Just some hypothetical questions for the experts...

If there IS a particle that is able to travel faster than light, would it be detectable? Also, if there IS such particle, which would be its probable properties and consequences of its discovery?

And... is it possible that quarks move faster than light? Cause so far we had never been able to see a quark and by the speed the universe expended a quark should be much faster. Also, a quark should be faster simply because it is smaller as it appears that as things get smaller they get faster (molecules slower than atoms, slower than subatomic particles and so on...). Of course, as the mass is smaller and the energy greater, it should be able to move faster. So as smaller the mass of a particle gets, as greater is its potential energy...?

It would be like...: "m~1/E"...?

PS: I forgot the simbol for proportion... is it "~"?:eek:

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
If there IS a particle that is able to travel faster than light, would it be detectable? Also, if there IS such particle, which would be its probable properties and consequences of its discovery?
There cannot be any such particle in the boundaries of known physical laws. If you'd like to work outside the boundaries of known physical laws, be aware that logic and proof do not exist there yet -- as a result, you could answer such questions in any way you'd like, and no one could argue with you. It's pointless.
And... is it possible that quarks move faster than light?
See above.
Cause so far we had never been able to see a quark
What does it mean to 'see a quark?'
it appears that as things get smaller they get faster
Any particle can be made to travel at any velocity (within the bounds of relativistic mechanics). It is absolutely not true that less massive particles are somehow inherently faster than more massive ones.

- Warren

To "see a quark" is to detect one. Quark is only a hipothesis.... we had never seen one in a bubble chamber or whatever...

Any particle can be made to travel at any velocity (within the bounds of relativistic mechanics). It is absolutely not true that less massive particles are somehow inherently faster than more massive ones.
What then? It is just a coincidence particles with less mass travel faster?:bugeye: And this is not only true in the microscopic world, but also in the macroscopic. Have you ever seen an animal the size of an elephant flying? No...:bugeye: Unless it would be very fast, like airplanes...

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
To "see a quark" is to detect one. Quark is only a hipothesis.... we had never seen one in a bubble chamber or whatever...
Totally, laughably, incorrect.
What then? It is just a coincidence particles with less mass travel faster?:bugeye: And this is not only true in the microscopic world, but also in the macroscopic. Have you ever seen an animal the size of an elephant flying? No...:bugeye: Unless it would be very fast, like airplanes...
Given the same average thermal energy, less massive particles will have higher average velocities. This does not imply there is some fundamental rule that makes massive particles 'slow.' You can certainly apply any amount of energy you want and achieve any velocity you so desire.

- Warren

Originally posted by chroot
Totally, laughably, incorrect.

Are you saying that we now actually HAVE proof of the existence of the quark beyond hypothetical basis of existence?

If that is what you are saying, I would very much like to see this information.

Could you please point me in the direction od an article or something I can read that outlines what that proof is?

Thanks.

Originally posted by one_raven
Could you please point me in the direction od an article or something I can read that outlines what that proof is?
Pretty much every particle physics experiment done with hadrons in the last 15 years. Start with APJ.

- Warren

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
Just some hypothetical questions for the experts...

If there IS a particle that is able to travel faster than light, would it be detectable? Also, if there IS such particle, which would be its probable properties and consequences of its discovery?


such particles have been hypothesized. they are called tachyons. they would certainly be observable. for example, if they were charged, they would be easily detectable by Čerenkov radiation. there have been proposed experiments to detect neutral tachyons as well. one weird property that a tachyon would have would be that as it loses energy, it speeds up. it can never travel slower than light, so once a tachyon, always a tachyon. in a quantum treatment of tachyonic fields, you find that they are not stable: if there were such a particle, it would cascade to lower energy states at infinity, creating an infinite release of energy.

there have been serious papers discussing these options, and attempts to detect them. none has ever been detected.

one more word about tachyons: one of the most serious flaws of string theory, early in its history was the prediction of tachyons. this is a problem because any theory that includes tachyons does not describe the world we live in. to resolve this issue, string theorists were led to the introduction of supersymmetry. supersymmetry, while predicted by string theory, can be applied to the regular standard model. it is currently the best hope for new physics outside the standard model.

read more about tachyons here (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/tachyons.html)

Originally posted by TruthSeeker

And... is it possible that quarks move faster than light?

no. quarks are massive, they never travel faster than light.

lethe,

Thanks for that. I was waiting for some more atualized information... But... are quarks really massive...? :eek:

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
lethe,

Thanks for that. I was waiting for some more atualized information... But... are quarks really massive...? :eek:

yes, quarks really are massive, i promise you.

actually, quarks make up more than 99% of the mass of ordinary matter. so almost all of your mass, truthseeker, is from quarks (well, and their binding energy).

