Questions about light

[Catastrophe]

Dave,
You are well supplied now. How is the book going?

Cat

 

[Phillip Huggan]

If one believes zero/vacuum point energy is possible, it is similiar to what might be needed to reduce the rate vacuum energy affects decoherence. There is decoherence and dephasing. (I think I remember a U of T book Dephasing is what you are trying to measure and how accurate your system is in matching it. It can be improved or diminished via your system or another system nudging it back to "closer entanglement" from a scientist's often coarse apparatus. Decoherence always goes in one direction. Dephasing could be the actual agent's brain being affected. Decoherence can be viewed as the trigger that affects the phase or something else than phase, of light. I got a letter from Freeman Dyson about an unpublished paper; I suggest emailing Alex Zettl regarding dephasing vs decoherence if you want the decoherence to control a substrate than enables the light being to think/process. I got a reply 25% of the time.

 

[Catastrophe]

Let us not ignore the questions posed by OP:

1. Is it possible to have bright light without heat? I'm talking light bright enough to make you look away.
We have noted effect of wavelength.

2. Could light (theoretically) carry a virus; even oversaturation of vitamin D? I need light to make someone sick, if possible.
We have a suggestion.

3. Let's assume a being of pure light existed. Could this being (essentially light) be infected with something from us - say a cold?
We have a suggestion.

4. This one is a SF stretch for sure (as they all are), could light be made to move faster than light?
Not in a credible way, if basic science is to be preserved.

I think we need to hear from Dave, as to whether he has enough for his book, or whether there are outstanding questions?
Neptune is being discussed in another thread.

Cat

 

[Phillip Huggan]

1: A source needs to remove waste heat. You might convert it back to powering the source.
2: Light can cause a few effects. We've rested at Crisp-r for a while re gene editing. It might be the equivalent ability to make us sick. Jubilee wouldn't be able to give us a virus, be if we wore implants that manufactured anti-toxins at will against attack it might hack the implant and damage nearby tissue.
3: Keep in mind, the light is assumed at near c. The infection would take the age of the universe for the photon to experience. We might customize something to infect it with based on its physiology. Ours is only the galaxy's speed as our our illness progressions.
4: It is vaguely assumed by many minds that past c forces in the universe exponentially increase causing an explosion at 1.01c or something. Warp might be dark energy harnessed. It is always 100000+ yrs ahead of catching colds.

 

[Catastrophe]

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Cat

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I found this and thought of this thread: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220714145048.htm

It talks about "Life-like' lasers can self-organize, adapt their structure, and cooperate."

 

[Lariliss]

Hi, I’ve read the thread carefully with interest. I find it close to me being interested in quantum answers to what light is.


I thought of one scenario, if you might be interested.

1. The light-being should have a source. And as a character supposed to act in a transparent medium (traveling from the source to the scene in any way).

The source could send a ‘preamble-code’ every certain moment (defining the ‘self’ of the being). So that the molecules of the medium, where the light-being is shaped and acting, are bombarded by photons in a certain way to form a certain shape and behavior.

1. The preamble could be a unique set of properties of photons, which might be ‘hacked’ or accidentally broken. E. g. giving a feedback to the source and starting a process of gradual decay of the light-being in any environment, which is otherwise harmless.

2.1 Either the code breaking is spontaneous within the system itself.

2.2 Or it is intentional, so that a ‘virus’ can be created by producing of entangled particles (photons or a system of electrons that exchange the photons) in order to manipulate the light-being behavior and well-being.

3. Tachyon would only mean that one ‘communication node’ has received the imaginary particle before it was sent. But actually none of the sources is capable of doing this in ‘conventional’ timeframe, because it cannot violate causality. To handle this kind of communication there could be some imaginary substances on top of the system where light-being is.

4. Quantum theory is the set of rules to calculate the probabilities for e.g. one photon to be detected in a certain expected point (or points) in a certain state after it is emitted. And those rules prove to be working in trillions of experiments till now. Although no one could run an experiment with particles a light year apart (as far as I know).

 

[iconoclastmax]

Hello. I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, or even if Space.com is the right venue, but as they say, you miss every shot you don't take, so here goes. By the way, this is for a story that I'm writing.

1. Is it possible to have bright light without heat? I'm talking light bright enough to make you look away.

2. Could light (theoretically) carry a virus; even oversaturation of vitamin D? I need light to make someone sick, if possible.

3. Let's assume a being of pure light existed. Could this being (essentially light) be infected with something from us - say a cold?

