View Full Version : Double Slit Experiment Explained
Space is a medium. A photon is a burst of space traveling through space. It is a directed, or pointed, wave.
The Double Slit Experiment (DSE) is easily explained and understood as a photon being a wave traveling through the medium of space.
A picture of a photon that looks like a directed, or pointed, wave can be found at: superstruny.aspweb.cz/images/fyzika/foton.gif
The following analogy doesn't work well for a photon because a photon is described in Quantum Physics as a massless particle that does not occupy space.
So for this analogy we need to use an electron or a small atom. Something that exists as a particle, with mass, as it travels through space.
We will use a boat in water as the analogy for an electron traveling through space.
The boat is traveling through the water at a speed where it is traveling along with its wake (i.e. The wake is traveling out along the front of the boat). As the boat encounters the slits, its wake enters both of them. The wake exits both slits, interacts with itself, and creates interference. As the boat exits the slits, the boat encounters this interference which alters the path it is traveling.
If the boat goes through the slits many times and comes ashore after each passage, the marks it leaves as it comes ashore will make an interference pattern.
The electron, or the small atom, interacts with the interference pattern the wave it is creating in the medium of space in a similar fashion as the boat in water does.
If we were to try and "observe" which slit the boat goes through by placing buoys in the slits, the buoys would destroy the boats wake, turning it into chop. The boat would not create an interference pattern as it comes ashore.
The same is true in the DSE. An attempt to "observe" the experiment turns the wave being created in space into chop and no interference pattern will be created on the screen.
A photon, being a directed wave, interacts with itself, and the mark it makes on the screen is created by the point of the wave.
BenTheMan
11-01-08, 11:33 PM
If the boat goes through the slits many times and comes ashore after each passage, the marks it leaves as it comes ashore will make an interference pattern.
No. If the experiment is ideal, and the initial conditions of the boat are the same every time, I don't see why this should be true.
prometheus
11-02-08, 06:14 AM
Like rats leaving a sinking ship, the cranks are finding alternatives to physorg now it is offline. This guy doesn't understand the concept of a massless particle so obviously all of physics must be wrong. I have explained what I am about to explain again before but I will do it for the sake of completeness before this thread goes to pseudoscience (and it will, don't you worry).
Space is a medium. A photon is a burst of space traveling through space. It is a directed, or pointed, wave.
Wrong. light can be considered to be a wave in the electromagnetic field. When you quantise this you get photons. A wave of space is a gravitational wave which, when you quantise you get gravitons.
The Double Slit Experiment (DSE) is easily explained and understood as a photon being a wave traveling through the medium of space.
Almost but also wrong. It's easily explained as an electromagnetic wave, unless you've managed to find a way to detect gravitational waves.
A picture of a photon that looks like a directed, or pointed, wave can be found at: superstruny.aspweb.cz/images/fyzika/foton.gif
You're confused between classical electromagnetism and quantum electrodynamics. A photon is a point particle. An electromagnetic wave is a wave. This is a picture of a wave packet.
The following analogy doesn't work well for a photon because a photon is described in Quantum Physics as a massless particle that does not occupy space.
A photon does not have a well defined volume but it still has a position and momentum (within the limits set by the uncertainty principle). There is nothing lacking in this description.
So for this analogy we need to use an electron or a small atom. Something that exists as a particle, with mass, as it travels through space.
You don't understand this at all do you? An electron is just as much a point particle as the photon.
We will use a boat in water as the analogy for an electron traveling through space.
The boat is traveling through the water at a speed where it is traveling along with its wake (i.e. The wake is traveling out along the front of the boat). As the boat encounters the slits, its wake enters both of them. The wake exits both slits, interacts with itself, and creates interference. As the boat exits the slits, the boat encounters this interference which alters the path it is traveling.
This is an extremely bad model. The electrons in atoms travel in orbits. If electrons were like boats on water they would radiate all their energy and fall into the nucleus - in your model atoms are not stable.
If the boat goes through the slits many times and comes ashore after each passage, the marks it leaves as it comes ashore will make an interference pattern.
So what does the shore correspond to in physical terms?
The electron, or the small atom, interacts with the interference pattern the wave it is creating in the medium of space in a similar fashion as the boat in water does.
This is an extremely complicated and nasty model. It's a lot easier to assume electrons and photons are fields and particles are excitations of the fields. That way the path integral gives you an interference pattern without all this stuff that's put in by hand.
If we were to try and "observe" which slit the boat goes through by placing buoys in the slits, the buoys would destroy the boats wake, turning it into chop. The boat would not create an interference pattern as it comes ashore.
Again, the traditional explanation is far cleaner and works better.
The same is true in the DSE. An attempt to "observe" the experiment turns the wave being created in space into chop and no interference pattern will be created on the screen.
Presumably your model has some predictions that vary from the traditional explanation that will confirm or deny your effort?
A photon, being a directed wave, interacts with itself, and the mark it makes on the screen is created by the point of the wave.
directed wave? point of the wave? You're making up phrases now.
This model (in the loosest sense of the word) is rubbish and has been doing the rounds on physorg for long enough for all the serious physicists there to have thoroughly debunked it. The mods are a lot better here so I suspect this thread will end up in pseudoscience rather quickly. Not a moment too soon in my opinion.
No. If the experiment is ideal, and the initial conditions of the boat are the same every time, I don't see why this should be true.
By ideal, do you mean the boat goes through the same slit exactly the same each and every time? That would imply Which Way, which would not cause an interference pattern to be created.
The boat is going through either slit randomly each and every time so it interacts with the interference created by its displacement wave differently each and every time.
Like rats leaving a sinking ship, the cranks are finding alternatives to physorg now it is offline. This guy doesn't understand the concept of a massless particle so obviously all of physics must be wrong. I have explained what I am about to explain again before but I will do it for the sake of completeness before this thread goes to pseudoscience (and it will, don't you worry).
There is no such thing as a massless particle.
Wrong. light can be considered to be a wave in the electromagnetic field. When you quantise this you get photons. A wave of space is a gravitational wave which, when you quantise you get gravitons.
How does an electromagnetic field exist in a void?
Almost but also wrong. It's easily explained as an electromagnetic wave, unless you've managed to find a way to detect gravitational waves.
You're confused between classical electromagnetism and quantum electrodynamics. A photon is a point particle. An electromagnetic wave is a wave. This is a picture of a wave packet.
A photon does not have a well defined volume but it still has a position and momentum (within the limits set by the uncertainty principle). There is nothing lacking in this description.
You don't understand this at all do you? An electron is just as much a point particle as the photon.
How is a massless point particle different than a pointed wave?
This is an extremely bad model. The electrons in atoms travel in orbits. If electrons were like boats on water they would radiate all their energy and fall into the nucleus - in your model atoms are not stable.
Hasn't the DSE been performed with electrons?
So what does the shore correspond to in physical terms?
This is an extremely complicated and nasty model. It's a lot easier to assume electrons and photons are fields and particles are excitations of the fields. That way the path integral gives you an interference pattern without all this stuff that's put in by hand.
Again, the traditional explanation is far cleaner and works better.
Presumably your model has some predictions that vary from the traditional explanation that will confirm or deny your effort?
No it does not. It is simply a better explanation of observed behaviors.
directed wave? point of the wave? You're making up phrases now.
How is a pointed massless particle that does not occupy space a better definition of a photon than a pointed wave?
This model (in the loosest sense of the word) is rubbish and has been doing the rounds on physorg for long enough for all the serious physicists there to have thoroughly debunked it. The mods are a lot better here so I suspect this thread will end up in pseudoscience rather quickly. Not a moment too soon in my opinion.
I read the rules and they said to post here first.
TimeTraveler
11-02-08, 11:05 AM
The universe is the observer and does not exist independently of the observer.
The universe is the observer and does not exist independently of the observer.
lol
prometheus
11-02-08, 02:13 PM
There is no such thing as a massless particle.
That is where you are wrong. Massless particles have been proven to exist time and time again. One example:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2870535487_48b483596d_o.jpg
How does an electromagnetic field exist in a void?
What is a void? Do you mean vacuum? In a vacuum there is no matter but fields of force are perfectly acceptable.
How is a massless point particle different than a pointed wave?
What is a pointed wave? You're making up stuff again. A point particle has no spatial extent whereas a wave of any sort must have some spatial extent.
Hasn't the DSE been performed with electrons?
Yes, which is further evidence for the fundamental objects of nature being fields. Both wavelike and particle like properties are explained this way.
No it does not. It is simply a better explanation of observed behaviors.
That's the point of physics. Observe, hypothesise and explain. Not make up rubbish that doesn't fit with what we observe and declare it explains something. Why don't you go and learn some proper physics instead of spouting garbage on an internet message board? Is it because you haven't got an adequate brain?
How is a pointed massless particle that does not occupy space a better definition of a photon than a pointed wave?
I assume your poor terminology is an attempt to say "point particle" and "point wave" (whatever that is). As I said previously, a particle can be pointlike, but how can a wave be pointlike? It's an impossibility.
I read the rules and they said to post here first.
Doesn't stop what you've posted being crap. Sorry.
prometheus
11-02-08, 03:17 PM
smug mode
That is where you are wrong. Massless particles have been proven to exist time and time again. One example:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2870535487_48b483596d_o.jpg
What you see in the picture is the point of the photon wave hitting the screen.
What is a void? Do you mean vacuum? In a vacuum there is no matter but fields of force are perfectly acceptable.
Space exists in the vacuum. Space is a medium.
What is a pointed wave? You're making up stuff again. A point particle has no spatial extent whereas a wave of any sort must have some spatial extent.
A massless pointed particle that has zero-dimensions and does not occupy space is a pointed wave traveling through the medium of space.
A photon is a burst of space traveling through the medium of space.
prometheus
11-03-08, 02:44 AM
The fact is that quantum electrodynamics predicts the existence of photons that are point particles, not some made up claptrap like pointed waves, which if your brain is working at all and you think about it for a while you'll convince yourself cannot exist because for something to have wavelike properties it must have a spatial extent.
With QED you can calculate properties of nature that you can measure in experiments and the two agree with an accuracy of 1 in one billion. Until your made up bullshit can do that then I will continue to call it what it is - bullshit. Physicists have squared that particular circle many years ago and have moved on to more interesting and complex problems. It seems you are nothing but a backward ignorant moron with nothing better to do than look for new and more complicated ways to answer questions in a worse way than has already been done.
The fact is that quantum electrodynamics predicts the existence of photons that are point particles, not some made up claptrap like pointed waves, which if your brain is working at all and you think about it for a while you'll convince yourself cannot exist because for something to have wavelike properties it must have a spatial extent.
With QED you can calculate properties of nature that you can measure in experiments and the two agree with an accuracy of 1 in one billion. Until your made up bullshit can do that then I will continue to call it what it is - bullshit. Physicists have squared that particular circle many years ago and have moved on to more interesting and complex problems. It seems you are nothing but a backward ignorant moron with nothing better to do than look for new and more complicated ways to answer questions in a worse way than has already been done.
One of the main reasons for the mistaken belief that photons are particles is because of the photoelectric effect experiment. Einstein concluded that a photon must be a particle because it is able to emit electrons off of the metallic surface.
Later experiments such as the DSE continued with this belief which is why Quantum Physics has had to come up with such a complicated explanation for the DSE observed behaviors.
If Einstein had concluded that the electrons are emitted in the photoelectric effect experiment due to a photon being a burst of space traveling through the medium of space that hits the metallic surface similar to an ocean wave hitting the beach, this explanation would have carried over to the DSE and the DSE would be easily explained and understood.
prometheus
11-03-08, 12:59 PM
DSE is easily explained and understood, only not by you unfortunately. I'm not going to wait for you to grow a brain and understand this. If you're really interested buy a book, try the Feynman lectures on physics.
DSE is easily explained and understood, only not by you unfortunately. I'm not going to wait for you to grow a brain and understand this. If you're really interested buy a book, try the Feynman lectures on physics.
One of the main reasons Feynman says that Quantum Physics cannot be understood is due to the behaviors observed in the DSE.
Just because you and Feynman aren't able to easily explain and understand the DSE does not mean all of us have to believe it cannot be understood.
prometheus
11-03-08, 04:54 PM
Are you blind? DSE can be easily understood. The fact that you don't is meaningless.
How does a particle go through both slits?
prometheus
11-04-08, 08:23 AM
It is often said that a particle must go through both slits for the double slit experiment to work. This is not strictly true. In Quantum field theory particles are not the fundamental objects of the theory - they are excitations of a particular field, for example, photons are nothing more than excitations of the photon field. When you pass a single particle through the double slit experiment you know it's initial position and you measure it's final position, however, you know nothing about it's trajectory - in fact, it does not have a well defined trajectory at all.
I don't expect you to understand this but it has been shown by many people that the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is completely equivalent to the more familiar Schrödinger formalism. The physical interpretation of the path integral is that you start a particle at a point x_i and detect it at a point x_f. In between the particle does not follow a single path but follows every possible path, each path being weighted with a particular factor - the closer it is to the classical path the more it contributes to the motion. Non classical motion certainly does contribute though, one only has to look at tunnelling to see this.
So in the double slit experiment particles do not do through both slits, or neither slit. You can make no statement about which slit the particle goes through. In quantum mechanics, there is equal probability for the particle to go through each slit so the slits behave like a pair of sources. Even if you only pass a single particle though the experiment, both paths contribute to the measured final position of the particle. That is the explanation of the double slit experiment. If you don't understand it (and I strongly suspect that you won't) then I recommend you read about the path integral (otherwise known as sum over histories).
wiki page (requires knowledge of calculus and wave mechanics) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_integral_formulation)
Wordy description (http://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlights/path_integrals/index.html)
Summary - if you don't measure the position of the particle, then you cannot say the particle passes through either slit or both. It is simply not defined.
It is often said that a particle must go through both slits for the double slit experiment to work. This is not strictly true. In Quantum field theory particles are not the fundamental objects of the theory - they are excitations of a particular field, for example, photons are nothing more than excitations of the photon field. When you pass a single particle through the double slit experiment you know it's initial position and you measure it's final position, however, you know nothing about it's trajectory - in fact, it does not have a well defined trajectory at all.
I don't expect you to understand this but it has been shown by many people that the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is completely equivalent to the more familiar Schrödinger formalism. The physical interpretation of the path integral is that you start a particle at a point x_i and detect it at a point x_f. In between the particle does not follow a single path but follows every possible path, each path being weighted with a particular factor - the closer it is to the classical path the more it contributes to the motion. Non classical motion certainly does contribute though, one only has to look at tunnelling to see this.
So in the double slit experiment particles do not do through both slits, or neither slit. You can make no statement about which slit the particle goes through. In quantum mechanics, there is equal probability for the particle to go through each slit so the slits behave like a pair of sources. Even if you only pass a single particle though the experiment, both paths contribute to the measured final position of the particle. That is the explanation of the double slit experiment. If you don't understand it (and I strongly suspect that you won't) then I recommend you read about the path integral (otherwise known as sum over histories).
Summary - if you don't measure the position of the particle, then you cannot say the particle passes through either slit or both. It is simply not defined.
Thanks for the detailed description and for raising the dialog, but I do not see it as a simple explanation. It sounds like much of it is made up just to have a theory that explains the DSE where the photon gets to be a particle.
A photon being a burst of space traveling through the medium of space is a much simpler explanation. Being a burst, it is a wave that goes through both slits. Being a burst, when it encounters the screen in the DSE or the metallic surface in the photoelectric effect experiment it behaves like a particle.
AlphaNumeric
11-04-08, 09:05 AM
One of the main reasons Feynman says that Quantum Physics cannot be understood is due to the behaviors observed in the DSE.
Just because you and Feynman aren't able to easily explain and understand the DSE does not mean all of us have to believe it cannot be understood.Why don't you get yourself a copy of the Feynman lectures. For the price of around £70 (I think) you get one of the greatest compendiums of physics ever written by one of its greatest teachers. Within it you will find that Feynman talks at length about the double slit experiment.
You can also get the audio of his lectures on precisely that, from the lectures he used to give at CalTech. I know a fair amount about quantum mechanics but listening to Feynman explain how he thinks and works on it is an illuminating thing for me even now.
The fact you don't know and don't want to know quantum mechanics doesn't mean it is wrong. I don't know or want to know Welsh but that doesn't mean I think it's pointless and just a collection of incoherent vocal noises.
Why don't you get yourself a copy of the Feynman lectures. For the price of around £70 (I think) you get one of the greatest compendiums of physics ever written by one of its greatest teachers. Within it you will find that Feynman talks at length about the double slit experiment.
You can also get the audio of his lectures on precisely that, from the lectures he used to give at CalTech. I know a fair amount about quantum mechanics but listening to Feynman explain how he thinks and works on it is an illuminating thing for me even now.
