Electromagnetism: quantum mechanics or vortices?

[Farsight]

I do not care that it is impossible to depict a complicated mathematical object.

It isn't a "mathematical object". It's something real. Even OnlyMe was able to dig up something.

What is the evidence that your picture matches the details about how the electromagnetic field moves a charged particle?

Two charged particles with no initial motion move linearly towards each other or away from each other, depending on whether they have the same charge or not.



That's just like the way counter-rotating vortices attract and co-rotating vortices repel. If the charged particles did have initial relative motion they also rotate around one another, just like vortices. Did you look at Maxwell's page title and take note of his reference to a screw mechanism? Why do you think particles move linearly and rotationally? By throwing photons back and forth? Magic?

Then you can get back to showing how inhomogeneous space, as you describe it, is used in a single physics example.

I've referred you to Einstein talking about that enough times.

So far, your ideas seem to have no relationship to observational evidence.

It wasn't me who dreamed up screw mechanisms and vortices. Or spinors. And what I've described to you has a clear relationship to the observational evidence. By the way, note that the arrowheads on the radial electric lines of force don't work. The linear "electric" force pushes two negative particles apart, and it pushes two positive particles apart, but it pulls two opposite-charged particles together. That's because it takes two to tango. The force is the result of electromagnetic field interactions. It isn't a field in its own right. They aren't field lines. They're lines of force, and until you have two charged particles, there isn't any force.

PS: this thread is supposed to be about neutrinos. Perhaps you'd care to start a new thread to discuss the electromagnetic field?

 

[PhysBang]

So what you are saying that you have no evidence.

 

[krash661]

No. Stop trying to put up a mathematical smokescreen.

did you just seriously say this ?
wow,how many times a day can you make it obvious, yourself, that you clearly do not understand any science.

 

[krash661]

This depiction lacks any combination of electric field lines and magnetic field lines:

However it bears a superficial resemblance to the Williamson / van der Mark electron, so it's better than nothing.

is it not math of how you find the lines ?

 

[krash661]

PS: this thread is supposed to be about neutrinos. Perhaps you'd care to start a new thread to discuss the electromagnetic field?

was it not you who changed this topic from neutrinos to farsights, hilarious flawed ramblings of the typical lack of justification of ego stroking show, due to one's emotional instability ?

 

[James R]

Farsight,

No problem. The important point is that hydrogen atoms don't twinkle and magnets don't shine. Virtual photons are not photons. They aren't short-lived photons. They don't pop into existence like magic. And they aren't the same thing as vacuum fluctuations.

Do you believe in vacuum fluctuations? It's not clear from what you've written. And if photons can't result from those, then what does result?

It's strange, because you seem to accept certain parts of quantum field theory, while rejecting other parts. It's pretty piecemeal, as far as I can see. It's almost like you don't understand the theory and you have just mashed together parts of it with ideas from other fields to make a kind of hybrid idea with no actual supporting evidence.

No. I don't need any mathematics for you to know that the electromagnetic field is not generally depicted.

Right. I asked you to provide the mathematics behind the diagrams that you provided earlier. Those diagrams are supported by some mathematics, aren't they? Or are they just a pretty picture you dreamed up?

You know that there's plenty of depictions of electric fields and magnetic fields, and you also know that these are aspects of the electromagnetic field. And that Heaviside developed gravitomagnetism as an analogy of electromagnetism. And you've heard of spinors and Maxwell's vortices. So accept what I tell you.

What? I'm supposed to accept what you tell me because it uses some terms that I've come across elsewhere? No, Farsight. You'll have to do a lot better than that.

Don't try to dismiss it by demanding some kind of mathematical proof. Mathematics will not prove that electrons and protons throw photons at one another.

Ha! This really made me laugh. Thanks, Farsight.

You couldn't be more wrong!

You've indicated that you approve of at least some parts of quantum field theory. Quantum electrodynamics is probably the most successful theory in all of science. Its mathematics predicts, famously, the gyromagnetic ratio of the electron accurately to over 10 decimal places (I forget exactly how many it is). Very few, if any, scientific theories from any field of science even come close to this level of accuracy.

