Light is ...

xmo1 · Feb 3, 2005

Light is the visible wake of a photon moving through quantum space. If light is a visible wake the question in my mind is: What is it moving through? My answer is I don't know, but it might be some multidimensional space that just happens to include that which is detectable by human science, hence the term quantum space. Could this be correct? Also wondering if similar behavior is present in other circumstances. Sorry, but I'm time challenged while writing this post. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> DenniSys.com </div>

Saiph · Feb 3, 2005

Light is the photon. Light is an electromagnetic wave. It's the force carrier for electromagnetism. A charged particle exerts a force on other charged particles. When that particle moves, other particles must learn of it's new position. The "update" travels at the speed of light, as an elecromagnetic disturbance, to reach out and properly tweak other charges. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

vogon13 · Feb 3, 2005

Are you asking about Cherenkov radiation? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

xmo1 · Feb 4, 2005

No. I have a fair understanding of it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> DenniSys.com </div>

xmo1 · Feb 4, 2005

The wake produces the wave. Think about it. Could it be why we perceive light as both a particle and a wave? The particle is actually out in front of the wake, which is one of the boundaries of the wave. Being honest, I'm not familiar with the related experimentation. So here I am wondering about three components: the particle, the wake, and the wave, and a possible correlation with magnetism, electricity, and light. Another long day. I'm going to need a weekend to study up on this, but I thought I would throw it out while I'm thinking about it. Thanks for your consideration. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> DenniSys.com </div>

Saiph · Feb 4, 2005

except for the photon (the particle) can be detected at any part of the wave. The particle doesn't create the wave, it is the wave. If the particle created the wake, it still wouldn't exhibit interference effects, or any of the other wave phenomena. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

xmo1 · Feb 4, 2005

Thank you. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> DenniSys.com </div>

alokmohan · Feb 5, 2005

Light is both radiation and particle.It has dual nature.Can I tell like this?

nacnud · Feb 5, 2005

If your looking for a google keyword try: wave particle duality

newtonian · Feb 5, 2005

Light is fairly light as it has no mass. Saiph - Does a magnetic field propagate at the speed of light? xmo!- Yes, photons have properties of both a wave and a particle. Actually, electrons also have wavelengths. However, electrons and electricity does not travel at the speed of light - does it? Magnetism is caused by electric charge, not by light. Photons travel on/in the fabric of space at the speed of light if the medium is a near vacuum.

newtonian · Feb 5, 2005

xmo! -Two tidbits: The first concerns how a silicon crystal solar electric cell works: "Not all the energy in the sunlight can be recovered as electricity. The energy in a photon of sunlight varies from 1.5 to 3.0 electron-volts, as the color ranges from red to violet. But it takes only about 1.0 electron-volt to free the electron in the silicon crystal, so the rest of the energy is lost as heat." - "Awake!", 2/22/80, p. 7 Note that the electron-volt is a unit of energy; it does not mean light is electric. Second tidbit: Electrons travel about 1/10th the speed of light around the nucleus of an atom.

siarad · Feb 6, 2005

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Electrons travel about 1/10th the speed of light around the nucleus of an atom.<hr /></blockquote> Similarly around your PC which is why so much effort is going into computers using light apart from not having to worry about charge coupling & electrons return path.

xmo1 · Feb 8, 2005

It's been so long since I studied Physics that I have nearly forgotten all of it. Is it still there if I can't remember it? Thankfully, yes. Those early experiments were very important. They were revolutionary. At the same time, they may have sent people off with incomplete ideas about the structure of the universe, simply because that is how people think and act in response to revolutionary ideas. They take what they can find, or what they understand, and run with it. I hope that these early ideas are still active, rather than simply being passively taught as the whole story of the nature of elemental behavior. We want to prove our mathematics, but it is the idea behind the math that is important. For example, a better telescope was needed. The idea of pairing a CCD with a telescope was a moment of discovery. It was the idea that came first. The physics and math were only used to prove the possibility of the invention. When I see the split screen experiment, I am thinking that radio transmission occurs as a shell. In other words, radient energy is omnidirectional, and is only limited by the construction of the transmitting antenna. So should be the creation and transmission of light. The split screen experiment does not due justice to what is actually happening. The visualization of the creation of a photon is often shown as a particle being thrown off of an atom in a specific direction, and the dual nature of particle and wave is sited. The result is somewhat difficult for my aging brain to visualize. When the photon is emitted the originating atom must be bathed in its light. I hope people are still doing basic experiments in Physics, because even now fundamental observations, discoveries, and conclusions are possible. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> DenniSys.com </div>