Truth Seeker,

The symbol for Proportional is "Alpha". I don't have it on the keyboard but it looks something like 2/3 of an infinity symbol.

"~" in the form of an equal sign means approximately equal.

Truth,
I had a couple profs that used ~ as a proportionality sign, but it's generally only used in geometry.

I know this is a weird sounding question, but what constrains the speed of a photon in a vacuum? Is it the nature of the vacuum itself and the way in which a photon must move through it?

The question is hard to phrase properly. Simply, why is the speed of light what it is?

There is perhaps no answer to that question -- the universe simply is the way it is.

We may eventually find some mechanism responsible for making the speed of light constant for all observers, but that mechanism would rest upon even more fundamental axioms.

At some level, there will be fundamental axioms which simply have no 'reasons.'

- Warren

Cali,

The question is hard to phrase properly. Simply, why is the speed of light what it is?

Welcome to sciforums.

I'm not a conventional scientist, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

I believe that there are two things that limit a photon's speed:

1) The force that accelerates the photon.

2) The force, or forces, that try to limit the speed of the photon.

It appears to me that there is a force that is always pushing the photon to c. This force is greatest when the photon is travelling slowly and decreases the faster the photon moves. When the photon reaches the speed of c, the force becomes 0. I don't know the nature of this accelerating force, but I believe that it is related to gravity.

I also believe that there are forces that try to limit the speed of photons. These forces, I believe, have to do with the interaction between the photon's electric and magnetic fields, and the electric permitivity, and magnetic permeability, of the material that the photon is travelling through. So for example, this would explain why light travels at speeds of lower than c when it is passing through dielectric mediums like water or glass. However, there are people that believe that light always travels at c, but due to absorption and re-emittance, it only appears to be travelling slower than c in dielectrics.

Tom

Tom

they never travel slower than c, never faster. From the instant they are created, they are traveling at c. They do not require a force to create them, but in some cases be imagined to be the conservers of energy and momentum, as they account for the power lost in say a light bulb due to the high resistance of the filament.

There is no reason to see why photons propogate at c, but I would suggest it has to do someting that couples the transverse electric and magnetic fields that are the light.

ryans,

they never travel slower than c, never faster. From the instant they are created, they are traveling at c.

?: It was perhaps 5-6 years ago I ran across a paper that claimed to have found a brief acceleration of light from its origin until v = c was achieved. I've never seen anything more on that issue so it may have been bunk.

Ever hear of it?

hehe... i got owned. :P

Originally posted by WhiteKnight
Only true in a vacuum. Photons travelling through non-vacuous media move at a velocity proportional to the inverse of the refractive index of the medium times c.

photons never travel faster or slower than c. wave packets that are composed of a large number of photons can have an average speed that is slower, due to interaction with matter; absorbtion and reemission of photons by atoms. however, the photons involved never travel faster or slower than c.

ryans,

they never travel slower than c, never faster. From the instant they are created, they are traveling at c.

I don't think I agree with you. If an object emits a photon, and the object's speed is 0 and the emitted photon's speed is c, how is it possible that the photon reaches c without having to go from 0 to c? Are you implying instantaneous acceleration, or are you claiming that the emitted particle doesn't become a "true" photon until it reaches the speed of c?

Tom

lethe,

photons never travel faster or slower than c. wave packets that are composed of a large number of photons can have an average speed that is slower, due to interaction with matter; absorbtion and reemission of photons by atoms. however, the photons involved never travel faster or slower than c.

I don't agree with absorption/re-emmision explanation for why photons appear to be travelling slower than c in certain materials.

Let's take glass as an example. In order for the absorption/re-emmision explanation to be correct, the silicon dioxide molecules in the glass would have to absorb and re-emit photons of all wavelengths without any change in the frequency of the original photons. I would assume that the the molecules of silicon dioxide would be inert to certain wavelengths of light.