And guess which theory also predicts that electrons and protons throw photons at each other?

Now, what I'm interested in is whether your theory of vortices can make any numerical predictions at all. Can it, Farsight? So far, it has failed even to derive Coulomb's law. So, got anything else?

Note that in John Jackson’s Classical Electrodynamics section 11.10 he says "one should properly speak of the electromagnetic field Fμv rather than E or B separately". Then ask yourself why you've never seen a depiction of the electromagnetic field, and then try to depict it yourself.

That $$F_{\mu \nu}$$ is a tensor, Farsight. See if you can find me a depiction of a tensor. Any tensor will do. If you can't find one, see if you can work out why. Hint: it's not due to the Grand Scientific Conspiracy to Suppress Pictures of Tensors.

No. Because [showing how Coulomb's law is derived] would take a whole thread all on its own.

Is there any simple numerical result that you can show using your electromagnetic vortices?

See Wikipedia? See where it says this:

"it follows from Coulomb's law that the magnitude of the electric field E created by a single source point charge q at a certain distance from it r in vacuum is given by: $$|E|={1\over4\pi\varepsilon_0}{|q|\over r^2}$$.

That's wrong on so many counts I don't know where to start.

Pick a place to start. Tell me something that is wrong with Coulomb's law.

No, [an electron is] made from light in pair production. It's a spinor. An optical vortex. I know that isn't what's taught, but it will be.

As Physbang pointed out, everything is a spinor.

So far, you've given no reason for us to conclude that electrons are optical vortices. Do you have any actual reasons why we should accept what you say?

There is no magic. Try to explain what actually happens in for example gamma-gamma pair production. If you're sharp you can spot what's wrong in the given explanation.

Looks like I'm not too sharp. Enlighten me.

There is no magic! I suggest you read what Rod Nave says about it...

You linked to the hyperphysics page on Compton scattering. What am I supposed to take away from that? It's a standard description of the process.

We made it out of light in pair production. And we can diffract it. And when we annihilate it with the positron we get light again. So it isn't made of cheese, now is it?

Well, what about beta decay? There, we have a neutron turning into a proton, a neutrino and an electron. Where's the light there? Would you conclude that the electron is made out of a neutron, then? Or do you conclude that a neutron is really made out of a neutron, a neutrino and an electron, perhaps? Or what?

Can you see the flaw in your argument yet?

Where are you getting such assertions from. It's called Compton scattering. Not Compton absorption.

Any process that involves both incoming and outgoing particle(s) is a scattering process. That doesn't mean that absorption doesn't take place during the process. And indeed, in Compton scattering that is exactly what occurs.

And I quote: when the incoming photon gives part of its energy to the electron...

... and the rest of its energy to creating the outgoing photon.

Got a problem with that?

 

[Farsight]

Do you believe in vacuum fluctuations? It's not clear from what you've written. And if photons can't result from those, then what does result?

Yes, I "believe" in vacuum fluctuations. But they aren't the same thing as photons, or virtual photons. Have you ever been on a ship? For an analogy, think of a photon as an oceanic swell wave. It's this big low hump of water that keeps on going in the same direction at maybe 8 knots. Vacuum fluctuations are like the "chop" of random little ripplets on the surface of the sea. A virtual photon is neither of the above, it's just a chunk of the ocean.

It's strange, because you seem to accept certain parts of quantum field theory, while rejecting other parts. It's pretty piecemeal, as far as I can see. It's almost like you don't understand the theory and you have just mashed together parts of it with ideas from other fields to make a kind of hybrid idea with no actual supporting evidence.

That's not how it is. What I've said is that the electron and the proton aren't throwing photons back and forth. That hydrogen atoms don't twinkle. And it's true.

Right. I asked you to provide the mathematics behind the diagrams that you provided earlier. Those diagrams are supported by some mathematics, aren't they? Or are they just a pretty picture you dreamed up?

There's no new mathematics. For example take a look at

$$|\boldsymbol{F}|= \frac{1}{4\pi\varepsilon_0} {|q_1q_2|\over r^2}$$

Now ask yourself why this expression holds true. Ask yourself why there's a force between two charged particles. How does it work?