4. This one is a SF stretch for sure (as they all are), could light be made to move faster than light?

Please keep in mind that I'm assuming some writers privilege on the science here.

Thanx for any input.

1) ALL light and electromagnetic waves carry energy. Period. Even a single photon. Read Wikipedia for "photon".

2) No. No. No. Hell no. Read Wikipedia "virus" and "photon" and ponder.

3) Absolutely ludicrous assumption, even for SF. A much simpler assumption is that my ass spews out cotton candy made of diamonds. Not worth the electrons to speculate on.

4) Tautologically WRONG. The speed of light is, and is defined as, the speed of light. The speed light travels at. Period. Logically and physically a null statement/question.

Writer's privilege is not all you are exhibiting. Sheesh.

 

[dave123]

Hello, gentlemen.


I've just returned from a trip; some serious ailments in my extended family. Because I use a desktop computer exclusively for my work (I don't have a cellphone, laptop, iPad, etc. - really I don’t), I've had to wait until coming home to check in. I appreciate, read, and try to understand every post - you're not wasting your time.

@UCE - wow, great, just what I'm looking for. Thank you all, especially Cat for your input. Unless something else hits me in the head, I'm going with the entanglement line for sure. This part of the story will be quick and won’t have a ton of details, I just need something to make it plausable.

Some clarification, although I think you have me figured out: The story requires that the humans do not intend to harm, and in fact never learn that they have inadvertently killed the alien. Kinda like when the Europeans accidentally introduced devastating novel virus' when first visiting the Americas.

Then the alien must go home and pass on the "disease." Reading this thread, I think that the alien could take something home with it and the unveiling would instantly destroy his entanglement. This fixes the problem of the being needing to be infected and later dying.

What could he take from the ship - something along the lines of a DVD time capsule kind of gift??


Yeah, kind of complicated, but I'm not going to include much science in the story as its audience is Joe average and the goal is to just pass the believability test.

I think I'm getting close and appreciate all your help.

 

[dave123]

Ok, A couple of posts I did not see upon returning and catching up. I’ve not used a Forum like this before and did not realize that a 4th page had further posts!

@Lariliss - Thank you for the input - I'm digesting now

@iconoclastmax - Hello and good day to you. Please remember that I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired law enforcement officer that writes stories as a hobby. I came here to improve my knowledge in an area where I’m very weak. I probably have a skill or 2 that you lack, and if you asked me for help, I would not be rude, I would help like Cat and the others here. I do appreciate your knowledge.

@Cat. I could not write while I was gone, but I'm back at it now. The story is coming along nicely, and if it were not for my trips would probably be done by now. Most of what's left is related to my questions here. I sell my stories on Amazon, but if anyone is interested, I can post a link to this story (when done) on wattpad, where I have several of my stories for free. (Just if anyone is curious how tips here have played into the story). That's also the reason I've tried to dance around what is going to happen

I’m going to reread this thread and see if I can work it out. Like I said, my audience is not for men of your knowledge, so I will be fudging some.

 

[Catastrophe]

Ok, A couple of posts I did not see upon returning and catching up. I’ve not used a Forum like this before and did not realize that a 4th page had further posts!

@Lariliss - Thank you for the input - I'm digesting now

@iconoclastmax - Hello and good day to you. Please remember that I'm not a scientist; I'm a retired law enforcement officer that writes stories as a hobby. I came here to improve my knowledge in an area where I’m very weak. I probably have a skill or 2 that you lack, and if you asked me for help, I would not be rude, I would help like Cat and the others here. I do appreciate your knowledge.

@Cat. I could not write while I was gone, but I'm back at it now. The story is coming along nicely, and if it were not for my trips would probably be done by now. Most of what's left is related to my questions here. I sell my stories on Amazon, but if anyone is interested, I can post a link to this story (when done) on wattpad, where I have several of my stories for free. (Just if anyone is curious how tips here have played into the story). That's also the reason I've tried to dance around what is going to happen

I’m going to reread this thread and see if I can work it out. Like I said, my audience is not for men of your knowledge, so I will be fudging some.

"but if anyone is interested, I can post a link to this story (when done) on wattpad, where I have several of my stories for free."
Yes please!

Cat

 

[Catastrophe]

Hi Dave,
I think this will interest you:

How far is Neptune from Earth? Accurate distance data. (theskylive.com)

At light speed, you are only looking at around 4 hours 2 minutes. Without a lot of physics, for the purposes of your book, I think you could fudge it at 4/0.9 or about 4 1/2 minutes.