The fact you don't know and don't want to know quantum mechanics doesn't mean it is wrong. I don't know or want to know Welsh but that doesn't mean I think it's pointless and just a collection of incoherent vocal noises.
Does Feynman believe "the particle does not follow a single path but follows every possible path"?
If so, I do not see any reason to read up on someone who is wrong about what is occurring in the DSE.
prometheus
11-04-08, 10:23 AM
I'll repeat, we aren't going to wait for you to grow a brain. The fact is that you are wrong about photons. You not understanding the explanation does not mean that it isn't right. Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and you are a nobody. Who do you think people should trust?
AlphaNumeric
11-04-08, 11:11 AM
Does Feynman believe "the particle does not follow a single path but follows every possible path"?Considering he's one of the people who pioneered the notion of a path integral, where you sum over all possible paths a quantum object can take to get from A to B, which is the corner stone of field theory, it would appear he does.
Then there's the diagrams which bear his name. If you want to compute say two electrons bouncing off one another you have to consider ALL possible ways they can do this. First you consider them exchanging a photon only. That's how non-relativistic quantum mechanics says happen. But then you add quantum corrections, infinitely many of them. The first quantum correction is that the photon turns into a pair of charged particles (say an electron and a positron), they then recombine into a photon which hits the electron. Then you consider the next quantum corrections, that the pair of electrons created from the photon exchange a photon between themselves. Then you consider things like that photon turning into a virtual pair and then back into a photon.
You consider EVERY possible way the photon can get from the first electron to the second. Every possible circumstance, every possible energies and momenta the virtual pairs can have. Everything.
And it's that work which got Feynman a Physics Nobel Prize. And also QED is the more precise physics we have ever developed.
As Prom says, who should we listen to, someone who was considered one of the greatest physicists ever, who won a Nobel Prize, was renouned for his insight into the concepts of physics and whose textbooks give a complete description of the DSE, both qualitatively and quantitatively, which has been tested a great many times by a great many people, or should we listen to you, someone who doesn't know how science works, doesn't know any quantum mechanics or relativity but dismisses both of them and who doesn't realise if you're going to claim "I've explained gravity!" (as you did on PhysOrg) it means you must be able to accurately model physical systems using your work. Given I asked you many times to do that and you couldn't, you are lying when you make the afore mentioned claim.
Do you know any vector calculus, linear algebra or group theory? They are the backbone of all kinds of physics. If you don't know them you can never develop a viable model of gravity or understand the precise reasons QM explains the DSE in both a conceptual and quantitative way.
You make the mistake so many people do, mostly cranks, of thinking that because you find a concept doesn't square with your intuition it must be wrong. Your intuition is the result of being familiar with patterns of everyday life. Given quantum mechanics isn't the kind of thing which shows up in everyday life normally and you ardently avoid reading up on quantum mechanics you don't grasp it's concepts. And a 30 second Wikipedia read isn't enough. Those of us who do have quantum mechanics coming up in our lives each and every day see how QM explains the DSE.
I'll repeat, we aren't going to wait for you to grow a brain. The fact is that you are wrong about photons. You not understanding the explanation does not mean that it isn't right. Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century and you are a nobody. Who do you think people should trust?
Just because he was brilliant doesn't mean he couldn't have been wrong.
You accept that the photon, as a particle, follows an infinite number of paths because a brilliant man told you to believe it.
If you were to think for yourself, you would realize a photon defined as a burst of space traveling through the medium of space is a much better explanation of what is occurring in the DSE.
It shouldn't matter if a nobody, or a genius, is putting forth a theory.
The theory that explains the observed behavior better will hopefully, eventually, win out.
Considering he's one of the people who pioneered the notion of a path integral, where you sum over all possible paths a quantum object can take to get from A to B, which is the corner stone of field theory, it would appear he does.
Then there's the diagrams which bear his name. If you want to compute say two electrons bouncing off one another you have to consider ALL possible ways they can do this. First you consider them exchanging a photon only. That's how non-relativistic quantum mechanics says happen. But then you add quantum corrections, infinitely many of them. The first quantum correction is that the photon turns into a pair of charged particles (say an electron and a positron), they then recombine into a photon which hits the electron. Then you consider the next quantum corrections, that the pair of electrons created from the photon exchange a photon between themselves. Then you consider things like that photon turning into a virtual pair and then back into a photon.
You consider EVERY possible way the photon can get from the first electron to the second. Every possible circumstance, every possible energies and momenta the virtual pairs can have. Everything.
And it's that work which got Feynman a Physics Nobel Prize. And also QED is the more precise physics we have ever developed.
As Prom says, who should we listen to, someone who was considered one of the greatest physicists ever, who won a Nobel Prize, was renouned for his insight into the concepts of physics and whose textbooks give a complete description of the DSE, both qualitatively and quantitatively, which has been tested a great many times by a great many people, or should we listen to you, someone who doesn't know how science works, doesn't know any quantum mechanics or relativity but dismisses both of them and who doesn't realise if you're going to claim "I've explained gravity!" (as you did on PhysOrg) it means you must be able to accurately model physical systems using your work. Given I asked you many times to do that and you couldn't, you are lying when you make the afore mentioned claim.
Do you know any vector calculus, linear algebra or group theory? They are the backbone of all kinds of physics. If you don't know them you can never develop a viable model of gravity or understand the precise reasons QM explains the DSE in both a conceptual and quantitative way.
You make the mistake so many people do, mostly cranks, of thinking that because you find a concept doesn't square with your intuition it must be wrong. Your intuition is the result of being familiar with patterns of everyday life. Given quantum mechanics isn't the kind of thing which shows up in everyday life normally and you ardently avoid reading up on quantum mechanics you don't grasp it's concepts. And a 30 second Wikipedia read isn't enough. Those of us who do have quantum mechanics coming up in our lives each and every day see how QM explains the DSE.
Or you could say a photon is a burst of space traveling through the medium of space and not have to deal with things like path integral.
You do realize all of the complexities that Feynman had to invent and you choose to believe is because QM insists a photon is a particle.
What would happen if you paused for a second and choose to consider a photon as a burst of space traveling through the medium of space?
You would no longer have to consider a photon traveling in an infinite number of possible paths.
prometheus
11-04-08, 11:45 AM
You do realize all of the complexities that Feynman had to invent and you choose to believe is because QM insists a photon is a particle.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding that I have pointed out many times both here and on physorg. The quantum theory of electromagnetism casts the photon not as a particle but as a field
You have a fundamental misunderstanding that I have pointed out many times both here and on physorg. The quantum theory of electromagnetism casts the photon not as a particle but as a field
"In between the particle does not follow a single path but follows every possible path"
A photon as a burst of space traveling through the medium of space is traveling in a single path.
prometheus
11-04-08, 12:25 PM
"In between the particle does not follow a single path but follows every possible path"
That's because the particle is not the fundamental object in the theory, as I've told you more than once.
A photon as a burst of space traveling through the medium of space is traveling in a single path.
So how does your photon know about the second slit if it follows only one path through one slit?
That's because the particle is not the fundamental object in the theory, as I've told you more than once.
But it is still required to travel on an infinite number of paths. An outrageous statement considering it is not the fundamental object in the theory.
So how does your photon know about the second slit if it follows only one path through one slit?
The photon does not need to know about the second slit. It's a wave with width.
For example, if I have a tank of water with extremely tight rubber sides, I could poke one side of the tank and have the burst of water travel through the water and "poke out" the other side.
If there are slits in the path of the burst of water, as long as the slits are not very far apart, the burst of water will travel through both slits and create interference as it exits the slits. The direction the burst is traveling will be affected by this interference, but it will still "poke out" the other side of the tank.
By definition, a burst of water also includes the wave it is creating in the water. The slits do not have to be so close together as to allow what might be considered the "particle" portion of the burst to go through both slits. The slits have to be close enough that the wave associated with the burst of water is able to cause interference as it exits the slits and impact where the burst "pokes out" the side of the tank.
prometheus
11-04-08, 03:19 PM
But it is still required to travel on an infinite number of paths. An outrageous statement considering it is not the fundamental object in the theory.
You don't get it. Unless it's being measured a particle is not a well defined object at all.
The photon does not need to know about the second slit. It's a wave with width.
For example, if I have a tank of water with extremely tight rubber sides, I could poke one side of the tank and have the burst of water travel through the water and "poke out" the other side.
If there are slits in the path of the burst of water, as long as the slits are not very far apart, the burst of water will travel through both slits and create interference as it exits the slits. The direction the burst is traveling will be affected by this interference, but it will still "poke out" the other side of the tank.
By definition, a burst of water also includes the wave it is creating in the water. The slits do not have to be so close together as to allow what might be considered the "particle" portion of the burst to go through both slits. The slits have to be close enough that the wave associated with the burst of water is able to cause interference as it exits the slits and impact where the burst "pokes out" the side of the tank.
If you send a single photon through the DSE it's probability distribution will be affected by the presence of 2 slits. What you've put, apart from being a bunch of word salad seems to suggest that if you sent a single photon through the DSE it wouldn't care how many slits there are. This is not what we observe. Sending one photon (or electron for that matter) through the DSE you can see the probability distribution depends on the number of slits (in exact agreement with the path integral).
If your interpretation is so good you'll need to do some calculations to show it agrees with what we observe better than QED. I won't hold my breath because QED is the most accurate theory of physics ever. Quantitatively accurate - people calculate things and then go and measure them, not waffle endlessly about the theory until idiots are convinced.
You don't get it. Unless it's being measured a particle is not a well defined object at all.
If you measure it its a particle, but if you don't measure it it's not a particle. QM nonsense.
If you send a single photon through the DSE it's probability distribution will be affected by the presence of 2 slits. What you've put, apart from being a bunch of word salad seems to suggest that if you sent a single photon through the DSE it wouldn't care how many slits there are.
It matters how many slits there are because the wave will go through all of the slits and the interference the wave creates as it exits the slits will, obviously, be affected by how many slits the wave went through.
This is not what we observe. Sending one photon (or electron for that matter) through the DSE you can see the probability distribution depends on the number of slits (in exact agreement with the path integral).
A photon, as a burst of space traveling through space will have a similar distribution.
If your interpretation is so good you'll need to do some calculations to show it agrees with what we observe better than QED. I won't hold my breath because QED is the most accurate theory of physics ever. Quantitatively accurate - people calculate things and then go and measure them, not waffle endlessly about the theory until idiots are convinced.
QED makes things much more complicated than necessary.
prometheus
11-04-08, 05:12 PM
Lets see a calculation then.
Lets see a calculation then.
Just because I can't do the math doesn't mean the theory isn't better.
And I didn't say the calculations of QED were wrong.
I'm just pointing out that a photon as a burst of space traveling through the medium of space is a much simpler and easier to understand explanation for the observed behaviors witnessed in the DSE.
prometheus
11-05-08, 04:10 AM
Typical crank response. In reality if your theory cannot be used to calculate things and come up with definite numerical predictions then you're wasting the time of yourself and others. You're not even wrong. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong)
AlphaNumeric
11-05-08, 05:31 AM
QED makes things much more complicated than necessary.Do you even know any QED? QED is actually fantastically elegant. From \mathcal{L} = \bar{\psi}(i\gamma^{\mu}D_{\mu}-m)\psi + \frac{1}{2g^{2}}F_{\mu\nu}F^{\mu\nu} I can compute any and all electromagnetic phenomena.
How long have I been asking you to provide something quantitative for your claims? And each and every time you've been unable to do so. That one expression from QED allows a physicist to compute measurable things. The fact you don't even realise why you need to give something quantitative shows you have no clue about physics.
Just because you have the math, doesn't mean nonsense like a photon is a particle only when it is looked at and for some magical reason interference disappears when a photon is observed, even though you have no explanation for why it disappears, and there is nonsense such as Which Way, and a photon exists in an infinite number of paths, and so on...
Talk about being not even wrong.
You have made up all of this nonsense because you are unable, or unwilling, to comprehend space as a medium.
Yes, you are better at the math than I am. Congratulations.
But a photon being a burst of space traveling through the medium of space explains all of the above as is. There is no need for more.
Pat yourself on the back while you keep your head in the sand.
Just because you can do the math, doesn't mean your explanations of what is happening aren't full of it.
Where would we be today if Einstein, after performing the photoelectric effect experiment had determined that this was evidence that space is a medium and a photon was a burst of space traveling through the medium of space?
If Feynman had taken this concept and applied it to the DSE instead of coming up with more nonsense like path integral formulation, how much further along would QED be?
Keep believing your nonsense as you jump up and down shouting, "I can do the math, I can do the math! Yeah, me!"
prometheus
11-05-08, 10:00 AM
The way theories of physics work is you propose an idea (like the photon is a quantum field), then you do a bunch of calculations to see what the consequences of your idea are (anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, electron scattering cross sections etc). If your calculations are good you get them published by a peer reviewed journal. Then you get an experimentalist to do an experiment to check your calculations.
Sadly for you, you've got as far as step one and decided that's all that's required. The scientific method has been developed over hundreds of years and you come along and claim it's not necessary? You're even more of an idiot than I thought if you believe this.
Don't worry, I'm sure physorg will be back soon so you can get back to talking crap with other like minded idiots. All it will accomplish is making a person of decidedly small intellect like yourself feel important and smart. Don't forget it is an illusion and that all the while proper science is being done by people with the dedication to put themselves through many years of study and effort. This could be you if you want it to be, but I somehow suspect you'll want to take the easy way rather than the way that will give you real results.
In QED, why is it that a photon is only a particle when it is being measured?
In QED, why is it that observing a photon destroys interference?
And you can't say because it is a property of the photon.
My answers:
As a photon is a burst of space traveling through space it appears as a particle whenever it is observed.
For example, in the analogy of a burst of water traveling through the water, if you look at the "nucleus" of the burst, it will always appear to be a particle. That is why it is able to "poke out" the other side of the tank.
Interference is destroyed when observing a photon because the act of observation is destroying the wave being created in space by the burst of space, turning it into chop.
Very easy to explain and understand.
Calculate that.
prometheus
11-05-08, 01:19 PM
The predictions of QED are precisely what we observe in experiments.
Waffle that.
In QED, how is it that a photon is only a particle when it is being measured?
In QED, how is it that observing a photon destroys interference?
prometheus
11-06-08, 06:58 AM
In QED, how is it that a photon is only a particle when it is being measured?
In QED, how is it that observing a photon destroys interference?
Your questions are irrelevant because QED has passed every experimental test that has been devised for it. The fact that you don't understand it does not change the fact that it is how the universe works.
Nevertheless, I will try to answer your questions. Firstly, you have to revise what you think a particle is. I suspect you are visualising a billiard ball bouncing around and this is a bad way to think about it. A photon is an excitation of a quantum field - it does not ever have both a well defined position and momentum. The best we can do is assign is a probability to it's position, which is where the interference pattern comes from. The path from the first and second slits interfere so when we measure the position of the particle both slits make a difference.
Which leads me onto question 2. When you observe the particle as it goes through one of the slits the probability of the the particle going through the other slit goes to zero. Hence you only have a single effective source and the diffraction pattern disappears. This has been thoroughly tested and is exactly what we observe, so whether you think it is weird or not, that is the way things work.
AlphaNumeric
11-06-08, 07:16 AM
If Feynman had taken this concept and applied it to the DSE instead of coming up with more nonsense like path integral formulation, how much further along would QED be?QED explains ALL of electromagnetism. There is not a phenomena which is purely electromagnetic which it does not describe. How much further along does QED need to be? It's been unified with the weak quantum force too. Now physicists look at how the electroweak and the strong forces interplay. QED is done and dusted.
Just because you can do the math, doesn't mean your explanations of what is happening aren't full of it.
This is precisely the kind of crap Farsight comes out with. He cannot model a single phenomena but claims he's explained charge, mass, gravity, time, space, money, the reason I get tired around 2pm in the afternoon and just where exactly I left my keys. Challenge him to describe even one phenomena and he'll say "This isn't about equations, it's about explainations!" or something to that effect. Nonsense. Physics is about knowing when and where a thrown ball will come down not just the statement "it comes down".
Keep believing your nonsense as you jump up and down shouting, "I can do the math, I can do the math! Yeah, me!"
There's plenty of qualitative explainations in physics. The fact you've avoided them because you're either too scared or too stupid to open a textbook on quantum mechanics doesn't mean they aren't there.
You have buried your head in the sand, hoping that if you ignore the fact mainstream physics has a qualitative explaination as well as a staggeringly exact quantitative explaination of electromagnetic phenomena then your pathetic claims will somehow carry some weight. They don't. They just prove you're willing to shoot your mouth off without having bothered to actually investigate what you're denouncing.