What? I'm supposed to accept what you tell me because it uses some terms that I've come across elsewhere? No, Farsight. You'll have to do a lot better than that.

Then accept what Maxwell said and what Minkowski said. I don't make this stuff up.

Ha! This really made me laugh. Thanks, Farsight. You couldn't be more wrong!

I'm not wrong. Experimental evidence proves what happens, not mathematics.

You've indicated that you approve of at least some parts of quantum field theory. Quantum electrodynamics is probably the most successful theory in all of science. Its mathematics predicts, famously, the gyromagnetic ratio of the electron accurately to over 10 decimal places (I forget exactly how many it is). Very few, if any, scientific theories from any field of science even come close to this level of accuracy.

I'm a bit of a Feynman fan. I don't have an issue with QED, but I'm unhappy that it's attracted some "cargo cult" baggage over the years. See this old paper dating from 1973. It says "The identity of these evanescent waves with virtual photons is established". No problem there. But virtual particles seem to have morphed into real photons that pop into existence like magic.

And guess which theory also predicts that electrons and protons throw photons at each other?

No theory does. QED doesn't.

Now, what I'm interested in is whether your theory of vortices can make any numerical predictions at all. Can it, Farsight? So far, it has failed even to derive Coulomb's law. So, got anything else?

No, I haven't got anything else. But note it isn't my theory of vortices. Look at Maxwell's page title. It's his theory of molecular vortices. A long time before anybody discovered the electron.

That $$F_{\mu \nu}$$ is a tensor, Farsight. See if you can find me a depiction of a tensor. Any tensor will do. If you can't find one, see if you can work out why. Hint: it's not due to the Grand Scientific Conspiracy to Suppress Pictures of Tensors.

Come off it. We've got depictions of gravitational fields, gravitomagnetic fields, electric fields, magnetic fields, but no depictions of the electromagnetic field. Find me one. When you can't, face up to the omission.

Pick a place to start. Tell me something that is wrong with Coulomb's law.

The text said "the magnitude of the electric field E created by a single source point charge q at a certain distance from it". There is no electric field E. The electron has its electromagnetic field. E denotes the force between two charged particles q1 and q2, each of which has an electromagnetic field. And they aren't point particles.

So far, you've given no reason for us to conclude that electrons are optical vortices. Do you have any actual reasons why we should accept what you say?

Pair production, electron diffraction, Einstein-de Haas effect, spin angular momentum, spinors, magnetic moment. Something's going round and round. Now what can it be? Let's see now, we've also got annihilation to gamma photons. There's plenty of reasons to conclude that the electron is an optical vortex.

Looks like I'm not too sharp. Enlighten me.

Here's the Wikipedia article again, it says this:

"From quantum electrodynamics it can be found that photons cannot couple directly to each other, since they carry no charge, but they can interact through higher-order processes. A photon can, within the bounds of the uncertainty principle, fluctuate into a charged fermion–antifermion pair, to either of which the other photon can couple. "

A 511keV photon doesn't flutter along turning into a 511keV electron and a 511keV positron, which then obligingly annihilate back to a single 511keV photon which nevertheless manages to propagate at c. And gamma-gamma pair production doesn't occur because pair production occurs, spontaneously, for no reason, like worms from mud. Instead it occurs because photons interact with photons. Photons do couple directly to each other. And when a 511keV photon couples to itself, we don't call it a photon any more. We call it an electron.

I have to go out now. I'll catch up later.

 

[James R]

Farsight:

Yes, I "believe" in vacuum fluctuations. But they aren't the same thing as photons, or virtual photons. Have you ever been on a ship? For an analogy, think of a photon as an oceanic swell wave. It's this big low hump of water that keeps on going in the same direction at maybe 8 knots. Vacuum fluctuations are like the "chop" of random little ripplets on the surface of the sea. A virtual photon is neither of the above, it's just a chunk of the ocean.

If the ocean represents the vacuum, then a chunk of the ocean is a chunk of vacuum. This is not what a virtual photon is. A virtual photon is more like one of your ripples, though the analogy breaks down when we start to ask about conservation of energy while the virtual photon is in transit.