If the distance is approx 4,360 million km you could probably go a lot slower, with consequent easing of problems. I am posting this as a skeleton and will fill in when I have better suggestions. Others - please feel free to help Dave with this, if you beat me to it, OR, very likely you can improve on my offer.

The graph shows minimum distance to be about 4,300 million km, but the average is not much further. 31/29 or about 1.07 or 7% further.

The distance of Neptune from Earth is currently 4,360,553,139 kilometers, equivalent to 29.148497 Astronomical Units. Light takes 4 hours, 2 minutes and 25.2396 seconds to travel from Neptune and arrive to us.

The speed of light is

300,000 km/sec

If you went at 0.1c, It would take you 4,360,553,139 km divided by 30,000 km/sec OR approx 4,361 million divided by 30,000 seconds = 2423 minutes or 40.38 hours. You don't need all those decimal places to get an approximate answer. At 0,01c - which should not be too difficult, you could be looking at 400 hours, plus a little bit for acceleration and deceleration. You could use a much simpler vessel if this helps the story. Using these small fractions of c will get rid of a lot of problems, if that fits the story.

Whilst these speeds may still be way beyond present capabilities, they should be easy if your main spacecraft can do 0.9 c to the nearest stars.

This should also help:

Acceleration Calculator | Definition | Formula (omnicalculator.com)
Enter zero start and final speed 0.01c, and you can even select your choice of g!
EDIT: Help. I thought this meant entering zero start and 0.01c final, then entering an acceptable g force to give time of acceleration. Anyone see how it is supposed to work?
EDIT: Might be easier to forget this calculator. If you go from zero to 0.01c in 100 seconds that is 30,000 km/sec in 100 seconds which is 300 km/sec^2. What g would that produce? How is it going to produce something safe, i.e., without jellification?

Cat

 

[Wolfshadw]

I sell my stories on Amazon, but if anyone is interested, I can post a link to this story (when done) on wattpad, where I have several of my stories for free.

If there is any interest, please do so via private messages. Do not link to you stories in the public forums.

Wolfshadw
Moderator

 

[dave123]

Thanx Cat. The calculator is a big step.
Keep in mind, this does not have to be perfect science.

I plugged in .9c as my top speed. At 4G, this will take 88 days to reach. I figured 4G would be a good estimate (opinion?) for max.

I assumed 1/2 the trip is acceleration and the other 1/2 deceleration.

So 88 days to max velocity and 88 days to decelerate. Throw in a few days since it takes time to accelerate and decelerate and I’m think a trip time of 240 days. How does that sound?

If this passes the sniff test, I’ll go with 240 days and I can let this topic go!

I'm not worried about the trip to Ross 128.

 

[Catastrophe]

Dave, unless you have prospective readers who are going to think about, and solve, these equations for themselves, I would use what suits the story, so long as it broadly fits what looks about right.

Cat

 

[dave123]

Done. Thanx!

 

[dave123]

You could try having your being made of light of a particular frequency (such as colour). You could arrange a gadget - designed or accidental - which changes the light to uv or ir. Tell us what properties you need. The being, changing 'colour=frequency' could cease to exist, being changed in to a different frequency. Then this frequency could pass through matter (like neutrinos) and dissipate. I can't think right this minute how to do that. Stretching it a bit, perhaps the light energy could pass through a 'black (magic) box' which turned the light energy into neutrinos, which just dissipated away. Light being would be a 'gonna' though. No reconstruction.

Cat

I'm getting closer to leaving you fine gentlemen alone, however:

The other issue I'm having is getting the alien to die. I would like the alien to appropriate something from the ship (by design or accident) and bring it home. The unveiling will cause the aliens' entanglement to be destroyed.

Any ideas on what the alien could take to accomplish this?

 

[Catastrophe]

I'm getting closer to leaving you fine gentlemen alone, however:

Awww . . . . . . we will miss you. Please return from time to time

Now, this alien . . . . . . the one made of light?

This is the most difficult for scientists "here" to think about. I think you are going to have to set some new understandings for this episode to happen. You see, light is not material, at least as we understand it. I suppose we can look at an EM spectrum as some sort of identity which survives. Also this contains wavelengths harmful, even lethal, to humans.