Your questions are irrelevant because QED has passed every experimental test that has been devised for it. The fact that you don't understand it does not change the fact that it is how the universe works.
Nevertheless, I will try to answer your questions. Firstly, you have to revise what you think a particle is. I suspect you are visualising a billiard ball bouncing around
I am visualizing a burst of space traveling through space.
and this is a bad way to think about it. A photon is an excitation of a quantum field
What is a quantum field and how does a photon excite it?
- it does not ever have both a well defined position and momentum.
As a burst of space traveling through space, a photon always has a well defined position and momentum.
The best we can do is assign is a probability to it's position,
No need for "probability" for a burst of space traveling through the medium of space.
which is where the interference pattern comes from. The path from the first and second slits interfere so when we measure the position of the particle both slits make a difference.
But what about measuring it when it is traveling towards the slits, why does it have "properties" of a "particle" simply by measuring it?
Why is it able to leave a mark on the screen in the DSE. Why is it able to behave like a particle?
If you review your answer, I think you will notice that you have not really answered the basic question of how a photon behaves like a particle.
Which leads me onto question 2. When you observe the particle as it goes through one of the slits the probability of the the particle going through the other slit goes to zero.
Why? I understand that this is what you have been taught and it "works" for you, but think about what you are saying.
Somehow, if you see a photon traveling through one slit, that means it is not going through the other, which means interference will not occur.
But if you do not observe the photon, that means it goes through both slits.
WHY and HOW???
What is it about the act of observing the photon that causes this to occur?
As a burst of space traveling through space, its wave goes through both slits and the act of observing turns the wave into chop so interference cannot occur.
Hence you only have a single effective source and the diffraction pattern disappears. This has been thoroughly tested and is exactly what we observe, so whether you think it is weird or not, that is the way things work.
I understand it has been throughly tested and is exactly what we observe, but it has yet to be explained.
What is physically happening in space that allows a photon to go through both slits and why does observing the photon stop this from occurring.
Talk of probabilities is not enough.
QED explains ALL of electromagnetism. There is not a phenomena which is purely electromagnetic which it does not describe. How much further along does QED need to be? It's been unified with the weak quantum force too. Now physicists look at how the electroweak and the strong forces interplay. QED is done and dusted.
This is precisely the kind of crap Farsight comes out with. He cannot model a single phenomena but claims he's explained charge, mass, gravity, time, space, money, the reason I get tired around 2pm in the afternoon and just where exactly I left my keys. Challenge him to describe even one phenomena and he'll say "This isn't about equations, it's about explainations!" or something to that effect. Nonsense. Physics is about knowing when and where a thrown ball will come down not just the statement "it comes down".
There's plenty of qualitative explainations in physics. The fact you've avoided them because you're either too scared or too stupid to open a textbook on quantum mechanics doesn't mean they aren't there.
You have buried your head in the sand, hoping that if you ignore the fact mainstream physics has a qualitative explaination as well as a staggeringly exact quantitative explaination of electromagnetic phenomena then your pathetic claims will somehow carry some weight. They don't. They just prove you're willing to shoot your mouth off without having bothered to actually investigate what you're denouncing.
You are correct in that I do need to read more and get a better understanding of QED.
But you choose to believe in things like "virtual pairs" and "gravitons" and other such nonsense. Things that cannot, and do not, exist in reality. Your ability to understand calculations has lead you to believe in things that cannot exist.
prometheus
11-06-08, 04:14 PM
Most of your post makes claims that have no background in experiments and you can't prove with mathematics so I will ignore them, however I would like to draw your attention to these gems:
I am visualizing a burst of space traveling through space.
This statement makes no sense.
What is a quantum field and how does a photon excite it?
I will now conclude that you can't read. A photon is an excitation of the field. In a sense the photon particles are made of the photon field.
Why? I understand that this is what you have been taught and it "works" for you, but think about what you are saying.
It is true that I have been taught QED, what with it being a 90 year old theory, but I don't believe it to be true because that's what I've been told - I believe it to be true because it has been extensively tested in experiments in a way that it is impossible to do for your ideas. They are less than wrong scientifically.
This statement makes no sense.
Consider an air gun with no pellet. If I fire the air gun, air will hit your eye. It is a burst of air traveling through the air. It has both particle and wave characteristics.
It is true that I have been taught QED, what with it being a 90 year old theory, but I don't believe it to be true because that's what I've been told - I believe it to be true because it has been extensively tested in experiments in a way that it is impossible to do for your ideas. They are less than wrong scientifically.
If an air gun without a pellet is fired towards the slits in the DSE, the wave the air burst is creating in the air will travel through both slits, create interference, and the course the burst of air is traveling will be affected by this interference.
An effort to observe the burst of air will cause the wave it is generating to be turned into chop and interference will not take place.
Now, how does QED explain what is physically happening in space that allows the photon to go through both slits when not observed but only one when observed?
As Mel Gibson said in Payback, ''What's the matter, cat got your crotch?"
prometheus
11-07-08, 02:49 AM
Consider an air gun with no pellet. If I fire the air gun, air will hit your eye. It is a burst of air traveling through the air. It has both particle and wave characteristics.
If an air gun without a pellet is fired towards the slits in the DSE, the wave the air burst is creating in the air will travel through both slits, create interference, and the course the burst of air is traveling will be affected by this interference.
An effort to observe the burst of air will cause the wave it is generating to be turned into chop and interference will not take place.
Now, how does QED explain what is physically happening in space that allows the photon to go through both slits when not observed but only one when observed?
Well then Mr. Smartass, Your analogy of the air gun with no pellet brings up a few important questions.
1) What physically plays the role of the air gun?
2) How come photon detectors can only see highly localised photons? In quantum field theory the particles fall out naturally, here they seem to be extremely ad hoc.
3) Why am I asking all these questions, since your analogy can be completely explained in terms of waves - there is no particle interpretation whatsoever. Your wave will spread out in three dimensions and eventually just disappear. We have observed many many photons rigorously and find this not to be the case.
Your theory is wrong. Your credibility would be greatly improved if you acknowledged that.
Well then Mr. Smartass, Your analogy of the air gun with no pellet brings up a few important questions.
1) What physically plays the role of the air gun?
You already know this, but from wikipedea:
"Photons are emitted in many natural processes, e.g., when a charge is accelerated, during a molecular, atomic or nuclear transition to a lower energy level"
Whatever emits a photon is playing the role of the air gun.
2) How come photon detectors can only see highly localised photons? In quantum field theory the particles fall out naturally, here they seem to be extremely ad hoc.
How do they fall out naturally? What is physically occurring that causes this?
The burst of space is always localized. It has momentum and is traveling in a direction.
3) Why am I asking all these questions, since your analogy can be completely explained in terms of waves - there is no particle interpretation whatsoever. Your wave will spread out in three dimensions and eventually just disappear. We have observed many many photons rigorously and find this not to be the case.
If it were a generic wave, like an ocean wave, there will never be a mark left on the screen in the DSE. It is a burst of space traveling through space. It does not spread out in three dimensions and eventually just disappear because whatever resistance it encounters in the direction it is traveling, if there is any resistance, is offset by the push it is getting as space backfills behind the burst. The burst is able to maintain it cohesion as it travels through space.
Your theory is wrong. Your credibility would be greatly improved if you acknowledged that.
Why can't you explain how a photon is able to go through both slits when not observed and only one when observed?
If your QED theory is so great and has been around for 90 years, someone must have been able to figure out what is physically occurring in space that causes this to occur.
Why don't you answer this basic question?
AlphaNumeric
11-07-08, 12:54 PM
You are correct in that I do need to read more and get a better understanding of QED.And yet, despite knowing nothing about QED or any other field theory, you deny it all. The statement you made "It's overly complicated" I imagine you reached because, if you have tried to learn it, you've found it's too complicated for you. I actually find it more straight forward then non-relativistic quantum mechanics.
But you choose to believe in things like "virtual pairs" and "gravitons" and other such nonsense. Things that cannot, and do not, exist in reality. Your ability to understand calculations has lead you to believe in things that cannot exist.Firstly, QED doesn't talk about gravitons. Secondly, your inability to understand has lead you to believe that if you don't understand it it doesn't exist. Never mind how successful it has been at explaining things. Quantitatively and qualitatively.
For instance, loops (ie virtual pairs) lead to the implication that quantum field theory predicts that the couplings of forces (ie the strength of the EM, weak and strong forces) varies with energy, that two electrons slowly moving relative to one another will interact more than two with a high relative velocity. And what do we find? Precisely that. Infact, it was that which was the 2004 Nobel Prize for Physics, the asymptotic freedom of the strong force due to loop calculations.
I can run you through a few such calculations if you want, I've done some of them in my time.
And yet, despite knowing nothing about QED or any other field theory, you deny it all. The statement you made "It's overly complicated" I imagine you reached because, if you have tried to learn it, you've found it's too complicated for you. I actually find it more straight forward then non-relativistic quantum mechanics.
Firstly, QED doesn't talk about gravitons. Secondly, your inability to understand has lead you to believe that if you don't understand it it doesn't exist. Never mind how successful it has been at explaining things. Quantitatively and qualitatively.
For instance, loops (ie virtual pairs) lead to the implication that quantum field theory predicts that the couplings of forces (ie the strength of the EM, weak and strong forces) varies with energy, that two electrons slowly moving relative to one another will interact more than two with a high relative velocity. And what do we find? Precisely that. Infact, it was that which was the 2004 Nobel Prize for Physics, the asymptotic freedom of the strong force due to loop calculations.
I can run you through a few such calculations if you want, I've done some of them in my time.
Why can't you explain how a photon is able to go through both slits when not observed and only one when observed?
If your QED theory is so great and has been around for 90 years, someone must have been able to figure out what is physically occurring in space that causes this to occur.
Why don't you answer this basic question?
AlphaNumeric
11-07-08, 03:02 PM
Why can't you explain how a photon is able to go through both slits when not observed and only one when observed?It is explained in quantum mechanics. You compute the wave function for the photon or electron or Na atom or Bucky ball during the time it is moving through the system. It will be described by a superposition of eigenstates.
If you then take a measurement, ie work out the expectation value of a particular operator's application to the wave function (ie put a detector around the slits) you project out a single eigenstate. This eigenstate is the description of the particle being somewhere precisely. The time evolution of the wave function will then be nothing more than this eigenstate with a varying phase, it is a 'pure state', not a superposition and thus cannot produce superposition results. If you don't apply the operator to the wave function the superposition of states means the outcome, when done many many times, will be an interference pattern.
The act of measuring removes superpositional properties from the wave function. Not measuring doesn't.
If you knew quantum mechanics (not QED, just plain old non-relativistic quantum mechanics) and how operators and states are described and behave, you would be able to answer your own question.
When I'm unsure about something or can't see how something is working the first thing I do is reach for a relevant textbook and get reading. If that doesn't help I ask friends. If they don't know, I ask my supervisor. If they don't know then it's unlikely to be physics I'm asking them about. You, and many cranks like you, don't do this. Rather than saying "Perhaps it's because I don't know the first thing about this topic that I don't understand it. Perhaps I should do some learning" you proclaim entire sections of extremely successful physics to be nonsense. The fact you're either too lazy, too stupid or both to understand this stuff or to even look to see if anyone else does doesn't mean you're right. It means you aren't interested in scientific methodology or even expanding your horizons.
If your QED theory is so great and has been around for 90 years, someone must have been able to figure out what is physically occurring in space that causes this to occur.But why have you made no attempt to find out on your own, via books or a library, to see what anyone has produced in terms of quantitative descriptions of this system. The fact the answer can be given in terms of concepts taught during introductory courses in quantum mechanics makes your ignorance all the more cringeworthy.
You make no effort to find the answers but claim they don't exist. I've never learnt the Japanese word for 'telephone', doesn't mean I proclaim the Japanese don't have a word for it.
It is explained in quantum mechanics. You compute the wave function for the photon or electron or Na atom or Bucky ball during the time it is moving through the system. It will be described by a superposition of eigenstates.
If you then take a measurement, ie work out the expectation value of a particular operator's application to the wave function (ie put a detector around the slits) you project out a single eigenstate. This eigenstate is the description of the particle being somewhere precisely. The time evolution of the wave function will then be nothing more than this eigenstate with a varying phase, it is a 'pure state', not a superposition and thus cannot produce superposition results. If you don't apply the operator to the wave function the superposition of states means the outcome, when done many many times, will be an interference pattern.
The act of measuring removes superpositional properties from the wave function. Not measuring doesn't.
"superposition of eigenstates"
Stuff like this reminds me of the mental gymnastics scientists put themselves through to try and figure out ways to calculate the orbits of the planets with the Earth being the center of the universe.
A photon is a burst of space traveling through space.
AlphaNumeric
11-08-08, 04:49 AM
Superposition means "Add together" and 'eigenstates' means 'a pure state' (for the non-mathematicians). Anyone who has ever done signal analysis in electrical engineering knows that you can write any noise/sound/signal as a sum of 'pure signals', where the pure signals have a fixed amplitude and frequency. That's called Fourier analysis and it's the foundation of all analogue data transmission for the last 150 years.
Anyone who has done any kind of vector calculus, ie the descriptions of multi-dimensional systems, will have used matrices and know how to compute the 'nice' directions for a system.
Eigenstates, eigenfunctions, eigenvectors. These are all concepts which anyone whose done a 1st year course in mathematics or physics will know about. They are everywhere in physics, not just quantum mechanics. They are in electromagnetism, the stuff which predates relativity and quantum mechanics. They are in Newtonian classical mechanics, the stuff which is 350 years old.
It might seem 'mental gymnastics' to you, someone who hasn't learnt even 1st year physics or maths, but to some of us this stuff is second nature. I sometimes forget people I'm talking to don't know this stuff. More than once someone has asked me to explain something and if I'm not thinking too much I'll dive into an explaination involving differential forms and tensors only to have them say "What's a derivative?".
Tell me, do you know what a derivative is?
Superposition means "Add together" and 'eigenstates' means 'a pure state' (for the non-mathematicians). Anyone who has ever done signal analysis in electrical engineering knows that you can write any noise/sound/signal as a sum of 'pure signals', where the pure signals have a fixed amplitude and frequency. That's called Fourier analysis and it's the foundation of all analogue data transmission for the last 150 years.
Anyone who has done any kind of vector calculus, ie the descriptions of multi-dimensional systems, will have used matrices and know how to compute the 'nice' directions for a system.
Eigenstates, eigenfunctions, eigenvectors. These are all concepts which anyone whose done a 1st year course in mathematics or physics will know about. They are everywhere in physics, not just quantum mechanics. They are in electromagnetism, the stuff which predates relativity and quantum mechanics. They are in Newtonian classical mechanics, the stuff which is 350 years old.
It might seem 'mental gymnastics' to you, someone who hasn't learnt even 1st year physics or maths, but to some of us this stuff is second nature. I sometimes forget people I'm talking to don't know this stuff. More than once someone has asked me to explain something and if I'm not thinking too much I'll dive into an explaination involving differential forms and tensors only to have them say "What's a derivative?".
Tell me, do you know what a derivative is?
It's been more than a few years...
I know you know what you know, but how about giving any thought to the possibility that you are not seeing the complete picture, like those who insisted the Earth was the center of the universe.
Is there anyway possible you could be wrong.
What if a photon is a burst of space traveling through the medium of space. What in the DSE does this theory not answer correctly?
prometheus
11-08-08, 10:07 AM
It doesn't answer any questions in the DSE because you can't calculate anything. The problem is that what you propose goes against what we observe as well, because your explanation never has a particle interpretation. What you call a burst of space is what I would call a classical gravitational wave which is something I've told you before on physorg. It always is described in terms of waves and never has a particle interpretation.
The only way to get a particle interpretation from a classical wave is to apply the rules of quantum mechanics. When you do that you get a very nice particle interpretation, but that is simply what I've been calling quantum field theory all along.
AlphaNumeric
11-08-08, 02:10 PM
It's been more than a few years...Given your complete lack of understanding when it comes to why physics is more than vacuous wordy explanations, along with your inability to recognise the term 'eigenstate' and that you also shy away from maths I do not believe you ever did physics or maths beyond high school (ie took some mathematical degree).
I suppose that does make your statement true, it has been more than a few years. "Never" would imply you haven't done maths or physics in the last decade. Or lifetime.
