Pick up on Question About Photon Mass thread from the Physics Forum

So let's start from there.

If a photon is emitted by a source is it always emitted at a constant speed or not, or you don't want to take a position on that?

 

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I don't know. I don't want to take a position on that yet but I'm aware that is the mainstream view.

I guess I don't think so because let us suppose the photon is accelerated in a sodium ion chamber and it's rate is observed to be 38 m.p.h. Then what?

 

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It was emitted before it traveled. I'm asking if you can accept that it was emitted at the constant speed, forget what the speed is or what the energy environment is.

 

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http://www.springerlink.com/content/j630056049k52521/
Read this and comment if you get a chance. It is old but it brings up the issue of photon energy in discrete increments of action quanta.

"Summary We propose five experiments devised to test to what extent Nature completes an integer number of action quanta between two measurement events.A priori, the appearance of such a completion is highly probable in view of the atomism of action which plays an essential part in quantum mechanics. It is made clear, however, that a relevant completion would imply some retroactive influence,i.e. an influence on certain stages of particular processes by later events. This contributes towards making the experimental verification in question important. We prove that the uncertainty relations constitute, no obstacle to the required precision of the proposed experiments, some of which are thought experiments, whereas other ones are practicable. Actually, these experiments test whether action quanta are real four-dimensional physical entities,i.e. a kind of atoms of events. In particular, the experiments may show them to be elementary constituents of the four-dimensional existence of particles."

 

Yeah I guess I don't accept it.

Sort of a bizarre statement given the context of our conversation. You are basically asking me to forget observed reality.

 

Thx.

Looking now...

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When I think of light, photons, I can visualize a universe full of them traveling in all directions from all sources. They don't interact with each other but they do have encounters with mass where ever mass exists. Their energy is either absorbed by the mass, reflected by the mass or it passes through the mass. It doesn't really matter what speed they are traveling until there is an encounter, and unless the source of the photon is known, there is now way of knowing what transformations are necessary to get back to the wavelength of the photon when it was emitted.

To solve this problem, science has seen fit to place a constant speed to the light as measured at ... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=speed of light&aq=f&oq=

There are other alternatives, i.e. the speed of light could be considered to be variable at the instant of emission instead of constant. Perhaps you would use the wavelength as the constant and the speed as a variable. Think of wanting to do some science without establishing an invariant of some kind. If you don't want the speed of light to be the invariant, what do you want to use?

 

Likewise.

This is where I lose you. Photons don't interact with eachother? In that case, how is a ray of light formed?

OK. I follow you.

How is a lack of encounter possible? The universe is filled with plasma.

Indeed.

Not sure why it's a problem.

Throughout history, science has seen fit to believe in an encylopedia of absurdities.

That is likely imo.

Perhaps.

Light does not travel at constant speed because there is no such thing as a so-called vacuum and space is the a priori form of our intuition (Kant 1781).

Why does there need to be an invariant? Don't we live in a dynamic and changing universe?

 

Sequential emission of photons from a source.

Plasma is mass. Any encounter with plasma is an "encounter"

Only a problem to the extent that observing an encounter doesn't give us enough information.

Ain't it grand

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. What is there about the facts of life that you don't like?

Kant what? Space is where things happen. It is never empty IMHO, but that isn't daunting.

Have you have been watching too much reality TV.

But yes we do but there can still be invariants in realty. The speed of light is the most convenient, especially since it is almost universally accepted. Doesn't mean it is true and all science is tentative. But are you saying there is no need for science?

 

OK got it.

Yet another reason I question the validity of c.

Geschehen as they say in France...

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I don't believe space is an object in itself but rather the a priori form of our intuition.

I agree 100%.

Proud to say I've watched TV less than 30 times in the past 15 years.

No. I'm saying there is no need for religion in science and there is dire need for the scientific method.

 

This is the kind of statement that requires a Smiley face of some kind. Chose one:

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,

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, or

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, but not shrug, or confused.

In French that means "flock of pigeons" I think.

In French that means "what if all there was was a flock of pigeons" doesn't it.

I think I told you before, no one ever agrees with me.

Agree with the first part.

The second part is alive and well but you have to tolerate those that think differently. Ramming it up their arse is only going to get you banned (I don't have room for any more smiles but it would be : p).