A 'light alien', only exists by virtue of its origin, and lasts indefinitely until it hits something and is absorbed. This is its death. Reflection simply changes its direction with minimal loss of life force (depending on absorbance by reflecting body). Such an alien might be grossly changed if much of its EM spectrum is absorbed, for instance, the X-rays which harm humans.

This whole area is very difficult (at least for me). Can we find a workaround? Maybe attribute acts/deaths via third parties? Other EM beings (or part so) e.g., tigers which only attack humans if yellow light is shining on them? Entities which attach light aliens but only if they (LBs) contain a large amount of UV radiation? Any help there?

Cat

P.S.

Any ideas on what the alien could take to accomplish this?

It is difficult to imagine a light beam picking something up. It might hit a surface which changes the frequency - maybe light energy is reflected or re-transmitted at a different frequency. A light beam cannot really carry anything material. Come on, Dave, this is fiction - which is why it is causing scientists problems.

 

[dave123]

Ok, after input here; I can see that giving light a virus is a daunting task to make believable. Since I've got a 1st graders' knowledge on how entanglement might work, I'm including some exposition to see if you gentlemen think this might solve my problem in a semi-believable manner.

The goal is to add a flesh core to the light creature that can still be infected. This is a first draft and will be reworded, grammar checked, etc. So don’t expect it to flow.

** The Kra’ll had, millennia ago, been much like the flesh creature that Svett’ll had encountered, but were now cloaked in light, quantumly entangled. Svett’ll came to be long after quantum entanglement had been achieved. Now, their flesh being was nothing more than an embryonic core, supported entirely by the communal light that enveloped them all, bringing them together, binding them as one. Had it been a scientific advancement, or a spiritual one? Svett’ll neither knew nor cared. All he knew was that he existed perpetually enveloped, nourished, and both obedient to and in control of the light.

Although the photons that were him through entanglement allowed him to both experience and feel everything that the collective of Kra’ll was and had been, he still longed to be home, away from the darkness that seemed to be all around. Svett’ll turned his visage towards home and imagined reuniting with the collective light; soon it would be so. **

 

[Catastrophe]

Dave, as SF that looks OK to me. I did have a couple of ideas, but it seems you got there already. I had been thinking you meant creatures made of nothing but light, but it seems they are (as I was thinking) closely related to light, but somehow arising from a union of a precursor creature that "fed on" light, and eventually became more and more amalgamated. Perhaps a nebulous ('ghost') creature nourished by light, and that has learnt to use light also for transportation. Seems you have already got that lot.

Perhaps the creature could become "ill" by its ghostly surface developing a sort of rash or "skin"-complaint which blocked off sunlight, and thus the source of energy and life. This could be contagious?

 

[dave123]

Thank you again, Cat. My original idea was pure light; but I've learned here that's scientifically undoable.

I'm glad to hear from you that I'm getting closer to something workable.

I'm still pondering on exactly what the virus is and how it is spread. I like your suggestion!

 

[Catastrophe]

Hi Dave. Maybe something to do with wavelength. Perhaps something on Earth (or wherever) that upsets the "ghost's" "shell". Maybe the shell is produced by the effect of certain wavelengths e.g., IR, and if the being is in a region (star) where IR is low, there is mechanism to maintain shell produced or catalysed by IR. If IR (or whatever) is locally deficient, shell cannot form/is formed. Shell might be 'good' or 'bad' if it makes any difference. Shell might block necessary wavelengths, or necessary to absorb them at your choice. But I can't see 'virus' yet, unless perhaps shell is initiated/catalysed by corresponding wavelengths. The virus might be 'good' or 'bad' i.e., necessary or preventing desired action. Am I making any sense?

Cat

 

[dave123]

I was leaning towards something that causes entanglement to fail. I'm copying and considering all your cool ideas. Thanx

 

[dave123]

I have finished the Rough Draft to this story. If anyone is interested and would like to check it out (for free) please PM me for instructions on how to view the document.

I have a lot of science in this story and would still really appreciate input as I most likely have flaws. This is still a rough draft in every sense of the word.

They say that information is worth what you paid for it; but I disagree. The help from you fine gentlemen has been priceless, and I've enjoyed learning!

 

[Phillip Huggan]

Soft robots made of light should be 2250. An optical computer AI is okay safe as it only outputs sentences or movements. It could be stolen and reverse engineered bad as an engineering AI, so a military setting like Total Recall but smaller sized worlds or stations or good. Premier or State Senator IQ for conversation about some things. The Robots of Dawn should be retold to not be this substrate.