I know you know what you know, but how about giving any thought to the possibility that you are not seeing the complete picture, like those who insisted the Earth was the center of the universe.Of course I don't deny it's possible I, and mainstream physics, am wrong on this. Anyone who says otherwise would be unscientific. However, given the success of the models in question, it would be perfectly legitimate to say that even if there's some underlying model, so that QED or QCD are nothing but effective theories (which is a view many physicists happen to hold anyway) the view that when particles interact they do so via the exchange of coherent states which we view as particles.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes like a duck, it's probably valid to say "For all intents and purposes, it's a duck". Maybe in 100 years (or perhaps tomorrow) someone will come along with a model which explains all quantum phenomena AND accurately predicts all experiment outcomes but without the need for virtual particle loops. But the effective theory of that will still be QED, just as the good approximation to relativity is Newtonian physics. Having a better, more encompassing model won't change the fact that doing the calculations and descriptions as if they are particle loops.
If I give you an closed box which weighs 1kg, does it matter what is inside? It'll have the same inertial properties if it's a box of water or a box of plastic. Until you are able to open the box, it is fine to say "It's a box full of water" (provided the box has a volume of 1 litre obviously). Someone else saying "Wrong, it's a box of air! It's easier to describe!" isn't more correct just because it might be something other than water. It is immaterial.
What if a photon is a burst of space traveling through the medium of space. What in the DSE does this theory not answer correctly?It doesn't address anything other than make you think you've explained it in a way you think you can understand. Does it explain why the interference pattern goes when you measure which slit the photon goes through? Does it give the relationship between energy and frequency and momentum for the photon?
Whenever someone does what you're doing and say "I've explained [phenomena]" in a way which is obviously vacuous but none-the-less 'an answer' I am reminded of the religious answer for why the universe exists or how it came about, "God did it". That doesn't answer the question because you learn nothing from that 'theory'. Nothing to help you understand the universe, it's behaviour and it's completely unscientific. If I gave the answer "Because the sky is blue" you'd say "But that doesn't answer the question", yet "God did it" does? It's a dodge, it's something people tell themselves is "acceptable" because they cannot or will not accept that the answer is too complicated or unknown. You don't understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand the concept of a wave function and so you try to 'explain' the phenomena in terms you think you understand. The internet is littered with people who try to push their 'understanding' despite their understanding explains nothing. They are known as 'cranks'.
If a photon is a blob of space moving through space, what about the electron? The Sodium atom? A Bucky ball? They all do the same diffraction behaviour. Are they all ripples in space? What makes them different? How might we test your idea?
Can you admit you might be wrong, as you asked me to admit? Do you think it's a little silly to dismiss mainstream models which have stood the test of experiments by so many people in so many ways over such a long time without even learning something of the details? I only had to reach for my copy of 'Quantum Mechanics' by Eugen Merzbacjer to find an indepth discussion on how QM can model such things (you don't even need to go to QED, a field theory). It suggests also looking at Chapter 3 of Vol III of the Feynman lectures. I happen to have that textbook too and it spends many many pages talking about, explaining and modelling the double slit experiment.
If you learnt a bit of vector calculus and linear algebra, little more than the stuff taught to 1st year physicists, you could see just how elegant the QM description is.
And as for the graviton, why do you think all other forces and all the matter in the universe looks like being made up of tiny quanta but gravity shouldn't be? If moving objects alter a gravitational field what do you call the ripple of space as this alteration moves through space? Would you call it a particle, just as you call other ripples in space particles like the photon? If you would call it a particle, what is wrong with the name 'graviton'?
Does it explain why the interference pattern goes when you measure which slit the photon goes through?
Yes. The wave that the burst of space the photon is creating in space is turned into chop by the attempt to "observe" the photon and interference does not occur.
If a photon is a blob of space moving through space, what about the electron?
Space is the fundamental building block of all other forms of matter and as such, an electron is a denser form of space.
The Sodium atom? A Bucky ball? They all do the same diffraction behaviour.
Yes. Everything creates displacement waves as it moves through space. However, there is a point where the mass of the object is such that the direction it is traveling is not affected by the interference its displacement wave creates as it exits the slits.
If you executed the DSE with a small boat that was creating a large wake, the direction the boat is traveling would be affected by the interference created as it wakes exists the slits.
The direction a supertanker is traveling will not be affected by the interference created by its wake.
Are they all ripples in space? What makes them different? How might we test your idea?
If I fire an air gun without a pellet, is the air that hits your eye the same air that first exits the gun?
When a photon is emitted, since it is massless, my guess is the space the winds up hitting your eye is not the same space that was originally emitted.
My guess is an electron is the same object as it travels through space.
So for the analogies to work, the emitted photon would be similar to the air that hits your eye not being the same air that first exits the air gun.
But the electron is like the small boat that is its own object but still able to be affected by the interference of its displacement wave.
And the more massive particles that do not create an interference pattern in the DSE are the supertankers.
Can you admit you might be wrong, as you asked me to admit?
Yes.
Do you think it's a little silly to dismiss mainstream models which have stood the test of experiments by so many people in so many ways over such a long time without even learning something of the details?
No, because the whole idea of a photon, electron, atom, or even a small molecule, being able to go through both slits in the DSE because you do not attempt to observe it is ridiculous. The concept is fundamentally flawed. It's the same as thinking the Earth is flat or that the Earth is the center of the universe.
And as for the graviton, why do you think all other forces and all the matter in the universe looks like being made up of tiny quanta but gravity shouldn't be? If moving objects alter a gravitational field what do you call the ripple of space as this alteration moves through space? Would you call it a particle, just as you call other ripples in space particles like the photon? If you would call it a particle, what is wrong with the name 'graviton'?
Gravity is caused by the space that is displaced by the objects that exist in it. The Sun is displacing space. This space is pushing back towards the Sun. It is similar to how buoyancy works. The Earth is also displacing space. The Sun's displaced space and the Earth's displaced space interact and this is what causes the Earth to stay in orbit around the Sun.
Bullshit is a burst of bull travelling through itself. Wave if you see the point !
Do you think it's a little silly to dismiss mainstream models which have stood the test of experiments by so many people in so many ways over such a long time without even learning something of the details?
Here is another example of a "main stream" model that has a completely false hypothesis.
From Wikipedia:
'The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University. It is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. The experiment has also been referred to as "the kicking-off point for the theoretical aspects of the Second Scientific Revolution."[1] Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907.'
Here is an analogy for how ridiculous the hypothesis and the conclusions are for this experiment.
Let's say we want to determine if air exists, by looking for wind, so we take a flag into the basement of a building with a stone foundation and when the flag doesn't wave, we conclude that air does not exist.
Just because someone is awarded a Nobel Prize for determining that air doesn't exist doesn't make them right.
Vkothii
11-09-08, 07:41 PM
Maybe you should read up some predicate calculus, find out what "denying the precedent" means.
There's the other side: "affirming the consequent" too.
In an experiment. you don't assume anything except that you have accounted for all 'known' variables. Then see if you can measure something and explain it. It really is that straightforward, but as the LHC dudes will tell you, preparing an experiment and accounting for all 'knowns' can take a while.
Maybe you should read up some predicate calculus, find out what "denying the precedent" means.
There's the other side: "affirming the consequent" too.
In an experiment. you don't assume anything except that you have accounted for all 'known' variables. Then see if you can measure something and explain it. It really is that straightforward, but as the LHC dudes will tell you, preparing an experiment and accounting for all 'knowns' can take a while.
Not sure if you are replying to the MM experiment in particular or this thread in general, but if I executed a DSE experiment with a toy boat with paint on the bow and the paint on the bow makes an interference pattern on a screen, does that prove anything?
How about using an air gun in the DSE. If the screen can sense where the burst hits and the bursts make an interference pattern on the screen, does that prove anything?
My concern with going through and creating such an experiment is that it will just be dismissed out-of-hand just like the idea of space as a medium is.
If you're replying to my MM experiment comment, the experiment was looking for the aether wind. First of all, the hypothesis that an aether wind exists is, I think, ridiculous and when your experiment doesn't find it, that's all your experiment has done. Not found it. It doesn't mean anything in terms of the existence of an aether.
I find it ridiculous "mainstream" science allows such extrapolations to take place.
prometheus
11-10-08, 02:49 AM
The Michelson Morley experiment conclusions are an example of Occam's razor. If we don't observe an ether wind as you call it, then there could indeed be an ether that just so happens to move in the same way as the Earth. It shouldn't take you too much thought to realise how unlikely that is - It would have to move with the Earth rotationally, around the sun and in whatever overall direction in which the sun was going. That is tantamount to saying the Earth is some special object in the universe, which is against every scientific discovery that has been made since the birth of science.
Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation for a result is probably the correct one so we could either have a horrifically complicated comoving ether (which would probably be ruled out by observations of space, although I can't be bothered to think about this too much) or we conclude that the ether does not exist.
I would like to repeat my criticism of your air gun analogy as well. A burst of air from an air gun does not have a good particle interpretation. It is a pulse that expands in all directions in it's rest frame and eventually dissipates. Particles that we observe do not do that. From the point of view of the person firing the gun, the pulse will move at some overall velocity whilst at the same time expanding and dissipating.
You should read up on some details of the scientific method, because judging from this thread you are an extremely poor scientist.
The Michelson Morley experiment conclusions are an example of Occam's razor. If we don't observe an ether wind as you call it, then there could indeed be an ether that just so happens to move in the same way as the Earth. It shouldn't take you too much thought to realise how unlikely that is - It would have to move with the Earth rotationally, around the sun and in whatever overall direction in which the sun was going. That is tantamount to saying the Earth is some special object in the universe, which is against every scientific discovery that has been made since the birth of science.
The simplest explanation is all objects displace space. The Sun and the Earth both displace space. The ether does not have to move at all, except for when it is being displaced by the objects that exist and are moving in it. Similar to a balloon that reaches a certain height in the atmosphere due to the air it displaces. If the balloon has momentum and did not meet any resistance it would continually displace the air as it "orbits" the Earth.
Space simply needs to be displaced by the objects that exist in it.
Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation for a result is probably the correct one so we could either have a horrifically complicated comoving ether (which would probably be ruled out by observations of space, although I can't be bothered to think about this too much) or we conclude that the ether does not exist.
There is no requirement for a comoving ether. Objects move within the ether.
I would like to repeat my criticism of your air gun analogy as well. A burst of air from an air gun does not have a good particle interpretation. It is a pulse that expands in all directions in it's rest frame and eventually dissipates. Particles that we observe do not do that. From the point of view of the person firing the gun, the pulse will move at some overall velocity whilst at the same time expanding and dissipating.
The air gun is an analogy. For some period of time and distance, the air from the air gun will behave as a particle. You can feel the burst of air hit your eye. If you lined up a bunch of bottles, you could direct the burst to knock over only one of the bottles.
If the air from the air gun was traveling near the speed of light, the burst would travel even further and you would be able to set-up the bottles much further off in the distance.
For a photon, or electron, or even the Earth, there is either no resistance, or space pushes the objects along as it back-fills behind where the photon/electron/atom/molecule/Earth just was.
If Occam's razor requires the simpler solution to be the accepted solution, than space as a medium should be the accepted solution for the DSE.
It is a much simpler solution than a molecule is able to go through both slits in the DSE simultaneously.
I believe that a particle can only exist at a single point in three-dimensional space (3ds) at any given time.
The photon/electron/atom/molecule is creating a displacement wave in space. It is this displacement wave which goes through both slits and creates the interference that alters the path the object is traveling.
All of the crazy thought associated with the DSE is due to scientists inability to see space as a medium.
You should read up on some details of the scientific method, because judging from this thread you are an extremely poor scientist.
Why do you insist that space not be a medium?
prometheus
11-11-08, 05:53 PM
The simplest explanation is all objects displace space. The Sun and the Earth both displace space. The ether does not have to move at all, except for when it is being displaced by the objects that exist and are moving in it. Similar to a balloon that reaches a certain height in the atmosphere due to the air it displaces. If the balloon has momentum and did not meet any resistance it would continually displace the air as it "orbits" the Earth.
Your logic is flawed. If there is an ether either moving or defining some universal rest frame, then the earth will certainly be moving with respect to to it. The MM experiment gives a negative ether result if the ether is not moving wrt earth, so you can state that MM does not disprove an ether that moves with the same trajectory as earth. By your logic the earth is in some cosmically preferred rest frame since it is at rest with respect to the ether, although there is no reason a priori for this to be the case.
The simpler explanation and the one that Occam's razor chooses is that the ether doesn't exist.
Also, air applies a resistive force to balloons.They can't just displace it without doing any work since that would violate conservation of energy.
The air gun is an analogy. For some period of time and distance, the air from the air gun will behave as a particle. You can feel the burst of air hit your eye. If you lined up a bunch of bottles, you could direct the burst to knock over only one of the bottles.
If the air from the air gun was traveling near the speed of light, the burst would travel even further and you would be able to set-up the bottles much further off in the distance.
For a photon, or electron, or even the Earth, there is either no resistance, or space pushes the objects along as it back-fills behind where the photon/electron/atom/molecule/Earth just was.
If Occam's razor requires the simpler solution to be the accepted solution, than space as a medium should be the accepted solution for the DSE.
It is a much simpler solution than a molecule is able to go through both slits in the DSE simultaneously.
I believe that a particle can only exist at a single point in three-dimensional space (3ds) at any given time.
The photon/electron/atom/molecule is creating a displacement wave in space. It is this displacement wave which goes through both slits and creates the interference that alters the path the object is traveling.
All of the crazy thought associated with the DSE is due to scientists inability to see space as a medium.
Why do you insist that space not be a medium?
I repeat. The airgun analogy is simply describing a wave packet. Wave packets are well understood in physics - all you need to know is a bit of Fourier analysis. In general the size of a wave packet is time dependant - it will disperse after some time. Particles do not do that so your theory is wrong.
To be honest I'm not really sure what you mean by this constant mantra that keeps appearing in your posts: space is a medium, space is a medium etc... I'll tell you yet again general relativity describes gravity as a force that is caused by the bending and stretching of space itself. You're making a ham fisted attempt to talk about the DSE by invoking concepts that work pretty well for gravity, not EM.
I gave a talk to some second year students today about quantum field theory and told them what I've been telling you - QED and experiment agree on the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron to one part in one billion. This is proof that quantum field theory is simply the way the world works, whether you find it difficult to understand or not. Until you can do better than QED you're wasting your time.
Your logic is flawed. If there is an ether either moving or defining some universal rest frame, then the earth will certainly be moving with respect to to it. The MM experiment gives a negative ether result if the ether is not moving wrt earth, so you can state that MM does not disprove an ether that moves with the same trajectory as earth. By your logic the earth is in some cosmically preferred rest frame since it is at rest with respect to the ether, although there is no reason a priori for this to be the case.
The MM Experiment does not give a negative ether result. It gives a negative ether wind result. You are making a very basic scientific mistake by taking the result of an experiment and extrapolating it out to invalid conclusions.
The Earth is not in some cosmically preferred rest frame. The Earth is moving through the ether.
The simpler explanation and the one that Occam's razor chooses is that the ether doesn't exist.
Occam's razor chooses that space is a medium due to the behaviors observed in the DSE.
Also, air applies a resistive force to balloons.They can't just displace it without doing any work since that would violate conservation of energy.
Correct. The air applies a resistive force to the balloon. However, the air may be pushing the balloon along as it backfills behind where the balloon just was. However, the push is not as great as the resistance it faces in the direction it is traveling.
My assumption is that space does not represent a resistive force as objects more through it, or the resistance is offset by the push space has on the object as the space backfills behind where the object just was.
Yes, this is an assumption, but it is much less an assumption than a molecule can somehow go through both slits in the DSE simultaneously.
I repeat. The airgun analogy is simply describing a wave packet. Wave packets are well understood in physics - all you need to know is a bit of Fourier analysis. In general the size of a wave packet is time dependant - it will disperse after some time. Particles do not do that so your theory is wrong.
Not if it is not meeting any resistance.
To be honest I'm not really sure what you mean by this constant mantra that keeps appearing in your posts: space is a medium, space is a medium etc...
The analogy of the boat going through a slit in the DSE and interacting with the interference created by its wake is due to the water being a medium.
Similar to the balloon staying a certain height above the Earth because of the air it is displacing. The air is the medium.
I do not think space is an empty void. If it is not a void, then space is displaced by the objects that move through it.
There can only be two explanations for space. Either it is a void, or it is something. If space is something (i.e. a medium), than it is "displaceable".
That's why it is such an important mantra to my theory.
Space is not a void.
Space is something.
Space is a medium.
Space is displaced by the objects that exist in it.
I'll tell you yet again general relativity describes gravity as a force that is caused by the bending and stretching of space itself. You're making a ham fisted attempt to talk about the DSE by invoking concepts that work pretty well for gravity, not EM.
How can space be bent and stretched at the same time it is a void. If it is not a void, meaning it is something, meaning it is a medium, how can it not be displaced by the objects in it?
Since space is not a void, meaning it is a medium, all moving objects create a displacement wave in space.
