I just want to get some feedback on this idea. It is not peer reviewed. A photon does not shine it's light in one direction. Light emanates from a particle, that is, radiation of any type is not a single vector in a singular direction. Nor is it confined as an instantaneous event. That includes electricity, and magnetism, which also do not in themselves or when combined, radiate in a single direction in an instantaneous event. Radiation is a 360 degree spherical event that happens over time. A point source radiates in all directions. This does not make the point source a wave at any time. The radiation of any type of energy itself is not a wave. There are forces that can cause constriction or elongation of the radiation, but the radiation itself is composed of discrete points emanating from a source that because of its density appears as having wavelike properties. The radiant energy density creates the banded interference pattern, and causes the pushing or nudging of the point source electron into place. It is the interaction (interference) of the radiant energy that guides the electron, after which the electron produces a 'hit' along with other electrons that produce the interference bands in the detector of the two slit experiment. The electron follows the radiant energy it has emitted in a path of least resistance which has been established by the relative density of the radiant energy, which has been constricted or elongated by forces in it's environment. The radiation of the electron actually hits the detector before the electron itself, although it is too weak to produce a hit. The same thing happens with neural networks, where first a path is created (grown) by the nerve cell (they are sometimes called projection tracks), and then the electrical activity, the nerve impulses, follow that path. This is a neural pathway. The similarity is that the electron is 'growing' it's path with radiation prior to actually traveling down that path. The direction of the path has been affected by it's own interference. The resulting path guides or pushes the electron to it's destination, and only appears to have been caused by a transitional wave to particle event. To think of it otherwise would be saying that the nerve impulses were creating the neural pathways, and that isn't the case in either of these examples.
I would disagree with this. A photon is a quanta of light and only has one direction. When an electron moves from a higher energy level to a lower energy level a single photon will be emitted and travel in a single direction. Correct, a point source emits MANY photons in all directions, but each of the photons move in one direction. Photons are not discrete points. The wave aspect of photons is not due to some sort of density. A single photon is a quantum of light that has both wave like aspects and particle like aspects. A photon cannot accurately be described classically.
Are you talking about photons or electrons here? You seem to start with one and switch to the other, half way through.
I don't know how to edit my original post. I'm thinking it's not possible, but I've edited the post, and it is message #4 above. Please respond to it, rather than the original post. It is a simple English edit, but also has changes, and refinements. I'll try to apply your current posts to the idea if they apply. Thanks for reading it too.
Just to quibble a bit energy is not a vector and energy is not a substance that can radiate. A particle loses energy in the form of photons and photons carry the energy. Sorry but that doesn't make much sense and it seems to contradict the law of the conservation of energy. How could a photon create radiant energy? This doesn't make much sense either. What exactly is your definition of radiant energy? Radiant energy is usually referring to photons, so that would mean your statement is essentially saying photons guide photons.
Xmo1: Here are my thoughts on the revised version of your opening post. Some of these are essentially repeats of comments other people have already made. It's a little more complicated than that when we're talking about light. Photons are conceptually difficult because they have both wave-like and particle-like properties. Importantly, the photon properties you will observe will depend, in part, on what kind of measurement you're making. There's a somewhat clumsy word for the kind of the thing that photons are: wavicle. It's supposed to give the idea of the wave-particle duality that photons have. It isn't used much, partly because it's clumsy, by more, I think, because every fundamental particle is a wavicle (i.e. a quantum thing that obeys the rules of quantum physics). If you set up a single-photon detector, then it will detect single photons from any source. The photons will look very particle-like, from the point of view of the detector. More commonly we observe and measure billions and trillions of photons per second from a light source. With that number, the behaviour of the light is often most conveniently described as wave-like. However (and this is tricky part), even single photons can be used to demonstrate wave-like effects. For example, we could, in principle, conduct a two-slit interference experiment with a light source of such low intensity that we can guarantee that only one photon passes through the apparatus at a time. Nevertheless, after many "shots" of single photons, the usual two-slit wavelike interference pattern shows up on the screen. The only way to account for this is to describe individual photons using a wave model. Specifically, in quantum physics, we often describe photons using a wavefunction, which provides a probabilistic description of where the photon is in space at any given time. With this model, the photon has no certain position until its position is somehow measured (e.g. by viewing the spot of light on a screen where the photon landed). It is not clear to me how an energy density could guide or push anything. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think I'd need to see a mathematical description to start to properly unpack your idea. Now you're talking about electrons rather than photons, but in a two-slit experiment the difference is often unimportant, since the observed results are very similar. My question to you is: can you account for the two-slit pattern that is formed when we do the experiment with one electron at a time in the apparatus? Why would an electron passing through a two-slit apparatus emit radiation? Light is made up of photons. The photons are the radiated light. What would it mean for a photon to radiate energy? How could it do that? In what form would the energy be radiated? The problem is that energy is not "stuff" that moves from place to place. Energy is just a number that we assign to a system. Energy doesn't "move". Only things like particles move. We speak loosely and say things like "A photon carries energy E=hf", which implies that energy can be transferred from place to place by the photon's motion. There's nothing wrong with that. But really, we're just saying "we associate the number hf with a photon of frequency f" and we can do some accounting, adding up the "total energy" at the source and the "total energy" at some distant point and (hopefully) showing that the numbers are the same. This is why the concept of energy is useful. But realise that it's a mistake to think of energy as being like matter, or even some kind of gas or plasma. It isn't any of those things. Origin: It sort of is. It's a probability density. In quantum mechanics, the probability density at a point in space is the probability per unit volume of finding a photon there.