One more thing, anyone working with lasers would know that there is a relatively large delay between when an electron is pushed to a higher state and when the electron falls back to a ground state releasing a photon. If glass absorbs and re-emits all light according to the absorption/re-emmision explanation, then the delay between absorption and emmision would have to be unusually small.

Tom

Tom

Glass is not transparent to all wavelengths of light. You are limiting your case to visible light. Microwaves are attenuated by glass.

Take a thin metalli plate on the other hand. They are usually opaue to visible light, but transparent to ultraviolet light.

ryans,

But what does "transparent" mean?

Is a transparent material inert to photons of certain wavelengths, so it lets the photons pass through without absorption and re-emmision, or does a transparent material absorb and re-emit all photons of a certain wavelength range?

Tom

It means the cross-section for photon absorption or attenuation is lower. If a photon is absobed, it does not nessesarily excite an individual atom either, promoting an electron to a higher state. It may produce a phonon in the material which is, to keep things simple, a sound wave. Although this is not totally correct, it will suffice for now. This phonon dissapates in the material and is usually manifest as heat on the macroscopic scale.

In short, the cross section for photon interaction is a function of photon energy, amongst other things, and for glass this cross-section is small for "light" (Things would be simpler if you referred to EM radiation in general) in the visible region of the EM spectrum.

To see why the speed of light is apparently smaller in glass, it is easier to think of the wave manifestation of light as opposed to its particle nature. The oscillating electric and magnetic fields induce oscillation in the electron clouds that surround the atoms, and it is this "coupling" between the light wave and electron distribution of the material which gives rise to the lower value of c.

I am trying to keep the explanation simple, and so yes there may be some inconstancies above, but all the physics is essentially there. Feel free to ask further questions.:)

Originally posted by Prosoothus
lethe,





One more thing, anyone working with lasers would know that there is a relatively large delay between when an electron is pushed to a higher state and when the electron falls back to a ground state releasing a photon. If glass absorbs and re-emits all light according to the absorption/re-emmision explanation, then the delay between absorption and emmision would have to be unusually small.

Tom

The delay between absorption and re-emmission can vary greatly between materials and the wavelengths involved. It can be very short as in a transparent material, or very slow as in a phospherescent (Glow in the dark) material, which absorbs certain frequencies of light and can be still re-emitting hours after the initial light source has been removed.

Then there are flourescent materials, which absorb higher frequencies and re-emit lower ones. Flourescent lights use this. the internal arrangment of the light produces ultraviolet, which is absorbed by the material coating the inside of the tube and re-emitted in the visible spectrum.

Can anyone explain how it is possible that photons colliding with atoms can maintain a perfect vector of motion? Why would it not be more like billiards and scatter?

Not all collisions would be perferctly head on unless the EM wave front being perfectly orthogonal is the means of excitation but then how does that result in re-emmiting the photon 180 degrees exactly from its entry point?

Persol,

Truth,
I had a couple profs that used ~ as a proportionality sign, but it's generally only used in geometry.
Ahhh... that's why... I used to be pretty good at geometry...:D

Macm, perhaps quantum entanglement maintains the vector ? I have heard of experiments where phonons were used to communicate a quantum state... Who knows???

Aaah how I miss the world according to chroot... :D It's been awhile since ive been on these forums :m:

Originally posted by Persol
Truth,
I had a couple profs that used ~ as a proportionality sign, but it's generally only used in geometry.

It should be noted "~" means "is distributed as" ... commonly used in the parlance of statistics. :cool:

Originally posted by Prosoothus
Cali,

I believe that there are two things that limit a photon's speed:

1) The force that accelerates the photon.

2) The force, or forces, that try to limit the speed of the photon.

It appears to me that there is a force that is always pushing the photon to c. This force is greatest when the photon is travelling slowly and decreases the faster the photon moves. When the photon reaches the speed of c, the force becomes 0. I don't know the nature of this accelerating force, but I believe that it is related to gravity.

I also believe that there are forces that try to limit the speed of photons. These forces, I believe, have to do with the interaction between the photon's electric and magnetic fields, and the electric permitivity, and magnetic permeability, of the material that the photon is travelling through. So for example, this would explain why light travels at speeds of lower than c when it is passing through dielectric mediums like water or glass. However, there are people that believe that light always travels at c, but due to absorption and re-emittance, it only appears to be travelling slower than c in dielectrics.