That's not how it is. What I've said is that the electron and the proton aren't throwing photons back and forth. That hydrogen atoms don't twinkle. And it's true.

That's just an unsupported assertion of yours.

There's no new mathematics.

There's no mathematics at all, as far as I can see. I asked you explicitly for a mathematical description of your vortices. Have you got one, or not?

For example take a look at

$$|\boldsymbol{F}|= \frac{1}{4\pi\varepsilon_0} {|q_1q_2|\over r^2}$$

Now ask yourself why this expression holds true. Ask yourself why there's a force between two charged particles. How does it work?

I'm happy with the QED description. I have yet to see the maths of the vortices model. I asked you to show me how vortices even produce the above formula, but I've had nothing from you on that.

Then accept what Maxwell said and what Minkowski said. I don't make this stuff up.

You're not asking me to accept Maxwell and Minkowski. You're asking me to accept your interpretation of Maxwell and Minkowski, which is quite a different thing.

I'm not wrong. Experimental evidence proves what happens, not mathematics.

The QED prediction of the electron gyromagnetic ratio (for example) has been experimentally verified. This suggests that QED is an excellent theory. QED describes electromagnetic interactions via exchange of virtual photons. There was even a Nobel prize for it.

I'm a bit of a Feynman fan. I don't have an issue with QED...

It sure sounds like you do. You don't accept Feynman's own description of QED.

But virtual particles seem to have morphed into real photons that pop into existence like magic.

I don't know where you get that from.

No, I haven't got anything else. But note it isn't my theory of vortices. Look at Maxwell's page title. It's his theory of molecular vortices. A long time before anybody discovered the electron.

Well, it looks like it was probably a victim of history because it couldn't make any useful predictions. Let's not worry about it.

Come off it. We've got depictions of gravitational fields, gravitomagnetic fields, electric fields, magnetic fields, but no depictions of the electromagnetic field. Find me one. When you can't, face up to the omission.

The commonly seen diagram of an electromagnetic wave, with electric and magnetic fields oscillating at right angles to one another, is as good a picture of the electromagnetic field as you're going to get. In fact, any picture that shows both electric and magnetic fields is a picture of the electromagnetic field.

The text said "the magnitude of the electric field E created by a single source point charge q at a certain distance from it". There is no electric field E. The electron has its electromagnetic field. E denotes the force between two charged particles q1 and q2, each of which has an electromagnetic field. And they aren't point particles.

The electric field E is one half of the electromagnetic field of a point charge. If it's a stationary charge, it has no B field, and in that case E is the entire electromagnetic field.

Coulomb's law explicitly refers to point particles q1 and q2. You can't claim that the law says something it doesn't say.

In other words, you've pointed out no problems with Coulomb's law.

[Evidence for optical vortices:]Pair production, electron diffraction, Einstein-de Haas effect, spin angular momentum, spinors, magnetic moment. Something's going round and round. Now what can it be? Let's see now, we've also got annihilation to gamma photons. There's plenty of reasons to conclude that the electron is an optical vortex.

No, because all of those things can be explained without invoking any kind of vortex. Out of interest, why did you throw diffraction into that mix?

Here's the Wikipedia article again, it says this:

"From quantum electrodynamics it can be found that photons cannot couple directly to each other, since they carry no charge, but they can interact through higher-order processes. A photon can, within the bounds of the uncertainty principle, fluctuate into a charged fermion–antifermion pair, to either of which the other photon can couple. "

A 511keV photon doesn't flutter along turning into a 511keV electron and a 511keV positron, which then obligingly annihilate back to a single 511keV photon which nevertheless manages to propagate at c.

QED says it does.

And gamma-gamma pair production doesn't occur because pair production occurs, spontaneously, for no reason, like worms from mud.

You're half right. Gamma-gamma pair production requires an input of energy from somewhere.

Instead it occurs because photons interact with photons. Photons do couple directly to each other.

No they don't. See how this assertion game works, Farsight. Something asserted without argument needs no argument to refute it.

And when a 511keV photon couples to itself, we don't call it a photon any more. We call it an electron.