Sorry for the confusion. I was focused on the second sentence: the one about the wave aspect of photons not being due to some sort of density. I agree with you on the first part: the part about photons not being discrete points.
Oh, yes, I agree with what you said on probability density. I don't think that is what the OP was talking about at all, but I could certainly be wrong. Maybe the OP will clarify.
I think the thing to grasp is that you cannot separate the "particle" from the "radiation". They are not different things. The radiation is made up of "particles" - or potential "particles". The thing about quantum behaviour is that the two aspects are inseparable. QM entities, such as electrons or photons, have some of the characteristics of each. Which one you see depends on the circumstances. When a QM entity interacts with something, for instance hitting a detector, it manifests particle-like properties, including a definite, pointlike location. When it is in flight, not interacting with anything, it behaves more like a wave, with only potential properties. So it is both at once, really. It's hard to imagine pictorially, but we have maths that describes it.
If I have a lump of radium, it is radiating energy. That radiation will hit the detector before I throw the rock at the screen. That radiation will interfere with itself I think as it travels through space; not sure. But the radiation definitely gets there before I throw the radium. Now if the thrown rock goes in a straight line it is going to affect it's own radiation, and also the radiation will affect (push, pull based on densities) the rock. I'm having trouble with this. I know something about the double split experiment, the probability cloud, the dual nature of sub-atomic particles, and the observer, but I can't see where I'm wrong, yet. In my mind the interference pattern exists before the radium travels to the detector. I know the rock is not a qm entity, but supposedly we are not throwing pure energy at the detector. A particle is involved. All particles vibrate, all particles radiate to some degree, and that radiation is out front of the moving particle even if the particle is massless. Unless I'm wrong.
You are rather wrong, in several ways. Radium decays by mainly emission of α particles, and in some cases β particles. Neither is EM radiation, so no photons are involved. (If the decay mode were γ-radiation, that would be a different matter.) The radium is emitting energy in the form of the kinetic energy of these particles, flying out. There is no such thing as "pure energy". That is Star Trek, not science. I think you need to rewind a bit and explain what experiment you are conducting. Are you wanting these emitted particles to pass through a pair of slits? If so, you can in principle measure an interference pattern (the one for α particles will be very tiny, due to the large mass of a helium nucleus). But what, then do you hope to show by throwing the lump of radium at the screen? Or is this all a wind-up?
The lump is radiating particles. These particles interfere with each other as they propagate. They create interference patterns do they not? Even if the particle is relatively tiny the same analog will apply. So I'm saying that a pre-existing interference pattern exists, and the interference pattern, although with a much higher charge strength, created by the motion of the 'fired' particle uses that initial pattern as a path of least resistance. Am I still wrong?
No, they do not create interference patterns. They are emitted successively, in random directions, as individual atoms decay. Why do you think they interfere with one another? What is the "fired" particle? How can a subsequent particle use an "interference pattern" as "a path of least resistance"? To be honest, none of this makes sense. It is hard to discern a coherent train of thought in what you are saying. Look, the most prevalent isotopes of radium emit α-particles. These are helium nuclei. While these do in theory have a wavelength associated with them, due to their momentum, the wavelength will be extremely short and can be neglected for most purposes. An interference pattern is something you see on a screen when you intercept two or more wavetrains, arriving simultaneously from spatially separated sources. You do not have that here. You have a lump of metal emitting particles in all directions, one after another. Each is independent of the next and they do not arrive anywhere simultaneously. So there is no interference. Furthermore there is nothing in physics to suggest that the passage of one particle or wave somehow creates a path of least resistance for others to follow. You seem to have just made that up. You can't do that in science.
'the wavelength is extremely short and can be neglected' That does it for me. For the most part, I hold what you say as being true. I believe it. The only part of this I don't believe, and I know you would ask, is that you can't make things up in science. For me, making things up is what people do. It brings invention. It brings understanding. It brings those eureka moments of discovery, and it's very much a part of science. So I compared the physics with biology (the neural pathway), and a question arose for me. Could this be the truth of it (the two slit experiment)? You have to admit the experimental results are mind blowing. So thanks for sending me back to basics, and for participating in my learning experience. I'll be picking up my physics book again after a few years of letting it rest. Have a great weekend. Adios.
OK, I'm glad you got something out of this. The reason the wavelength of more massive objects tends to be short is because it is determined by de Broglie's relation, in which the wavelength, λ = h/p, where p is momentum and h is Planck's constant. So the greater the momentum the shorter the wavelength. For motion at a given speed, the momentum is greater for a more massive object, of course. Regarding making things up, it's true that hypotheses are constructed and tested by observation. But these are not just made up: they are based on whatever body of prior evidence, from observation, is available. So to advance a hypothesis with any credibility, one should relate it to the known observational evidence, not just pluck it out of thin air.