I gave a talk to some second year students today about quantum field theory and told them what I've been telling you - QED and experiment agree on the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron to one part in one billion. This is proof that quantum field theory is simply the way the world works, whether you find it difficult to understand or not. Until you can do better than QED you're wasting your time.
How long did it take before scientists concluded the best way to describe observed behaviors is to describe the Earth as not being the center of the universe?
I realize I have my work cut out for me.
Since then particle interference has been demonstrated with neutrons, atoms and molecules as large as carbon-60 and carbon-70. (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/9745)
How exactly is a single molecule able to go through both slits and cause interference in the DSE?
Vkothii
11-11-08, 08:38 PM
How exactly is a single molecule able to go through both slits and cause interference in the DSE?A molecule isn't a "boat", more of a wave. Waves can do all kinds of tricks.
Space and time are sort of imaginary. Space is just distance, time is too. Is distance anything, apart from a difference between two locations?
Space 'contains' things, things are a medium (a gas is a medium, a liquid or a solid is too). They can all carry something or move a certain way, since they aren't empty space, but something.
A molecule isn't a "boat", more of a wave. Waves can do all kinds of tricks.
It just seems too cute by a half that everything can be a particle when it needs to be a particle and a wave when it needs to be a wave and however you look at it is able to go through both slits simultaneously in the DSE without space being a medium.
It is all too convenient.
It sounds more like a story than reality.
Even if we agree that a molecule is a wave, it still requires space to be a medium in order for the molecule to go through both slits simultaneously.
Space and time are sort of imaginary. Space is just distance, time is too. Is distance anything, apart from a difference between two locations?
Space 'contains' things, things are a medium (a gas is a medium, a liquid or a solid is too). They can all carry something or move a certain way, since they aren't empty space, but something.
Space is a medium. Space is moved by the things it 'contains'.
Vkothii
11-11-08, 10:17 PM
How does nothing 'move'?? It has to be something.
There aren't many ways to be something, you need to be mass, or charge, or spin, or an interaction between things like that. Mass moves, and charge which is a fundamental property of 'mass', moves with it (but maybe not as close as it looks from a long way away).
However, the 'emptiness' of space, allows for a background tension, because there are 'waves' traveling through it. Why does a liquid have a surface? Why does it, or any physical surface have a tension?
How does nothing 'move'?? It has to be something.
Space is something.
There aren't many ways to be something, you need to be mass, or charge, or spin, or an interaction between things like that. Mass moves, and charge which is a fundamental property of 'mass', moves with it (but maybe not as close as it looks from a long way away).
Space has mass.
However, the 'emptiness' of space, allows for a background tension, because there are 'waves' traveling through it. Why does a liquid have a surface? Why does it, or any physical surface have a tension?
Space itself is not empty.
If 'waves' travel through it, then it is a medium.
Vkothii
11-11-08, 10:31 PM
The surface of a liquid is a medium, but what are the waves on it? Space is a "medium", because it isn't empty.
This implies that space itself is, or can be empty. If you see that the other way around, you kind of have the cart in front of the donkey. Is the surface of water a medium, or are waves on the surface the medium?
The surface of a liquid is a medium, but what are the waves on it?
It's not the surface of a liquid that is a medium, it is the liquid itself that is the medium. Instead of thinking of a wave on it, consider a burst traveling through it. For example, a submarine will be creating a burst of water out in front of the direction it is traveling. If the submarine were to stop quickly, the burst would continue on.
If you have a tank full of water with rubber sides and you punch one side of the rubber tank, the other side of the tank would poke out. You created a burst of water that traveled through the water.
Space is a "medium", because it isn't empty.
This implies that space itself is, or can be empty.
Space cannot be empty. Space exists where ever non-space matter does not exist.
If you see that the other way around, you kind of have the cart in front of the donkey. Is the surface of water a medium, or are waves on the surface the medium?
Not the surface or the wave, but the water itself is the medium that the wave, or possibly better described as a burst, propagates through.
Vkothii
11-12-08, 12:35 AM
You are actually going around in circles here.
A medium is not the surface of a medium, and it isn't the wave disturbances. You agree with this. Although it's ok to say the surface is a medium for surface waves, like it's ok to say mass is a medium for matter waves.
A submarine isn't a pressure wave either; the wave continues on as a pressure displacement, and no matter how deep the sub, there's a surface wave because the medium extends from the bottom of the sea to the surface of it.
Space can be empty, but it isn't. The sea can be undisturbed, but it isn't.
P.S. Wilczek has a theory that space cannot be truly empty, an empty vacuum is unstable. It's a kind of 'initial space' theory, because space is definitely not empty.
But the things in it aren't the space.
The things in space are particles with mass and charge, which disturb each other, because of the 'mass field' and the 'charge field' they have, which extends infinitely, unlike a pressure wave. Photons aren't a pressure as such, they need to interact with matter to become a pressure.
You are actually going around in circles here.
A medium is not the surface of a medium, and it isn't the wave disturbances. You agree with this. Although it's ok to say the surface is a medium for surface waves, like it's ok to say mass is a medium for matter waves.
A submarine isn't a pressure wave either; the wave continues on as a pressure displacement, and no matter how deep the sub, there's a surface wave because the medium extends from the bottom of the sea to the surface of it.
Space can be empty, but it isn't. The sea can be undisturbed, but it isn't.
Space cannot be empty. When an astronaut is practicing for a space walk she practices in a large tank of water. Water is everywhere non-water isn't. You would never say the tank is empty or that there is a void in the tank.
When the astronaut is in space, space replaces the water as the medium the astronaut is in.
The main difference between water and space as mediums is the water is displaced according to the volume of the astronaut while space is displaced according to the mass of the astronaut.
The sea can be undisturbed if there is nothing moving in it but that isn't the case just like it is not the case with space. There are things moving in space so it is disturbed. Maybe the instant prior to the big bang space is undisturbed, but that would be about it.
P.S. Wilczek has a theory that space cannot be truly empty, an empty vacuum is unstable. It's a kind of 'initial space' theory, because space is definitely not empty.
My theory is something and nothing cannot co-exist. There is either something, and if there is something, then there is something everywhere, or there is nothing.
Since you and I exist and are something, then there is something everywhere. There is no such thing as a void in the universe. There is no such thing as 'empty' space. Space, like everything else, is something.
But the things in it aren't the space.
The things in space are particles with mass and charge, which disturb each other, because of the 'mass field' and the 'charge field' they have, which extends infinitely, unlike a pressure wave. Photons aren't a pressure as such, they need to interact with matter to become a pressure.
The 'mass field' is displaced space.
I see a photon as a burst of space traveling through space.
If space is a medium, which I believe it is, then there seems to me to be only two possibilities as to how non-space matter interacts with space.
Non-space matter is either displacing space, or it is tugging on space, as in frame drag.
Either the sun is displacing space and that is what causes gravity to exist or the sun is pulling space in due to its mass.
If an electron is simply denser space, then the electron is either displacing the space where it exists, or the electron is 'thinning' out the space around it due to its density. The electron pulls on and 'thins' out the space surrounding it in order to increase its density.
The Sun is a large scale version of this.
It could also be a combination of both the displacement of space and the pulling of space.
But the main concept that needs to be accepted is that space is not, and cannot, be empty. Space is something. Space is a medium.
If that is accepted, then the next conversation can begin.
Vkothii
11-12-08, 05:44 PM
I see a photon as a burst of space traveling through space.
.. space is not, and cannot, be empty. Space is something. Space is a medium.The first sentence is hard for me to get the logic of.
You're saying a container can travel through itself, somehow?
It isn't an empty container, but that doesn't stop us imagining it can be empty.
Space is 'something' in the same sense the room in your fridge is 'something', for the things you put in a fridge.
Every time I read "double slit experiment", I think of lesbian scientists.
The first sentence is hard for me to get the logic of.
You're saying a container can travel through itself, somehow?
If you have a tank with rubber sides full of water and you punch one side of the tank, a burst of water will travel through the water and poke out the other side.
Same idea with the air gun. If I take the pellet out and fire the air gun, air will hit your eye. If it is not the same air molecules that first exit the gun that hits your eye, it can be described as a burst of air traveling through the air.
Is it easier to comprehend the idea if I just say it is a burst that travels through the water, or a burst that travels through the air?
If that is the case, than a photon is a burst that travels through space.
It isn't an empty container, but that doesn't stop us imagining it can be empty.
Space is 'something' in the same sense the room in your fridge is 'something', for the things you put in a fridge.
It's not empty. There is air in the fridge. The empty space in the fridge is not a void. There is 'something' there and that 'something' in this case is air.
You can put a gallon of milk in the fridge and the air that was where the gallon of milk now is has been displaced. The air no longer exists where the gallon of milk now exists. The air has been displaced by the gallon of milk. If you take the gallon of milk out of the fridge, the three dimensional space (3ds) where the gallon of milk was fills back in with air. The air was pushing back against the gallon of milk.
If I go back to the astronaut in the tank full of water, the astronaut will reach out and try and grab an object. Prior to grabbing that object, what do we call what exists between the astronaut's hand and the object the astronaut is about to grab?
We don't call it 'empty' water. We just call it water.
When the astronaut is in space, and is going to perform the same function and grab an object, what should we call what exists between the astronaut's hand and the object the astronaut is about to grab?
We shouldn't call it 'empty' space. We should just call it space.
Vkothii
11-13-08, 02:43 AM
Is it easier to comprehend the idea if I just say it is a burst that travels through the water, or a burst that travels through the air?
If that is the case, than a photon is a burst that travels through space.OK, sure, you're generalising the idea of a displacement, of matter as an impulse, to the idea of displacement of 'space', by an impulse 'in space'.
Displacing air in a container like a fridge, with objects, is possible because there is air in there taking up the space, before you displace it. Can you generalise this to the case where massless displacements occur - photons of light have no mass, so what do they displace??
"Empty water" is what I'm generalising to the idea of a medium which is undisturbed - there are no displacements in a completely smooth body of water (if such a thing is possible). Particles of mass, and 'pure' waves which are massless, are the equivalent of waves of pressure and so on in a medium like water.
Matter causes a medium like water to be disturbed. Particles of mass and charge cause the deformation of the medium of space then?
That's only the case if space is a medium. If it's empty it can't be any medium - the medium in free space is not then empty space, but what's in empty space. The medium in a water pool or a tank is water, not the tank or the pool.
You have to be careful with generalisations, that you don't lose track of the abstraction level and abstract the original idea away as well.
Double Slit Experiment it is because of entropy!
Also photons expanding and emit energywaves!
Thats explain also old light redshifting!
OK, sure, you're generalising the idea of a displacement, of matter as an impulse, to the idea of displacement of 'space', by an impulse 'in space'.
Displacing air in a container like a fridge, with objects, is possible because there is air in there taking up the space, before you displace it. Can you generalise this to the case where massless displacements occur - photons of light have no mass, so what do they displace??
Photons are bursts, or waves, traveling through space, so they do not 'displace' space as an object with mass does. From below it looks like you are describing the concept of 'pure' waves, but a photon is not a wave with width only, it is a 'pure' burst and that is how it can have behaviors similar to a particle. As a 'pure' burst traveling through the medium of space it is able to emit electrons in the photoelectric effect experiment because its energy is able to hit a specific point on the metallic surface.
"Empty water" is what I'm generalising to the idea of a medium which is undisturbed - there are no displacements in a completely smooth body of water (if such a thing is possible). Particles of mass, and 'pure' waves which are massless, are the equivalent of waves of pressure and so on in a medium like water.
Matter causes a medium like water to be disturbed. Particles of mass and charge cause the deformation of the medium of space then?
Yes. Space is a medium just like water is a medium. I try and avoid the term aether. I prefer to discuss space as a medium and try and differentiate it from three dimensional space (3ds). There is the concept of 3ds and then there is the 'real' stuff which is space.
That's only the case if space is a medium. If it's empty it can't be any medium - the medium in free space is not then empty space, but what's in empty space.
It might help if you think of space as a form of matter, then it is this matter that is everywhere you are conceptually thinking of as 'empty' space.
For example, we can consider the fridge with no food in it to be 'empty', or we can consider it to be full of air.
The universe is full of space.
The medium in a water pool or a tank is water, not the tank or the pool.
The medium in a water pool or a tank is water. The medium in the universe is space.
You have to be careful with generalisations, that you don't lose track of the abstraction level and abstract the original idea away as well.
Double Slit Experiment it is because of entropy!
Also photons expanding and emit energywaves!
Do energywaves require a medium in order to propagate?
If not, how do they propagate through a void?
Thats explain also old light redshifting!
Vkothii
11-13-08, 07:00 PM
It might help if you think of space as a form of matter, then it is this matter that is everywhere you are conceptually thinking of as 'empty' space.This is what scientists in Newton's time thought about. They believed that since a medium is necessary to 'carry' anything, what is space made out of, so it carries light?
This mechanistic principle existed up until the end of the 19th century, until some observations showed up, that couldn't be explained by it.
The mechanical view, however, has to be abandoned in the light of overwhelming evidence that light propagates 'all by itself' - Einstein realised that no medium is necessary; that the empty vacuum is the medium.
It's hard to get the hang of because we always consider 'contents', and so 'containers'; a container made out of nothing is a bit of a stretch, but that's what empty space is. So our logic struggles with how 'nothing' can carry something.
But the math and its logic (Einstein's theories, and Maxwell's) absolutely imply this - light propagates as itself, it's a carrier and the thing that gets carried.
Space is empty except for all the waves in it, some of which have a mass - mass is another kind of wave though. Every particle with mass has a wavelength. Mass is the 'medium' for matter-waves, the electromagnetic fields of massive particles with charge, is the medium for light waves.
This is what scientists in Newton's time thought about. They believed that since a medium is necessary to 'carry' anything, what is space made out of, so it carries light?
This mechanistic principle existed up until the end of the 19th century, until some observations showed up, that couldn't be explained by it.
The mechanical view, however, has to be abandoned in the light of overwhelming evidence that light propagates 'all by itself' - Einstein realised that no medium is necessary; that the empty vacuum is the medium.
It's hard to get the hang of because we always consider 'contents', and so 'containers'; a container made out of nothing is a bit of a stretch, but that's what empty space is. So our logic struggles with how 'nothing' can carry something.
But the math and its logic (Einstein's theories, and Maxwell's) absolutely imply this - light propagates as itself, it's a carrier and the thing that gets carried.
Space is empty except for all the waves in it, some of which have a mass - mass is another kind of wave though. Every particle with mass has a wavelength. Mass is the 'medium' for matter-waves, the electromagnetic fields of massive particles with charge, is the medium for light waves.
Einstein believed a photon had to be a particle because it emitted electrons in the photoelectric effect experiment.
A burst traveling through the medium of space will emit electrons off of the metallic surface.
A molecule creating a wave in the medium of space is a much simpler explanation for the observed behaviors in the DSE.
A photon as a burst traveling through the medium of space is a much simpler explanation for the observed behaviors in both the photoelectric effect experiment and the DSE.
Why doesn't Occam's razor apply to Einstein?
And why does your interpretation of Einstein's theory lead you to believe Einstein thought space was a void?
Einstein quotes:
"More careful reflection teaches us, however, that the special theory of relativity does not compel us to deny ether." and "To deny the ether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories#Aether_and_general_relativity)
Vkothii
11-13-08, 08:59 PM
Einstein understood a photon is a particle because of the photoelectric effect.
But it's a particle of momentum - it has no mass.
A "burst' traveling in a medium, is "of" the medium, like pressure waves in a liquid medium. A liquid's surface will transmit or carry waves, but they displace the medium vertically as they travel, unlike a pressure wave. What does a photon displace as it travels through nothing whatsoever?
So how does a massless particle displace anything? If it isn't traveling through empty space, but through an atmosphere what does it displace? If it travels through air and coincides with a metal's surface, what does it displace?
Then, if it travels through nothing at all, what does it displace?
Einstein was referring to the electric and magnetic fields (not particles), that a photon is a traveling displacement of, so in that sense electromagnetic fields are the medium. Where do these fields come from?
What does a photon displace as it travels through nothing whatsoever?
I don't understand why you insist a photon travels through nothing.
How else can I explain space is not nothing. It is something.
Would it make more sense to use the term ether?
Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Extras/Einstein_ether.html)
If you insist that space is nothing and I insist that space is something, than we are not going to make any progress with this discussion.
Einstein understood a photon is a particle because of the photoelectric effect.
Einstein was wrong.
The whole point of this thread is to put forth the idea that a photon is not a particle, but a burst traveling through the medium of space.
Vkothii
11-14-08, 09:43 PM
But the idea just don't 'work'. A "burst of space" is vague, You need to tie it to something more logical, it doesn't really suggest what you might think it does.
Why not call it a "puff of nothingness"? Or a "blast of space"? What is it supposed to look like?