So you think that an electron is made of two photons, do you?

When a hydrogen atom emits a photon, where did that photon come from, Farsight? After the emission, there's still a proton and an electron. So, whence the photon?

 

[OnlyMe]

It isn't a "mathematical object". It's something real. Even OnlyMe was able to dig up something.

Farsight, when I posted the link referenced below, it was directly in response to your assertion, that an electromagnetic field could not be so depicted. That assertion summed up in the last sentence of your post quoted below, as a challenge.

BTW That link was the the first obvious result of a Google search on the words, Electromagnietic Field.., that included a graphic depiction... It was posted only as a responce to your challenge. Not meant in any way to suggest that it is accurate, in all or any respects. All of these graphic depictions are flawed in some way and none should be taken as entirely accurate examples of the underlying physics. (Passive recall suggests there may be an exception to that last comment, of mine.., as I seem to remember there was one picture that was of the arrangement of iron fillings/dust as arranged by the north/south magnetic poles of what appeared to be a common bar magnet... But that would not be an electromagnetic field.., though it could I suppose be replicated with an electromagnetic field...)

Anyway, my only point was that your assertion that it could not be done, found or shown, was erroneous, as it took a Google search and less tha 60 second to find that link.

Now you show me a depiction of the electromagnetic field.

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC5AYZ8_electromagnetic-field

 

[Farsight]

If the ocean represents the vacuum, then a chunk of the ocean is a chunk of vacuum. This is not what a virtual photon is. A virtual photon is more like one of your ripples, though the analogy breaks down when we start to ask about conservation of energy while the virtual photon is in transit.

A virtually photon is definitely not a photon in transit. I know people talk about exchange particles, but there aren't any particles being exchanged between the electron and the proton. The electron and the proton are the only particles there. They "exchange field" such that the hydrogen atom has hardly any discernible field.

That's just an unsupported assertion of yours.

No it isn't. The unsupported assertion is the idea there's photons flying back and forth between the electron and the proton in the hydrogen atom. It just isn't happening.

There's no mathematics at all, as far as I can see. I asked you explicitly for a mathematical description of your vortices. Have you got one, or not?

No. What I'm telling up about is the interpretation. Like E isn't a field, it's a force. And I repeat: it was Maxwell who talked about vortices well before me. They aren't my vortices. It wasn't me who discovered the Einstein-de Haas effect or that that the electron rotates or came up with the word spinor.

I'm happy with the QED description. I have yet to see the maths of the vortices model. I asked you to show me how vortices even produce the above formula, but I've had nothing from you on that.

You surely know that co-rotating vortices repel and counter-rotating vortices attract? So you know there's a force between two charged particles that depends on their charge and their separation. The vortex model explains why the force is there, no other model does.

You're not asking me to accept Maxwell and Minkowski. You're asking me to accept your interpretation of Maxwell and Minkowski, which is quite a different thing.

It's not that different. Minkowski talked about the field and about electric and magnetic force. Maxwell talked about vortices. They both talked about the screw nature of electromagnetism. And all of that is missing from the typical physicist's education on electromagnetism. It's like it's all gone, for no good reason.

The QED prediction of the electron gyromagnetic ratio (for example) has been experimentally verified. This suggests that QED is an excellent theory. QED describes electromagnetic interactions via exchange of virtual photons. There was even a Nobel prize for it.

Yes, and like I said virtual photons aren't real photons. They're field quanta. The electron and the proton exchange field. They don't throw photons back and forth.

It sure sounds like you do. You don't accept Feynman's own description of QED.

Yes I do. And he didn't say virtual particles are real particles.

Well, it looks like it was probably a victim of history because it couldn't make any useful predictions. Let's not worry about it.

Don't dismiss Maxwell like that. We do physics to understand the world, not to make predictions.

The commonly seen diagram of an electromagnetic wave, with electric and magnetic fields oscillating at right angles to one another, is as good a picture of the electromagnetic field as you're going to get.