Tom

Your theory sounds awfully similar to that other guy back in the day ... Aristotle was his name I believe... he had the funky notion that all things were naturally at rest until something pushed them, ... until newton came along and showed people how it really was...

(1) nothing accelerates photons, they are born and die at the speed of c... that is, they are part of the warp and woof of the very fabric of the universe... c has something to do with the ratio of the electric and magnetic field vectors I recall.... a ratio of some kind... but its been too long to remember...

(2) there are no forces or force that limits the speed of the photon... the very ability of the fabric of space to transmit information is the reason for its apparent finite velocity.

correction: when i said "acceleration" I specifically meant nothing 'imparts' a force on a photon... i don't mean to imply that photons do not 'curve' around space... which is certainly acceleration from our point of view... but it curves only because it is 'following' the fabric, not because it is being 'pushed' or 'pulled' by any mysterious force...

Originally posted by Prosoothus
ryans,



I don't think I agree with you. If an object emits a photon, and the object's speed is 0 and the emitted photon's speed is c, how is it possible that the photon reaches c without having to go from 0 to c? Are you implying instantaneous acceleration, or are you claiming that the emitted particle doesn't become a "true" photon until it reaches the speed of c?

Tom

You don't have to agree with him... the fact is there is no photon being emitted. photon is just a convenient description of the information being transmitted to adjacent points in space at the conduction velocity of the fabric of space... there is nothing but information moving. It is the only logical possibility when you consider everything in turn.

Originally posted by Prosoothus
lethe,



I don't agree with absorption/re-emmision explanation for why photons appear to be travelling slower than c in certain materials.

Let's take glass as an example. In order for the absorption/re-emmision explanation to be correct, the silicon dioxide molecules in the glass would have to absorb and re-emit photons of all wavelengths without any change in the frequency of the original photons. I would assume that the the molecules of silicon dioxide would be inert to certain wavelengths of light.

One more thing, anyone working with lasers would know that there is a relatively large delay between when an electron is pushed to a higher state and when the electron falls back to a ground state releasing a photon. If glass absorbs and re-emits all light according to the absorption/re-emmision explanation, then the delay between absorption and emmision would have to be unusually small.

Tom

Have you considered that first of all -- the assumption that there are wavelengths of light which glass is 'inert' is entirely testable... the fact is, the visible wavelengths are not 'inert'... the very reason that different wavelengths are separated into the respective ROYGBIV rainbow in a prism is because the speeds of these different processes of absorption remission lead to a very consistent change in the 'overall' velocity of the light through the glass... the only 'wavelengths of light' (assuming you aren't just talking about visible light) that are 'inert' might be extremely low frequency like infrared which I believe bounces back... leading to the heating effect inside a windowed office building as more and more light energy gets shifted to infrared.

A word of interpretation: I don't get what you mean by "inert" ... but I took it to mean that it is either (a) unaffected by the presence of the glass, in which case its velocity would be measured as 'c', or (b) it bounces back from the glass completely...

Originally posted by MacM
Can anyone explain how it is possible that photons colliding with atoms can maintain a perfect vector of motion? Why would it not be more like billiards and scatter?

Not all collisions would be perferctly head on unless the EM wave front being perfectly orthogonal is the means of excitation but then how does that result in re-emmiting the photon 180 degrees exactly from its entry point?

Quantum entanglement is not required to explain this simple effect. The fact is photons represent a moving packet of momentum... that momentum is conserved even when it is no longer in the form of a photon, but rather as vibrational or translational energy in an atom. That momentum vector never changed direction as it hit the atom, and as it passed through to excite another photon on the opposite end (so to speak)... The fabric transmits the information that a particular 'point' in space, should have a particular momentum, and thus a directionality and energy associated with it.

Furthermore, it should be noted, that photons cannot interact with an object that is "out of plane" -- that is... it has a very specific orientation at which it interacts with matter, or it would pass through unnoticed (IF we are talking about a single photon). This is why two photons can pass right through each other... matter on the other hand is 'janus faced' as they say -- it has multiple orientations and exists in "3D" space + "1D" time. Photons are simply flat-faced waves which carry information about the state of space-time from one point in space-time to another point in space-time, the continuity is an illusion.

But I speak quite loosely... :m: :eek:

Originally posted by GundamWing
Aaah how I miss the world according to chroot... :D It's been awhile since ive been on these forums :m:
GDW,

long time, no see.

you come suddenly from nowhere, drop some bombs and vanish away. try to stay back..:D

GundamWing,

Welcome back. Long time no see.

