively refered to as a photon
or a wavefunction) has to be one thing.

An annihilation operator doesn't destroy the mode, it just
reduces the number of quanta in it by 1. Well, at least that's my summary
of QED in one paragraph. AFAICT, there's no wave-particle _duality_ in
QED. There are fields, which are quantised, and that's that.

How is that quantization expressed in QED?
(As background, to illustrate my level of proficiency: I know
Schroedinger's equation, have read and followed the derivation
of hydrogen energy levels, and have written a C simulation of
an unbound particle in one dimension.)

There is
nothing that looks like a classical particle, at least when you look
closely.

Amen.


No arbitrary rules; it's always Maxwell for the fields, E=hf for
excitation/de-excitation.

As for collapse of wavefunctions vs QED, I don't know. But consider
Wheeler-Feynman, where emission-absorption is always connected by a
light-like path. Is this different from QED, yet with no wavefunctions in
sight?

To repeat: E=hf is either because that's the way that EM fields work,

I agree, but I see it more as h = E/f, a proportional relationship,
something like the impedance of free space.

for
whatever mysterious reason, or it's the way that matter works, for all
different kinds of matter, for bound-bound, bound-free, free-free
transitions.

Agreed.

And to resurect my amateurish terminolgy, I would refer to it
as 'quantumized'.

However in the Balmer series for example:

1/L = RH * ( 1 / 2^2 - 1 / n^2 ) n = 3, 4, 5, ...

the discrete values of n I think are also often refered
to as 'quantization' and I think it is a totally different
thing and the distinction should be made clear.



[cut]

(If your email as posted is invalid, email me and I'll send you some stuff
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I'll email you in a couple minutes here.

(Tangent: the local public radio station recently mentioned
the song Levan Polka by the Finnish group Loitima. I found it
on the web and really liked it. I like northern and eastern European
folk music. One of the band members is named Timo.
So I'm guessing you are originally from Finland.)

--
rb


.

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