But the idea just don't 'work'. A "burst of space" is vague, You need to tie it to something more logical, it doesn't really suggest what you might think it does.
Why not call it a "puff of nothingness"? Or a "blast of space"? What is it supposed to look like?
Can you imagine a tank of water with rubber sides and punching one side of the rubber tank and having the other side of the tank poke out?
Can you imagine an air gun without a pellet, and the air from the air gun knocking over a bottle?
It is much more logical than a "massless particle" moving through a void.
What does a "massless particle" moving through a void look like? And how does it go through both slits in the DSE?
And before you reply with the photon is more of a wave, wave's require a medium.
And what does a molecule look like that is going through both slits simultaneously in the DSE? How is the molecule able to propagate through the void of space, go through both slits simultaneously, and then recompose itself after it exists the slits?
merkababozo
11-14-08, 10:12 PM
Einstein believed a photon had to be a particle because it emitted electrons in the photoelectric effect experiment.
:eek:
Have you ever been victim of manifest ultra brain trauma, no doubt instigated by repeated head bludgeoning via the 27kg sledgehammer technique?
Photons do not emit electrons, bozotard :mad:
:eek:
Have you ever been victim of manifest ultra brain trauma, no doubt instigated by repeated head bludgeoning via the 27kg sledgehammer technique?
Photons do not emit electrons, bozotard :mad:
I never said a photon doesn't emit electrons.
What I have been saying is a photon is able to emit electrons because it is a burst traveling through the medium of space.
It is not a massless particle.
If I have a tank with rubber sides and I punch one side of the tank of water, the other side will poke out. A burst travels through the water and impacts the other side in a particular location.
A photon is a burst traveling through the medium of space that is able to impact a particular point on the metallic surface, which will emit an electron.
merkababozo
11-14-08, 10:25 PM
I never said a photon doesn't emit electrons.
What I have been saying is a photon is able to emit electrons because it is a burst traveling through the medium of space.
It is not a massless particle.
If I have a tank with rubber sides and I punch one side of the tank of water, the other side will poke out. A burst travels through the water and impacts the other side in a particular location.
A photon is a burst traveling through the medium of space that is able to impact a particular point on the metallic surface, which will emit an electron.
:eek::eek:
You take consummate cretinism to new unexplored levels of perfection.
:eek::eek:
You take consummate cretinism to new unexplored levels of perfection.
How does a molecule create an interference pattern in the Double Slit Experiment?
How does a molecule go through both slit simultaneously?
How is it a single molecule prior to entering the slits, go through both slits, and be a single molecule as it exists the slits, and how does that cause an interference pattern to be created?
How exactly does it interact with itself in order for the interference pattern to be created?
merkababozo
11-14-08, 10:41 PM
How does a molecule create an interference pattern in the Double Slit Experiment?
How does a molecule go through both slit simultaneously?
How is it a single molecule prior to entering the slits, go through both slits, and be a single molecule as it exists the slits, and how does that cause an interference pattern to be created?
How exactly does it interact with itself in order for the interference pattern to be created?
:eek: - a molecule? - :eek:
Retardation is most strong in this one.
:eek: - a molecule? - :eek:
Retardation is most strong in this one.
Since then particle interference has been demonstrated with neutrons, atoms and molecules as large as carbon-60 and carbon-70. (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/9745)
merkababozo
11-15-08, 02:43 AM
:eek:
This is misleading claptrap designed only to fool meta-syndromic, inbred village idiot types - The only molecular double-slit experiments I know of involve photo-ionization; meaning electrons pass through the slits ..... not molecules.
Vkothii
11-15-08, 04:30 AM
One person's know is another's ignore.
:eek:
This is misleading claptrap designed only to fool meta-syndromic, inbred village idiot types - The only molecular double-slit experiments I know of involve photo-ionization; meaning electrons pass through the slits ..... not molecules.
"all these observations support the view that each carbon-60 molecule interferes with itself only." (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2952)
How does a molecule create an interference pattern in the Double Slit Experiment?
How does a molecule go through both slits simultaneously?
How is it a single molecule prior to entering the slits, go through both slits, and be a single molecule as it exits the slits, and how does that cause an interference pattern to be created?
How exactly does it interact with itself in order for the interference pattern to be created?
Anyone?
A single molecule is able to "interfere with itself" because it is creating a displacement wave in the medium of space.
It is this displacement wave that goes through both slits in the DSE.
It it this displacement wave that creates interference as it exits the slits that the molecule, which goes through one slit, encounters as it exits the slits.
prometheus
11-15-08, 12:51 PM
I've already told you how this works. The rest of us aren't going to wait for you to grow a brain. Sorry.
AlphaNumeric
11-15-08, 01:46 PM
Einstein was wrong.
The whole point of this thread is to put forth the idea that a photon is not a particle, but a burst traveling through the medium of space.Except you put forth no way of testing your idea, given an idea is not a theory, in the science definition of the word.
Do electromagnetic disturbances come in packets ie quanta? Yes, experiment has proven that. Does modern physics know how to describe the double slit experiment? Yes, experiment has proven it. Does modern physics steadfastly claim photons and other quanta are literally particles (ie billard ball like entities)? No. When a physicist says "The photon is a particle of light" he or she doesn't mean "Photons lack wave properties, they are ballistic in nature" but rather the use of the word 'particle' is to refer to the quantum field theory concept of a quantum of fluctuation in a particular field.
Have people considered using some kind of gravity based theory to try and describe electromagnetism? Yes. Kaluza and Klein did it in the mid 1920s using a 5 dimensional general relativity model. It leads to inconsistent predictions. However, their methods (dimensional compactification) are central to string theory. A part of string theory known as the AdS/CFT correspondence uses a gravitational description to describe particle behaviours. However, due to the nature of it's description it doesn't literally consider the photon a ripple in space-time.
So your idea is not a new one. Taking a model which we know describes gravity, ie general relativity, we have tried to describe photons and any other particle you wish to name. They are not describable in terms of gravity. There's a whole slew of technical descriptions relating space-time perturbations, decompositions and dualities which exist within current or previous models of physics which, unlike your arm waving vacuous idea, actually had some quantitative stuff to back them up. They either fell by the wayside or involve other things such as gravitons, virtual particles and extra dimensions.
Anyone?The quantum mechanical description of the double slit experiment is independent of what you're actually throwing through the slit, be it a photon and electron or a Bucky ball. I've told you where to read about said description, you obviously aren't interested. Simply saying a question you could answer yourself if you spent a little time reading mainstream physics doesn't mean that answer you haven't bothered to try and find doesn't exist.
merkababozo
11-15-08, 03:43 PM
Since then particle interference has been demonstrated with neutrons, atoms and molecules as large as carbon-60 and carbon-70.[/URL]
Pop science blather - the same Viennese team claimed the same (as to date, unverified elsewhere) interference patterns, generated by larger 'biomolecules'.
Vkothii
11-15-08, 07:34 PM
Nope, neutron interferometers have existed for decades, chum.
And "The most probable velocity of 210 m/s corresponds to a deBroglie wavelength for C60 (buckminsterfullerene) of ldB = 2.5 pm !"; from a team at U. Vienna - A Zeilinger & co.
So it isn't science fiction, exactly.
merkababozo
11-16-08, 12:33 AM
Nope, neutron interferometers have existed for decades, chum.
And "The most probable velocity of 210 m/s corresponds to a deBroglie wavelength for C60 (buckminsterfullerene) of ldB = 2.5 pm !"; from a team at U. Vienna - A Zeilinger & co.
So it isn't science fiction, exactly.
Hi Vkothii,
I'm fine with neutron interferometry, as this has been fully qualified/verified - however, call me a skeptic; but when I searched for corroberative evidence for molecular interferometry, all such links (scrutinized thus far) lead right back to Anton Zeilinger and associates - smells a tad marine creaturesque, no? :bugeye:
The DSE is evidence of the ether.
AlphaNumeric
11-16-08, 11:09 AM
The DSE is evidence of the ether.Given it can be, and is, explained using an aether-less theory, you are wrong.
Given it can be, and is, explained using an aether-less theory, you are wrong.
This from someone who believes a mass-less particle can exist, much less travel through a void?
And if space is a void, how does it bend?
we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. (http://http://www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/Ether.html)
How does a void have physical qualities?
AlphaNumeric
11-16-08, 12:16 PM
This from someone who believes a mass-less particle can exist, much less travel through a void?And? You say that as if it's something I want to keep quiet.
Tell me, if you don't consider the photon massless, what is its mass? Oh yeah, you've got no quantitative predictions of any kind. How silly of me.
And if space is a void, how does it bend?The definition and description of a curved manifold does not require anything to within the manifold itself.
How does a void have physical qualities? When do we ever measure an actual void? Every measurement of space involves something in space.
we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether.I love how cranks 'quote mine'. Einstein's work is too extensive and too complicated for you to understand yourself so you resort to quoting other people's views on it. You do realise Einstein's been dead for about 50 years and even in his lifetime he was rarely at the forefront of understanding physics. Pretty much everything he did after about 1920, other than a small amount of work with Bose (mostly he just spread the work of Bose to the physics community), was wrong or pointless.
And? You say that as if it's something I want to keep quiet.
Tell me, if you don't consider the photon massless, what is its mass? Oh yeah, you've got no quantitative predictions of any kind. How silly of me.
I never said it has mass. I say it is a burst traveling through the ether.
Where else has anything been described as a massless particle? No where, that's where. Where do we see bursts? Everywhere.
What is a massless particle but a burst moving through a medium?
Who has proven an ether does not exist?
If you accept an ether, than nonsense like a "massless particle" is no longer required and you can discuss a photon in the photoelectric effect and the DSE as a burst traveling through the ether.
Why have chaos when the ether describes the DSE beautifully?
The definition and description of a curved manifold does not require anything to within the manifold itself.
What is the manifold made of?
When do we ever measure an actual void? Every measurement of space involves something in space.
If there is something in space, that means it will be displaced by the objects that move through it. The objects will create a displacement wave as they move through the medium of space. It is this displacement wave that goes through both slits in the DSE.
You can't have something in space without it being displaced by the objects in it.
So what is it? Is space a void or does it consist of something?
Don't forget, if you say it is something that means it is displaced by the objects in it.
AlphaNumeric
11-16-08, 08:35 PM
I never said it has mass. I say it is a burst traveling through the ether.Given the dichotomy either a photon has a mass or it doesn't. Which is it?
Where else has anything been described as a massless particle? No where, that's where.You mean outside of particle physics where have we described particles?
It's that a bit like asking "Without using the letters t, a, b, l and e spell 'table'".
Where do we see bursts? Everywhere.Given you have no precise definition of 'burst' and nothing you claim has any evidence to support it over other theories which do have much to support them that statement is nothing but your opinion.
What is a massless particle but a burst moving through a medium?Another pseudo-rhetorical question where you try to put your opinion across as fact.
Who has proven an ether does not exist?Every aether model thus far constructed by people has either been proven false, suffers from a host of convoluted caveats or is inferior to the predictive power of relativity. Plus they all presuppose the existence of a material which has never been detected in any way, shape or form.
Besides, no one has proven fairies don't exist but that doesn't mean I believe they do just because some people find it more appealing than believing they don't.
If you accept an ether, than nonsense like a "massless particle" is no longer requiredYou do realise that aether models don't preclude massless particles? Massless particles can still exist within such theories. Every experiment and natural phenomenon every considered has failed to imply that the photon has mass. The maximum mass the photon can have which would be undetectable to current experiments is 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 1 times that of the electron.
There's no apriori reason to think the photon has a rest mass.
and you can discuss a photon in the photoelectric effect and the DSE as a burst traveling through the ether.Really? So why can't you provide me with an aether theory which can actually do that? Why can't anyone come up with a viable working aether model of the universe? Every single one of them has been surpassed by modern mainstream physics.
Why have chaos when the ether describes the DSE beautifully?Yes, why force yourself to suppose the existence of a material which is everywhere but is undetectable and which forces you to view the Earth as a preferred reference frame for the entire universe. Hmmm..... let me think....
And your use of the word 'chaos' is nothing but what Wikipedia would deem 'weasal words'. You choose adjectives which don't reflect an impartial view of mainstream physics but your own opinion. Personally I think that quantum electrodynamics is fantastically elegant. But then I, unlike you, have put in the time and effort to understand QED and a great deal of other mainstream physics topic. It's not chaotic or convoluted and it describes the world around us more accurately, more diversely and more practically than any aether based theory.
Get it into your obviously extremely dense skull that when someone says "Theory X describes phenomenon Y" they don't mean "It's a vague qualitative description lacking precision but gives a good intuitive understanding of said phenomenon" but "It quantitatively and accurately describes the dynamics of a system which has been tested using numerous repeated experiments and allows us to predict the behaviour of systems within which this phenomenon is the primary process".
If Newton's work in gravity had been him saying "Things which go up must come down" he'd have become as famous as he did? Or if Einstein said only "You can't go as fast as you like" he'd have ever got out of that patent office? No, of course not. Physics is much more than vague concepts based on poor day to day intuition, as you seem to think it is. It's about accurately understanding phenomena, constructing models and testing them. Again and again. You claim aether theories explain the DSE yet you offer nothing to be tested. You think QM is chaotic but you don't even know it. Are you really so naive, stupid and arrogant to think your grasp (or utter lack of) of quantum mechanics means you can evaluate it? Or that your utterly vague almost random guesses about some phenomena you don't understand properly mean you're doing physics? I bet I've spent more time today doing physics than you've done in the last year. I've certainly done more quantum mechanics (it's 1.40am now and I've been sitting at my desk doing Mathematica coding and scribbling equations since about 4.30pm).
You talk about 'elegance' but you wouldn't know an elegant quantitative theory even if you saw one because you don't seem to understand the need for mathematics within a theory of physics. And I would imagine you don't understand much maths either.
What is the manifold made of?You continue to try to relate concepts outside your day to day experience with things you are familiar with. I could just as easily ask you "What is space made of?". Saying "Space is space, it's a medium." doesn't answer the question in any explanatory way. You are just defining the word to mean what it means. It's circular.
If there is something in space, that means it will be displaced by the objects that move through it. The objects will create a displacement wave as they move through the medium of space. It is this displacement wave that goes through both slits in the DSE.
You can't have something in space without it being displaced by the objects in it.
So what is it? Is space a void or does it consist of something?
Don't forget, if you say it is something that means it is displaced by the objects in it. Furious arm waving and wordy attempts to describe something in a way which makes it seem like there's a quantitative model in there but there isn't. You have no model, you have no derivation, you have nothing to even develop. Your approach is entirely analogous to cultures millennia explaining phenomena like lightning as "God is angry" because doing controlled experiments, making precise statements and developing quantitative models which can then be tested was beyond them. Just as it is obviously beyond you.
Given the dichotomy either a photon has a mass or it doesn't. Which is it?
What part of "I never said it has mass" don't you understand?
What part of a burst traveling through the medium of space don't you understand?
If I have a tank of water with rubber sides and I punch one side of the tank and a burst travels through the water and pokes out the other side, do you say the burst has mass?
You mean outside of particle physics where have we described particles?
It's that a bit like asking "Without using the letters t, a, b, l and e spell 'table'".
Given you have no precise definition of 'burst' and nothing you claim has any evidence to support it over other theories which do have much to support them that statement is nothing but your opinion.
Another pseudo-rhetorical question where you try to put your opinion across as fact.
Every aether model thus far constructed by people has either been proven false, suffers from a host of convoluted caveats or is inferior to the predictive power of relativity. Plus they all presuppose the existence of a material which has never been detected in any way, shape or form.
Besides, no one has proven fairies don't exist but that doesn't mean I believe they do just because some people find it more appealing than believing they don't.
You do realise that aether models don't preclude massless particles? Massless particles can still exist within such theories. Every experiment and natural phenomenon every considered has failed to imply that the photon has mass. The maximum mass the photon can have which would be undetectable to current experiments is 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 1 times that of the electron.
There's no apriori reason to think the photon has a rest mass.
Really? So why can't you provide me with an aether theory which can actually do that? Why can't anyone come up with a viable working aether model of the universe? Every single one of them has been surpassed by modern mainstream physics.
Yes, why force yourself to suppose the existence of a material which is everywhere but is undetectable and which forces you to view the Earth as a preferred reference frame for the entire universe. Hmmm..... let me think....
And your use of the word 'chaos' is nothing but what Wikipedia would deem 'weasal words'. You choose adjectives which don't reflect an impartial view of mainstream physics but your own opinion. Personally I think that quantum electrodynamics is fantastically elegant. But then I, unlike you, have put in the time and effort to understand QED and a great deal of other mainstream physics topic. It's not chaotic or convoluted and it describes the world around us more accurately, more diversely and more practically than any aether based theory.