Saiph · Feb 8, 2005

xmo1: Hopefully I can shed some light on the subject of wave-particle duality when it comes to atoms emitting photons. There's a couple of ways to look at it, the purely particle, or the wave/particle pair. Purely particle (and the one I'm most confident in explaining and likely the standard view): The photon is emitted in one direction, and one direction only. However it is random. In a macroscopic sense, there are billions of atoms emitting photons in random directions. The net effect is uniform radiation over an entire spherical volume/shell. So while each atom emits a single photon, and in a single direction, when you throw enough atoms into the mix, it behaves as one would expect with classical theory (as it should!) Not so standard view: When an atom's electrons de-excite, they emit electromagnetic radiation, in all directions, in the form of a spherical wave. However when one "detects" wavefronts of quantum phenomena, you detect it at only a single point. This is the source of why single photons interfere with themselves. When they are traveling unobserved, they do so as a wave, and interact with their surroundings as waves. However, when the wavefront impinges upon a detector, you detect only a single particle (the photon) in a single spot. The rest of the wave is not there. You've collapsed the wavefront as it's usually explained. Given lots of wavefronts (i.e. an intense light instead of a single photon per minute light, or you just wait a long time) the interference wave pattern will fill in. Each photon is guided to it's final destination by their wave nature. One way to think about wave-particle duality is the same way you think of a ballistic trajectory and a bullet. You can't "detect" the trajectory, even though it is what guides the bullet to it's destination. Waves are quantum particles trajectories. However due to their nature they tend to be more "probabilistic" than the determinis <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

xmo1 · Feb 9, 2005

Heisenberg, Quantum Mechanics, String Theory. Whew there is a bundle of knowledge in that post. Thanks for the explanations Saiph. Maybe someday I'll be able to pass them along. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> DenniSys.com </div>

Saiph · Feb 9, 2005

string theory? Really? I don't know anything other than the concept (everything made of 11? dimensional vibrating "strings"). Anyway, no problem at all, glad to help. BTW, if anybody has questions, critiques of anything I ever say, fire away. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

Saiph · Feb 9, 2005

1) They correspond very, very well, with QM wave equations. 2) QM also says they can be viewed as a particle, and as such move about the nucleus. Granted, they don't move in a standard "orbit" (as it's all over the place) but you can say they move about the nucleus. This, however, isn't a very useful interpretation anymore. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

siarad · Feb 10, 2005

The problem with the photon emission theory is that single photons have been fired at twin slits & still produce interference patterns whereas a wave would produce a photon for each slit. It seems light travels as a wave but results in a photon. After all the speed of light, as a wave, was calculated by Maxwell from the electromagnetic properties of space.

Saiph · Feb 10, 2005

waves are always detected as photons. Besides, when you send it through a double slit, you're set up to detect waes (or wave phenomena) and thats what you get. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

siarad · Feb 11, 2005

The reason I put it that way is 'cos there otherwise would have to be an infinite number of photons radiated in order to detect light everywhere i.e. without the tiniest of gaps between them. Do telescopes detect gaps which may show light is radiated as photons or simultaneously collect over the entire mirror as a wave would be. I appreciate this is hard to do due to the continuous radiation but think the electronic detectors may be timed for this.

Saiph · Feb 12, 2005

You can detect individual photons enter a detector (especially a photo-multiplier tube, or PMT) from astronomical sources. But that doesn't mean it didn't travel as a wave....it's all a little odd. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

newtonian · Feb 12, 2005

siarad - What with Steve's post I am inclined to ask if that approximate speed, 1/10th the speed of light, is correct for electrons around the nucleus of an atom. You said similar around my PC.

newtonian · Feb 12, 2005

stevehw33 - Your quote is a misquote. You posted: "Electrons travel about 1/10 speed of light in orbit around the nucleus of an atom." I posted: "Electrons travel about 1/10th the speed of light around the nucleus of an atom." You inserted the word "orbit," then later corrected yourself by saying electrons are not in orbit. However, you are ignoring the fact that electrons travel in orbitals, as follows: 1. s-orbitals =sharp. These are spherical. 2. p-orbitals = principle. These electrons are in twin lobes lying in the x, y and z cartesian coordinates. 3. d-orbitals = diffuse. There are 5 d-orbital volumes in directional lobes around the nucleus. 4. f-orbitals = fundemental. There are 7 f orbitals. Would you like to describe the shape of f orbitals? I posted that estimate for electron speed in the atom from an older source. Do you know a more current estimate? (pun intended)

newtonian · Feb 12, 2005

xmo1- I also thought light was emitted in all directions. Yet a particle cannot be travelling in all directions- or, at least, not at once. Electrons may travel in all directions in an atom, but they have a net specific direction. Like many reversible chemical reactions which nevertheless have a specific direction and speed (= rate). Both are due to mathematical probability. However, a photon travels in only one direction, yet light is emitted in all directions. This thread should enlighten me. Thank you for starting it and raising those specific questions.

siarad · Feb 13, 2005

Maybe I could have been clearer but I did say single photons, plural, what would have been better is a 'stream of single photons'. Clearly they can't interfere arriving at different times but they do. I don't want to distort the topic with this as it was part of something else which on reflection I think I got wrong as below

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