(1) nothing accelerates photons, they are born and die at the speed of c... that is, they are part of the warp and woof of the very fabric of the universe... c has something to do with the ratio of the electric and magnetic field vectors I recall.... a ratio of some kind... but its been too long to remember...

Notice that I asked why light appears to travel slower in dielectrics, like water or glass, than it does in a vacuum, and I got two different explanations, one from lethe and one from ryans.

Lethe stated that the reason light travels slower in glass is because the light is being constantly absorbed and re-emmited by the glass. Ryan claims that "The oscillating electric and magnetic fields induce oscillation in the electron clouds that surround the atoms, and it is this "coupling" between the light wave and electron distribution of the material which gives rise to the lower value of c.".

Let's, for the sake of arguement, assume that the speed of light decreases in glass as a result of the interaction between its electric and magnetic fields of the photon and the electron clouds in the glass, and not because of absorption and re-emmision. In that case, the light that is travelling slower than c in glass must accelerate as it leaves the glass. How would light accelerate by going from glass to air if there is no force to do the accelerating?

(2) there are no forces or force that limits the speed of the photon... the very ability of the fabric of space to transmit information is the reason for its apparent finite velocity.

Photons have electric and magnetic fields. Electric and magnetic fields interact with other electric and magnetic fields. It isn't hard to imagine that external electric and magnetic fields will have an influence on the speed of the photon. Actually, it would be hard to imagine that external electric and magnetic fields would not have any influence on the speed of the photon. :)

You don't have to agree with him... the fact is there is no photon being emitted. photon is just a convenient description of the information being transmitted to adjacent points in space at the conduction velocity of the fabric of space... there is nothing but information moving. It is the only logical possibility when you consider everything in turn.

Photons do not come out of thin air. They are created by a source, which in most cases, is travelling much slower than c. How does a stationairy source create a photon travelling at c without the photon having to accelerate from 0 to c?? Is it magic? :)

A word of interpretation: I don't get what you mean by "inert" ... but I took it to mean that it is either (a) unaffected by the presence of the glass, in which case its velocity would be measured as 'c', or (b) it bounces back from the glass completely...

By "inert" I mean that the electrons in the glass are not in the correct orbitals to absorb and re-emit the visual light. In other words, the light passes through the glass without being absorbed and re-emmited by the glass, but the electric fields in the glass do influence the speed of the light because light is electromagnetic radiation.

Tom

Lethe and my arguements are both valid, and which one you use depends on whether you are lookin at the particle nature of light, or it's wave nature.

If you are looking at its wave nature, which is usually done when you are looking at macroscopic phenomena (high light flux etc ), then Maxwells equations are used. This does not look at interactions with individual interactions (i.e. electron-photon scattering) but uses bulk properties of the material like the resistivity and conductivity to predict how light will propogate through that medium.

If you are looking at say how an individual photon will interact with one atom (as it can only interact with one at a time), then you will nessesarily use quantum mechanics to investigate, calculating scattering matrices and matrix elements of operators etc.

Both are valid view points, and by summing over a lot of individual interactions, you should find the results tend towards the Maxwellian case, in a similiar vain that statistical mechanics is related to thermodynamics.

ryans,

But what is the answer to the question "Does light, at any time, travel at a speed slower than c?"

I can only see two answers:

1) Light never travels slower than c. When light passes through a material like glass, it gets absorbed and re-emitted by the glass. The delay in the absorbtion and re-emittance makes it only seem like the light is travelling slower than c.

2) Light sometimes travels slower than c. When light passes through a material like glass, the electric (and/or magnetic) fields in the glass interact with the electric (and/or magnetic) fields of the light causing the light to slow down.

Which one is correct? One or two?

Tom

2 is the statistical manifestation of 1.

However no-one uses 2 to calculate how ordinary light will pass through materials, as the numbers required to obtain significant statistics is too large.

2/ treats matter as lumpy, made of atoms, as it really is, but is computationally ridiculous

1/ treats matter as continuous and smooth, as is true on the macroscopic scale, but is ultimately incorrect. However Maxwell's equations are exact.

So photons never travel slower than c.

And please don't refer me to some light freezing website, because I know what they have done, and no, they really don't slow light down.

Prosoothus,


Which one is correct? One or two?