Get it into your obviously extremely dense skull that when someone says "Theory X describes phenomenon Y" they don't mean "It's a vague qualitative description lacking precision but gives a good intuitive understanding of said phenomenon" but "It quantitatively and accurately describes the dynamics of a system which has been tested using numerous repeated experiments and allows us to predict the behaviour of systems within which this phenomenon is the primary process".
If Newton's work in gravity had been him saying "Things which go up must come down" he'd have become as famous as he did? Or if Einstein said only "You can't go as fast as you like" he'd have ever got out of that patent office? No, of course not. Physics is much more than vague concepts based on poor day to day intuition, as you seem to think it is. It's about accurately understanding phenomena, constructing models and testing them. Again and again. You claim aether theories explain the DSE yet you offer nothing to be tested. You think QM is chaotic but you don't even know it. Are you really so naive, stupid and arrogant to think your grasp (or utter lack of) of quantum mechanics means you can evaluate it? Or that your utterly vague almost random guesses about some phenomena you don't understand properly mean you're doing physics? I bet I've spent more time today doing physics than you've done in the last year. I've certainly done more quantum mechanics (it's 1.40am now and I've been sitting at my desk doing Mathematica coding and scribbling equations since about 4.30pm).
You talk about 'elegance' but you wouldn't know an elegant quantitative theory even if you saw one because you don't seem to understand the need for mathematics within a theory of physics. And I would imagine you don't understand much maths either.
You continue to try to relate concepts outside your day to day experience with things you are familiar with. I could just as easily ask you "What is space made of?". Saying "Space is space, it's a medium." doesn't answer the question in any explanatory way. You are just defining the word to mean what it means. It's circular.
Furious arm waving and wordy attempts to describe something in a way which makes it seem like there's a quantitative model in there but there isn't. You have no model, you have no derivation, you have nothing to even develop. Your approach is entirely analogous to cultures millennia explaining phenomena like lightning as "God is angry" because doing controlled experiments, making precise statements and developing quantitative models which can then be tested was beyond them. Just as it is obviously beyond you.
I really like the fact that you avoid answering questions.
So this is your theory:
A molecule can go through both slits simultaneously in the DSE.
Since space is something that cannot be displaced, space and matter occupy the same points in 3ds simultaneously.
Isn't science supposed to be based on reality?
Here is some more of your theory:
Space is something.
Space can be bent.
Space cannot be displaced.
Explain to me how space has physical properties that allows it to be bent but not displaced.
prometheus
11-17-08, 08:13 AM
If I have a tank of water with rubber sides and I punch one side of the tank and a burst travels through the water and pokes out the other side, do you say the burst has mass?
There is no particle interpretation here, because the water is described by a wave equation, not a particle mechanics type equation. There is no poking out the other side.
You are wrong. QED.
There is no particle interpretation here, because the water is described by a wave equation, not a particle mechanics type equation. There is no poking out the other side.
You are wrong. QED.
What do you mean there is no poking out the other side?
Do you understand that your lack of ability to understand and visually comprehend how a burst travels through a tank of water is exactly the problem with QED and the DSE?
You describe the thought experiment of the water tank with rubber sides as a wave equation, therefore there is no poking out of the other side.
I'm not talking about an equation.
I'm talking about what would happen in REALITY if you were to actually punch the side of a rubber tank.
Your post is the perfect example of the disconnect between reality and equations.
Or in other words, You're making my point!
But the biggest problem is what you think is occurring.
You think punching the side of a tank with rubber sides is a "wave equation", and therefore the other side of the tank cannot poke out.
What you think is wrong!
Just because you think a "massless particle" can exist because your equations tell you it does, doesn't make it the best way to describe what a photon is.
prometheus
11-17-08, 02:05 PM
What do you mean there is no poking out the other side?
Do you understand that your lack of ability to understand and visually comprehend how a burst travels through a tank of water is exactly the problem with QED and the DSE?
You describe the thought experiment of the water tank with rubber sides as a wave equation, therefore there is no poking out of the other side.
I'm not talking about an equation.
I'm talking about what would happen in REALITY if you were to actually punch the side of a rubber tank.
You are a moron. You quite clearly have never stepped off your high horse for long enough to actually do this experiment because if you had you'd know that when you kick the side of the tank you'd set off waves in all possible directions from the source. not in a particle like motion straight across the tank. An example of what you'd see if you did this in 2 dimensions is given in the picture below, that will be familiar to all 14 year olds who have studied physics.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c7/Two-point-interference-ripple-tank.JPG/365px-Two-point-interference-ripple-tank.JPG
Waves and therefore energy are radiated away in all directions. There is no particle interpretation. Therefore you are wrong QED. For the sake of your ignorance, QED means quod erat demonstrandum and is Latin for "it is proven."
Your post is the perfect example of the disconnect between reality and equations.
Or in other words, You're making my point!
But the biggest problem is what you think is occurring.
You think punching the side of a tank with rubber sides is a "wave equation", and therefore the other side of the tank cannot poke out.
What you think is wrong!
Just because you think a "massless particle" can exist because your equations tell you it does, doesn't make it the best way to describe what a photon is.
You are still a moron. The equations describe what is observed quantitatively. They are verified by experiment where your claims are not verified at all.
You are a moron. You quite clearly have never stepped off your high horse for long enough to actually do this experiment because if you had you'd know that when you kick the side of the tank you'd set off waves in all possible directions from the source. not in a particle like motion straight across the tank. An example of what you'd see if you did this in 2 dimensions is given in the picture below, that will be familiar to all 14 year olds who have studied physics.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c7/Two-point-interference-ripple-tank.JPG/365px-Two-point-interference-ripple-tank.JPG
Waves and therefore energy are radiated away in all directions. There is no particle interpretation. Therefore you are wrong QED. For the sake of your ignorance, QED means quod erat demonstrandum and is Latin for "it is proven."
You are still a moron. The equations describe what is observed quantitatively. They are verified by experiment where your claims are not verified at all.
If you're going to name call, I prefer you go away, but it seems you have problems reading and visualizing.
It is not a steel drum.
As I have said repeatedly, it is a tank with rubber sides.
Maybe I need to clarify what a "side" is.
Have you ever heard of the concept of a rectangle?
Can you conceptualize it or do I need to draw one for you?
Now lets say that the really long sides are rubber. Let's say the rubber sides are a mile long.
Now lets say the rubber sides are a foot apart.
The short sides are made of steel.
Are you still with me? The long sides, of the rectangle, are made of rubber and the short sides, of the rectangle, are made of steel.
Now you punch the middle of one of the rubber sides so it indents. Do I need to explain to you what an indent is?
The indentation causes a burst of water to travel through to the other side of the tank. This burst will poke out the other side of the tank.
prometheus
11-17-08, 05:12 PM
No it doesn't. If the tank is open then you will get motion in all directions from the indent. The water level will rise and the motion of the other side will be small. If the tank is sealed and we're assuming the fluid is uncompressable (this is well understood physics by the way, it's modelled very well by the Navier Stokes equation) the other side will bow out along it's entire length with the same displacement as you have caused by pushing your side. Of course, you've never actually done any of this so how would you know? Do you have some sort of god complex?
AlphaNumeric
11-17-08, 07:34 PM
I'm not talking about an equation.
I'm talking about what would happen in REALITY if you were to actually punch the side of a rubber tank.Translation : "I cannot do the equations so I'm trying to tell people who both understand and can do equations, as well as describe in detail qualitatively the system in question, that their way is wrong and my vague grasp of a phenomena I know little about is superior to theirs."
You think punching the side of a tank with rubber sides is a "wave equation", and therefore the other side of the tank cannot poke out.Firstly, I don't think that the side is 'a wave equation'. I would describe the motion of the fluid in the tank via some wave mechanics. Secondly, said wave mechanics takes into account the momentum of the moving fluid and the effect it would have on the sides of the tank.
My dad is a professor of fluid mechanics. He's spent more than 3 decades working with various wave equations of one kind or another, be it through messing around with equations or getting hundreds of thousands of pounds of funding for his department to buy one of only a small number of super computers in the UK with which to do extremely detailed numerical calculations to describe things including the Euro Fighter, the Airbus A380, the supersonic car. Heck, his speciality is shock wave formation and his work in it has applications in modelling nuclear weapon detonations above ground.
So while you're naive/stupid/ignorant/arrogant enough to think that all us mainstream people do is fail to describe 'reality' because we're using equations, companies like Airbus, Boeing, BAE and Lockheed Martin pour billions of dollars/pounds/euros every year into employing people like my father and providing them with the equipment needed to apply their knowledge of 'wave equations' to help build the next generation of fighter jets, large airliners, submarines, missiles, hydroelectric power plants, formula 1 cars. If it involves something big or fast moving through a fluid, someone who knows all about 'wave equations' is being paid to work on it. They don't get paid for pathetic arm waving BS like you keep spouting, they get paid to make precise models. Would you get in a plane designed by someone whose total knowledge of aeronautics was making paper aeroplanes in school 20 years ago? Or would you prefer someone with decades of experience whose spent years modelling air flow, using super computers to model structure stresses on computer models accurate down to the millimetre and used wind tunnels to test physical small scale models?
What you think is wrong!At least I think. I've yet to see you demonstrate you're able to understand even the simplest explaination. You certainly haven't shown you have any ability in physics.
And I'm still waiting for you to provide an aether model which 'beautifully' describes the DSE experiment. You haven't provided one. And I bet you haven't gone to look in the Feynman lectures textbook because you and I both know you aren't interested in learning, plus you're obviously too stupid to be able to understand it. Disagree? Then prove it.
Translation : "I cannot do the equations so I'm trying to tell people who both understand and can do equations, as well as describe in detail qualitatively the system in question, that their way is wrong and my vague grasp of a phenomena I know little about is superior to theirs."
Firstly, I don't think that the side is 'a wave equation'. I would describe the motion of the fluid in the tank via some wave mechanics. Secondly, said wave mechanics takes into account the momentum of the moving fluid and the effect it would have on the sides of the tank.
My dad is a professor of fluid mechanics. He's spent more than 3 decades working with various wave equations of one kind or another, be it through messing around with equations or getting hundreds of thousands of pounds of funding for his department to buy one of only a small number of super computers in the UK with which to do extremely detailed numerical calculations to describe things including the Euro Fighter, the Airbus A380, the supersonic car. Heck, his speciality is shock wave formation and his work in it has applications in modelling nuclear weapon detonations above ground.
So, if I'm standing on a ladder next to two walls of rubber that have water between them and I punch the rubber as hard as I can to within an inch of the other side, would your Dad say the other rubber side would poke out?
So while you're naive/stupid/ignorant/arrogant enough to think that all us mainstream people do is fail to describe 'reality' because we're using equations, companies like Airbus, Boeing, BAE and Lockheed Martin pour billions of dollars/pounds/euros every year into employing people like my father and providing them with the equipment needed to apply their knowledge of 'wave equations' to help build the next generation of fighter jets, large airliners, submarines, missiles, hydroelectric power plants, formula 1 cars. If it involves something big or fast moving through a fluid, someone who knows all about 'wave equations' is being paid to work on it. They don't get paid for pathetic arm waving BS like you keep spouting, they get paid to make precise models. Would you get in a plane designed by someone whose total knowledge of aeronautics was making paper aeroplanes in school 20 years ago? Or would you prefer someone with decades of experience whose spent years modelling air flow, using super computers to model structure stresses on computer models accurate down to the millimetre and used wind tunnels to test physical small scale models?
At least I think. I've yet to see you demonstrate you're able to understand even the simplest explaination. You certainly haven't shown you have any ability in physics.
And I'm still waiting for you to provide an aether model which 'beautifully' describes the DSE experiment. You haven't provided one. And I bet you haven't gone to look in the Feynman lectures textbook because you and I both know you aren't interested in learning, plus you're obviously too stupid to be able to understand it. Disagree? Then prove it.
If you fire a carbon-60 molecule at the slits in the DSE, the carbon-60 molecule creates a displacement wave in space (i.e. a wave in the aether). The displacement wave goes through both slits. The carbon-60 molecule goes through one of the slits.
The displacement wave exits the slits and creates interference.
The direction the carbon-60 molecule is traveling as it exits the slits is affected by the interference.
That is how the carbon-60 molecule is able to create an interference pattern on the screen.
Your explanation?
Feynman is part of the problem, not the solution.
Yes, I know, he was a genius, but he completely missed what is going on in the DSE.
Ask your Dad, if there is an aether, that can be displaced, does my theory hold water?
No it doesn't. If the tank is open then you will get motion in all directions from the indent. The water level will rise and the motion of the other side will be small. If the tank is sealed and we're assuming the fluid is uncompressable (this is well understood physics by the way, it's modelled very well by the Navier Stokes equation) the other side will bow out along it's entire length with the same displacement as you have caused by pushing your side. Of course, you've never actually done any of this so how would you know? Do you have some sort of god complex?
In my very unscientific experiment, I just filled the sink with water and placed both my hands into the sink. One hand had my palm open to the side. I flicked my finger on my other hand and I felt a burst of water hit my palm. Try it.
AlphaNumeric
11-18-08, 12:45 PM
So, if I'm standing on a ladder next to two walls of rubber that have water between them and I punch the rubber as hard as I can to within an inch of the other side, would your Dad say the other rubber side would poke out?I don't even have to ask my dad. The basic grasp of fluid mechanics I have (hell, I don't even need to use anything I learnt at university) says 'Yes'.
Your explanation?Is there some reason you aren't looking in a quantum mechanics book and instead demand I tell you what it says? QM explains the double slit experiment, your continued refusal to accept that doesn't mean it doesn't.
Ask your Dad, if there is an aether, that can be displaced, does my theory hold water? Why on Earth should the aether, if it exists, behave like water or air? There's numerous other systems which can flow which don't behave like a typical Navier-Stokes fluid. What is there to your 'theory'? You cannot provide me with anything for me to test. Anything that allows me to model reality. How can you claim to explain what happens in reality when you cannot even model a tank of water, never mind subatomic systems?
Get it through your obviously extremely stupid skull, you have no theory. You just have a pathetic attempt at arm waving. If you knew the first thing about physics you'd realise just how far you are from even being close to comparable to mainstream theories. Really, your delusions are desperately pathetic.
I don't even have to ask my dad. The basic grasp of fluid mechanics I have (hell, I don't even need to use anything I learnt at university) says 'Yes'.
Is there some reason you aren't looking in a quantum mechanics book and instead demand I tell you what it says? QM explains the double slit experiment, your continued refusal to accept that doesn't mean it doesn't.
Why on Earth should the aether, if it exists, behave like water or air? There's numerous other systems which can flow which don't behave like a typical Navier-Stokes fluid. What is there to your 'theory'? You cannot provide me with anything for me to test. Anything that allows me to model reality. How can you claim to explain what happens in reality when you cannot even model a tank of water, never mind subatomic systems?
Get it through your obviously extremely stupid skull, you have no theory. You just have a pathetic attempt at arm waving. If you knew the first thing about physics you'd realise just how far you are from even being close to comparable to mainstream theories. Really, your delusions are desperately pathetic.
How does a carbon-60 molecule go through both slits simultaneously in the DSE?
prometheus
11-18-08, 02:26 PM
It's a quantum system, and quantum systems behave in the way prescribed by quantum field theory.
It's a quantum system, and quantum systems behave in the way prescribed by quantum field theory.
So your answer is, its magic?
How about explaining the details about how a molecule can be in two places at the same time.
merkababozo
11-18-08, 02:45 PM
So, if I'm standing on a ladder next to two walls of rubber
Are the other two walls padded? ..... and how in damnation do you punch these suckers when your arms are neatly restained in strapped sleeves?
Vkothii
11-18-08, 02:46 PM
how a molecule can be in two places at the same time.It means a molecule isn't like the 'solid' picture we draw, it can sort of squeeze itself through 2 gaps at a time.
So a molecule is a "sort of 'liquid'", then.
prometheus
11-18-08, 02:58 PM
So your answer is, its magic?
How about explaining the details about how a molecule can be in two places at the same time.
Ignore vkothii, he talks almost as much rubbish as you do. It's not magic and the molecule is not in 2 places at once, I'm not explaining it to you again. Go and look it up in a book or on the web.
It means a molecule isn't like the 'solid' picture we draw, it can sort of squeeze itself through 2 gaps at a time.
So a molecule is a "sort of 'liquid'", then.
You have got to be kidding!
Ignore vkothii, he talks almost as much rubbish as you do. It's not magic and the molecule is not in 2 places at once, I'm not explaining it to you again. Go and look it up in a book or on the web.
You haven't explained it a first time.
No one "really" explains it. All they say is that it's a particle when it needs to be a particle, and it's a wave when it needs to be a wave.
That's hard to argue against when your discussing already existing nonsense like a "massless particle", but when you are actually discussing something that most of us would consider to be a particle with mass, it gets more difficult to avoid answering specifically what is physically happening in order for the molecule to go through both slits.
It is very convenient that everyone ignores exactly what is physically occurring to the molecule before, during, and after its encounter with the slits.
Vkothii
11-18-08, 10:13 PM
Ignore prometheus, a molecule can't go through 2 different slits (separated by a distance) unless a molecule can be in 2 places. It isn't magic, it's what matter-waves do.
Photons, electrons, atoms, are all able to go through a double-slit, because they are in 2 places, at once.
But there are some people here who talk rubbish, about themselves, and direct it at others as well.
Fuck the lot of them, I say.
They can all (including that fuckwit with the stupid name who spells it like my one) get horribly fucked. No wait, they are already...
Ignore prometheus, a molecule can't go through 2 different slits (separated by a distance) unless a molecule can be in 2 places. It isn't magic, it's what matter-waves do.
But there are some people here who talk rubbish, about themselves, and direct it at others as well.
Fuck the lot of them, I say.
I don't envision a molecule to be like mercury. It is not simply going to separate and then come back together on the other side of the slits.
Some of the molecule will not make it through the slits.
I don't think it "squeezes" itself through both slits.
A wave that interacts with the slits, must have less energy as it exits the slits because some of the wave bounces off the barrier and does not make it through the slits.
The same would be true even if a molecule could "squeeze" itself through both slits and then I doubt it would be able to become the same molecule again as it exits the slits.
Obviously, I still like my theory the best where a molecule is creating a wave in the aether, similar to a boat creating a wake in water.
Just as a boat would get bounced around and have the direction it is traveling altered by the interference its wake creates as it exits the slits, the direction the molecule is traveling is altered by the interference in the aether its wave creates as it exits the slits.
There is no such thing as matter-waves. There is matter and there are waves. A molecule is matter that is creating a wave in the aether.
Vkothii
11-19-08, 01:13 AM
The interaction is negligible, or elastic - the energy the beam of molecules/atoms loses is about what it gains; it 'sees' electrons with a negative charge, and the electrons it has repels them, an elastic collision.
There is such a thing as matter-waves - if there wasn't you wouldn't be using an electronic computer, or an internet.
Wavefunctions aren't like waves on the surface of water; quantum particles aren't like little solid marbles.
You have to forget about those things when you look at photons etc.
The interaction is negligible, or elastic - the energy the beam of molecules/atoms loses is about what it gains; it 'sees' electrons with a negative charge, and the electrons it has repels them, an elastic collision.
There is such a thing as matter-waves - if there wasn't you wouldn't be using an electronic computer, or an internet.
Wavefunctions aren't like waves on the surface of water; quantum particles aren't like little solid marbles.
You have to forget about those things when you look at photons etc.
Anything that is described in terms of matter-waves can be better described in terms of matter and waves.
Vkothii
11-19-08, 04:32 PM
Sure.
All you have to do first up, is determine what a wave is, and then what 'matter' is.
And you have to consider that 'solid' discontinuous bits of it, might not be 'solid' after all (or discontinuous).
Sure.
All you have to do first up, is determine what a wave is, and then what 'matter' is.
And you have to consider that 'solid' discontinuous bits of it, might not be 'solid' after all (or discontinuous).
I have to determine what a wave is and what matter is, but you do not have to define what a matter-wave is?
Doesn't sound logical. Especially because you have to define what matter is and what a wave is in order to define matter-waves. Matter and waves are sub components of matter-waves.
We all have a general understanding of what a wave is.
We all have a general understanding of what matter is.
A molecule is matter (i.e. a particle with mass).
It is easy to visualize a molecule creating a wave in the aether as it moves towards the slits.
It is easy to visualize this wave going through both slits and creating interference as it exits the slits.
It is easy to visualize the molecule going through one of the slits.
It is easy to visualize the molecule exiting the slit and having the direction it is traveling altered by this interference.
Matter-waves are difficult, I would say impossible, to visualize in their own right and to try and discuss how a matter-wave goes through both slits in the DSE requires a disconnect from reality.
Other behaviors in the DSE are easy to explain with the aether.
The act of "observing" the molecule interferes with the displacement wave being created in the aether, turning it into chop. Interference does not occur when the wave in the aether is turned into chop and the molecule will not create an interference pattern on the screen.
"Which-way" is defined as the molecule traveling along the same path multiple times. With the aether, this means the molecule will continually interact with its displacement wave created interference in the same manner and the molecule will strike the screen in the same general location each time.
I would like to see the DSE experiment performed with "which-way" with one and then two slits open. With one slit open, an interference pattern will not be created. With "which-way" and two slits open, an interference pattern will not be created, but the location where the molecule strikes the screen will be different than when only one slit was open because the molecule is still interacting with its displacement wave created interference.
Is there a Quantum explanation for why where the molecule winds up on the screen changes for one or two slits being open and "which way" in effect?
If there is enough randomness so you would know which slit the molecule is going to go through, but not go through exactly the same way each and every time, an interference pattern would still be created on the screen.
Such simple explanations for such a simple experiment.
Vkothii
11-19-08, 08:10 PM
A molecule is matter (i.e. a particle with mass).Yep. So the next step in the process, is, define mass, and then: "a particle with mass".
Of course, a massive particle is just a handy sort of label we use, because fundamental particles aren't like little marbles (once again). You can't really take the picture you have of waves that solid objects make in a liquid, straight to the picture of fundamental particles.
If you think about it, of course you can't assume that all waves look like the disturbances we can see in fluids (or anything else).
You seem to be discussing the wave/particle duality in quantum measurement; the delayed choice we can make. If you record the position of each 'part' of the interference as it evolves, one bit at a time, like in single-photon interference experiments, the record still shows the same result. You can't change the identity of a particle into a wave once you observe it - it's one or the other, and never both.
Yep. So the next step in the process, is, define mass, and then: "a particle with mass".
Of course, a massive particle is just a handy sort of label we use, because fundamental particles aren't like little marbles (once again). You can't really take the picture you have of waves that solid objects make in a liquid, straight to the picture of fundamental particles.
If you think about it, of course you can't assume that all waves look like the disturbances we can see in fluids (or anything else).
Eventually, some type of assumption must be made. For example, duality or "massless particle".
Whatever a molecule is, if there is an aether, then the molecule displaces the aether where it exists. It is easier to understand when discussing the molecule displacing the aether as it moves through the aether. I'm not sure what the quantum explanation is, but I believe no two things can occupy the same point in three dimensional space (3ds) and aether exists where ever matter does not. So as the molecule is moving through the aether, it is displacing it.
I'm not taking the picture of a solid object making a wave in a liquid directly to fundamental particles, but the concept of displacement is similar.
You seem to be discussing the wave/particle duality in quantum measurement; the delayed choice we can make. If you record the position of each 'part' of the interference as it evolves, one bit at a time, like in single-photon interference experiments, the record still shows the same result. You can't change the identity of a particle into a wave once you observe it - it's one or the other, and never both.
This is where I fundamentally disagree. A molecule is always a molecule. It is always a particle. Any attempt to observe it destroys the coherence of the wave it is creating in the aether.
The analogy of this is a boat in water. In order to "observe" the boat, a bunch of buoys are placed at the exits of the slits. The wake the boat is creating is going to be turned into chop by the buoys.
The boat is always a boat. It is never the wake.
A molecule is always a particle. It is never the displacement wave.
The only reason why a molecule is considered to have duality is because physicists needed an explanation as to the behaviors in the DSE.
If physicists had stuck with the idea that a photon was a wave, or even better a burst, and not had diverted into the idea that a photon was a "massless particle", the idea of duality would never had been necessary.
So if we back up and change the state of things so that Einstein had felt that there was an aether, then when he performed the photoelectric effect experiment, he would have concluded that the aether was forcing the electrons to be emitted from the metallic surface. The obvious explanation for this would have been that a photon is a burst traveling through the aether.
Then when the DSE was performed, it would have been obvious that the concept of the photon as a burst was still accurate because the burst was able to go through both slits simultaneously.
This would have carried over to a molecule in the DSE because, again, the best explanation would have been that the molecule was creating a displacement wave in the aether.
Vkothii
11-20-08, 03:28 AM
Photons are not a 'diversion', they exist, they don't 'carry' any mass around, but have momentum. This is explicable as a massless perturbation of the field it propagates through.
You might be mis-reading that article by Albert E. He still says that there are fields, and he also says much the same thing I just did about photons (as particles).
With long-wavelengths like radio, we treat it as a spherical type of wavefront. But every receiving station only 'sees' part of an expanding wave; fundamentally there is no difference between saying this and saying each receiver 'sees' a group of 'particles' (part-waves) called photons. When radiation has a small wavelength the particle picture 'fits' better than the one we use with electronics, say.
But that's us, not the radiation. That's our view, which is always 'approximate', although it's accurate (i.e. it's only as exact or precise as we make it). "If there is an aether", or "if there is no aether" is no longer relevant, where the EM field is concerned. Einstein says this too, more or less, in that article you linked to.
Your "burst" model isn't that far off the tracks, but the "of space" is somewhat - given the evidence I mean.
Assume space is empty (like a smooth body of water), and then you see disturbances in space - light particles/waves are sort of traveling bits of vibration - they have no definite position (like extended waveforms don't), they 'expand' things; they're like small bits of pressure, in some sense. But they 'oscillate' or vibrate periodically, this is their 'energy' - energy is a kind of expansion of something, then.
Photons are not a 'diversion', they exist, they don't 'carry' any mass around, but have momentum. This is explicable as a massless perturbation of the field it propagates through.
Agree. A massless perturbation of the field it propagates through is the definition of a wave, or I prefer, a burst. It is not a particle.
You might be mis-reading that article by Albert E. He still says that there are fields, and he also says much the same thing I just did about photons (as particles).
With long-wavelengths like radio, we treat it as a spherical type of wavefront. But every receiving station only 'sees' part of an expanding wave; fundamentally there is no difference between saying this and saying each receiver 'sees' a group of 'particles' (part-waves) called photons. When radiation has a small wavelength the particle picture 'fits' better than the one we use with electronics, say.
But that's us, not the radiation. That's our view, which is always 'approximate', although it's accurate (i.e. it's only as exact or precise as we make it). "If there is an aether", or "if there is no aether" is no longer relevant, where the EM field is concerned. Einstein says this too, more or less, in that article you linked to.
I disagree.
The "EM field" is "carry-able", meaning a photon has momentum through it, but it is not "displace-able", meaning the objects with mass in it do not displace it. Such a thing cannot exist.
For example, let's say a photon is traveling toward the earth in the direction along the earths orbit. In other words, the earth is heading toward the photon as the photon is heading toward the earth.
The photon is traveling through the EM field.
The photon strikes your eye.
The earth moves through the EM field where the photon had just traveled through.
What happened to the EM field that the photon had just traveled through that the earth now exists in?
The earth displaced the EM field.
The earth now exists where the EM field used to be.
Call it an EM field, call it the aether, it doesn't matter. Two things cannot occupy the same point in 3ds simultaneously.
That's why I prefer to talk about the EM field, or the aether, simply as space. The photon is a burst traveling through space.
There is still space in the atmosphere that the photon is capable of traveling through.
I believe displacement of the aether, EM field, space is fundamental.
Your "burst" model isn't that far off the tracks, but the "of space" is somewhat - given the evidence I mean.
Assume space is empty (like a smooth body of water), and then you see disturbances in space - light particles/waves are sort of traveling bits of vibration - they have no definite position (like extended waveforms don't), they 'expand' things; they're like small bits of pressure, in some sense.
How is a smooth body of water empty? The body is not empty, it contains water.
But they 'oscillate' or vibrate periodically, this is their 'energy' - energy is a kind of expansion of something, then.
The "something" is the aether (i.e. space itself).
The "something" is displace-able.
AlphaNumeric
11-20-08, 12:34 PM
The "EM field" is "carry-able", meaning a photon has momentum through it, but it is not "displace-able", meaning the objects with mass in it do not displace it. Such a thing cannot exist.Why? Why do you think that every phenomenon in the universe should be explainable in terms of things which we experience on a day to day basis? Why should the photon be modellable using fluids? Why should water be the fluid which you always refer back to? We know water has properties that even most other fluids don't possess (expands when frozen and has extremely high specific heat capacity and surface tension). We also know of fluids which possess properties which water does not, such as superfluidity. Waves and perturbations in super fluids do not behave like waters in the ocean. Infact, waves in superfluids behave like quantum mechanical systems, because superfluidity is a quantum mechanical phenomenon. Furthermore, while mainstream physics considered space-time to be able to carry ripples (ie gravitational waves) there is no fluid which actually has the properties of space-time. Space-time has no tension in the stretching sense, if it expands it does not 'remember' this, there is no conservation of mass if you assign some kind of fluidic density to space-time.
If a fluid is something which is described by the Navier Stokes equations (not that you even know them) then quantum mechanical systems, as well as gravitational ones (including gravitational waves) are not describable as fluids.
Oh and to respond to the stupid, pseudo-rhetorical question you asked me about the Bucky ball being 'magic', both Prometheus and I have explained the quantum mechanical description to you and given you references which, if you were actually at all interested in learning you'd go and read, explain it in detail. I tell you go to look at Feynman's work and you complain he's part of the problem. So why ask me if you don't want to listen to the answer? Obviously it's because you aren't interested in the answer, you just want to try to get a discussion going on your idea (not a theory) and have morons like Vkothii pat you on the back. As threads in the maths & physics forum demonstrate, he's clueless to physics as well but he thinks that his computer science education is enough to allow him to leapfrog into postgrad theoretical physics material. The fact undergraduate theoretical physics isn't just computer science clearly escapes him so I wouldn't take too much of his logical deductions to heart (it's all the more ironic he complains people like myself think too much of themselves, after he tries to claim he's got the grounding to do theoretical physics on my level).
And was there some reason you completely ignored my request you point to a single aether based theory which is capable of living up to your claims about aether explaining the double slit experiment so 'beautifully'? Could it be you realised your mouth is writing cheques your brain can't pay?
Why? Why do you think that every phenomenon in the universe should be explainable in terms of things which we experience on a day to day basis? Why should the photon be modellable using fluids? Why should water be the fluid which you always refer back to? We know water has properties that even most other fluids don't possess (expands when frozen and has extremely high specific heat capacity and surface tension). We also know of fluids which possess properties which water does not, such as superfluidity. Waves and perturbations in super fluids do not behave like waters in the ocean. Infact, waves in superfluids behave like quantum mechanical systems, because superfluidity is a quantum mechanical phenomenon. Furthermore, while mainstream physics considered space-time to be able to carry ripples (ie gravitational waves) there is no fluid which actually has the properties of space-time. Space-time has no tension in the stretching sense, if it expands it does not 'remember' this, there is no conservation of mass if you assign some kind of fluidic density to space-time.
If a fluid is something which is described by the Navier Stokes equations (not that you even know them) then quantum mechanical systems, as well as gravitational ones (including gravitational waves) are not describable as fluids.
Oh and to respond to the stupid, pseudo-rhetorical question you asked me about the Bucky ball being 'magic', both Prometheus and I have explained the quantum mechanical description to you and given you references which, if you were actually at all interested in learning you'd go and read, explain it in detail. I tell you go to look at Feynman's work and you complain he's part of the problem. So why ask me if you don't want to listen to the answer? Obviously it's because you aren't interested in the answer, you just want to try to get a discussion going on your idea (not a theory) and have morons like Vkothii pat you on the back. As threads in the maths & physics forum demonstrate, he's clueless to physics as well but he thinks that his computer science education is enough to allow him to leapfrog into postgrad theoretical physics material. The fact undergraduate theoretical physics isn't just computer science clearly escapes him so I wouldn't take too much of his logical deductions to heart (it's all the more ironic he complains people like myself think too much of themselves, after he tries to claim he's got the grounding to do theoretical physics on my level).
And was there some reason you completely ignored my request you point to a single aether based theory which is capable of living up to your claims about aether explaining the double slit experiment so 'beautifully'? Could it be you realised your mouth is writing cheques your brain can't pay?
A photon, a burst traveling through the aether, goes through both slits in the DSE.
No need for duality nonsense.
No need for "which-way" nonsense.
No need for "observed" nonsense.
Just because you refuse to see the beauty in a photon as a burst traveling through the aether, doesn't mean it isn't beautiful.
prometheus
11-20-08, 02:08 PM
This thread isn't even up to the standards of pseudoscience.
This thread isn't even up to the standards of pseudoscience.
How does a molecule go through both slits simultaneously in the DSE?
It doesn't. The molecule goes through one slit and the displacement wave it is creating in the aether goes through both.
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