ANS: What? You forgot "q".:D

Prosoothus:
The speed of light is a direct consequence of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. If these laws hold true at every point in space then light must always travel at c.
If you have reason to believe that the laws of physics are different inside a sheet of glass then you might have a point but as it stands light always travels at c.

Jethro,

If you have reason to believe that the laws of physics are different inside a sheet of glass then you might have a point but as it stands light always travels at c.


ANS: That is actually the view of "q". Considering mass as a form of condensed energy/space. While on the outside looking in one foot of water is 12 inches. With c through water being 0.75 c it means that spatial condensation is actually comprised of 16 inches of free space. So light is still traveling at c but goes further than we measure. Don't look in any book for this it conjecture.

ryans,

So photons never travel slower than c.

OK, I'm confused.

Let's assume that a photon/electromagnetic wave, in the visible frequency range, hits, or passes by, a molecule of silicon dioxide. What interaction occurs between the molecule and the photon/electromagnetic wave? Does the molecule absorb and re-emit the photon, or not? If the photon/electromagnetic wave does not get absorbed by the molecule, will the molecule's electric field influence the photon?

Tom

Jethro,

The speed of light is a direct consequence of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. If these laws hold true at every point in space then light must always travel at c. If you have reason to believe that the laws of physics are different inside a sheet of glass then you might have a point but as it stands light always travels at c.

Since light is electromagnetic radiation, wouldn't it be logical to assume that the relative electric permitivity, or the relative magnetic permeability, of a substance might influence the speed of light in that substance?

Wouldn't it also be logical to assume that the electric fields of a molecule may interact with the electric field of a photon resulting in a force on the photon that may alter its speed?

Tom

Tom, I am willing to sit here and explain these things to you, but not to argue. So let me know if you are here to learn something, and if so I will make the effort to explain it clearly. If you are here to propose that photons somehow travel slower than c, and are unwilling to accept the valid arguements I put forward, then I will not bother. Your decision.

ryans,

I learn new things using two approaches:

1) By asking questions and getting answers.

2) By having logical debates, or what you would call argueing.


Either aproach is fine by me. If you prefer that I ask questions instead of debating, I have no problem with that.

So please, tell me what happens when a photon in the visible range interacts with a silicon dioxide molecule. If I don't agree with your explanation, I promise I won't let you know. :p

Tom

You see now that is a completely different question as to why glass is transparent.

Silicon dioxide has many modes of excitation in which energy can be "stored". The common ones are the electronic energy levels of the molecule, and the incidence of a photon with silica can promote an electron to an excited state of the electronic bamd structure. Another mode is a rotational mode, by which an incident photon bump the molecule "up" to a higher rotational mode. Of course on the quantum level these modes are quantised, not continuous, and so the values of angular momenta will have a structure analogous to that of the electronic energy levels.
There are also vibration modes, which can be invisioned as the bonds between the oxygen and the silicon as being springs. These "springs" have with them associated harmonics, and thus an energy level structure.

The terminology I have used here is by no means consistent with current practice, but it should suffice in helping you understand the general physics of the problem. Because that's what we do here right, PHYSICS?

Jethro: The speed of light is a direct consequence of Maxwell's equations of electromagneticism.

Does this mean that we can actually derive c from Maxwell's equations without employing any kind of tautology or circularity?

GundamWing: ...photon is just a convenient description of information being transmitted to adjacent points of space at the conduction velocity of the fabric of space...there is nothing but information moving.

Does this mean that Maxwell's equations describe the conduction velocity of the fabric of space?

I do have difficulty with the term "information"--it seems slippery--but I do not want that to be the issue.

Please excuse my naivete in these matters.

Caliburno

In Maxwell's equations, the speed of light is the inverse square root of permitivitty times the permeability of free space, which in my interpretation has to do with the wat oscillating electric and magnetic fields couple to each other.
Gundam view of light simply being the transference of information is a good one, and it can keep you clear of some of the issue's that would be otherwise confusing such as internal structure of a photon and the like, because they have no internal structure.

ryans,

If you claim light is nothing but information you leave out mass and energy.

It is like saying you put a series of ball bearings in a straight line, in contact, and deliver momentum to one end. The reaction is that a ball at the opposite end takes on the "information" about the impnging momentum and the balls inbetween don't move.

The information travels in the form of a compression wave through the medium.

Are you not re-instating an Aether here?:D