Well it's wrong. It's an electromagnetic wave. It isn't an electric wave and a magnetic wave at right-angles to it. Remember what I said about the spatial derivative and the time derivative of potential? Imagine you're in a canoe and a big (troughless) wave comes at you. The angle of your canoe represents the "electric field variation". The rate of change of the angle of your canoe represents the "magnetic field variation".

In fact, any picture that shows both electric and magnetic fields is a picture of the electromagnetic field.

No it isn't. Now show me a depiction of the electromagnetic field or concede that there's an omission.

The electric field E is one half of the electromagnetic field of a point charge. If it's a stationary charge, it has no B field, and in that case E is the entire electromagnetic field.

Wrong again. Imagine there's an electron ahead of you, and you move past it. You detect what you call a B field. But you didn't create a B field for that electron just because you moved.

Coulomb's law explicitly refers to point particles q1 and q2. You can't claim that the law says something it doesn't say.

What I can say is this: there are no point particles, because the electron's field is what it is, and it's an electromagnetic field, not an electric field.

In other words, you've pointed out no problems with Coulomb's law.

There's a force between two charged particles, there's no problem with that. The problem is with the baggage.

No, because all of those things can be explained without invoking any kind of vortex. Out of interest, why did you throw diffraction into that mix?

Because it's something you do with light. It's a wave thing. Not a point-particle thing.

QED says it does.

Well it doesn't. So if it does, QED needs fixing.

You're half right. Gamma-gamma pair production requires an input of energy from somewhere.

The two photons provide it.

No they don't. See how this assertion game works, Farsight. Something asserted without argument needs no argument to refute it.

I gave the argument. A photon can't be travelling at c if it spends part of its time as an electron and a positron. A 511keV can't turn into a 511keV electron and a 511keV positron because energy is conserved. An electron and a positron can't annihilate into one photon because that's in breach of conservation of momentum. The given explanation is rubbish. The notion that pair production occurs because pair production occurs is cargo-cult trash.

So you think that an electron is made of two photons, do you?

No. You need two photons in gamma-gamma pair production because a photon stays a photon if it doesn't have something to interact with. And what you make is one electron and one positron.

When a hydrogen atom emits a photon, where did that photon come from, Farsight? After the emission, there's still a proton and an electron. So, whence the photon?

It came from the electron. You need to do that circle-drawing thing. When an electron absorbs a photon its wavelength decreases. When it emits a photon its wavelength decreases. It's a bit like splitting one photon into two longer-wavelength photons.

 

[krash661]

it appears one also needs to learn and understand phasing.

 

[Farsight]

Revisiting your earlier post:

You linked to the hyperphysics page on Compton scattering. What am I supposed to take away from that? It's a standard description of the process.

That the electron doesn't absorb one photon and spit another one out. It takes a slice off the incident photon, and it decelerates it in the vector sense reducing its energy.

Well, what about beta decay? There, we have a neutron turning into a proton, a neutrino and an electron. Where's the light there? Would you conclude that the electron is made out of a neutron, then? Or do you conclude that a neutron is really made out of a neutron, a neutrino and an electron, perhaps? Or what?

IMHO it's something like this:

Can you see the flaw in your argument yet?

No. Because photons are the "lowest common denominator". And neutrinos are more like photons than electrons. Which we can make out of photons in pair production.

Any process that involves both incoming and outgoing particle(s) is a scattering process. That doesn't mean that absorption doesn't take place during the process. And indeed, in Compton scattering that is exactly what occurs...

I reject your assertion that the electron fully absorbs the incident photon and spits out another photon. Here's what another website says:

"As mentioned on the previous page, Compton scattering occurs when the incident x-ray photon is deflected from its original path by an interaction with an electron. The electron is ejected from its orbital position and the x-ray photon loses energy because of the interaction but continues to travel through the material along an altered path."

 

[Farsight]

Farsight, when I posted the link referenced below, it was directly in response to your assertion, that an electromagnetic field could not be so depicted. That assertion summed up in the last sentence of your post quoted below, as a challenge...

Like I said, it doesn't combine the field lines. It isn't a great depiction. And it seems like it's the best any of you can do. Don't you think it's strange that you struggle to find a depiction of the electromagnetic field?

 

[OnlyMe]

Like I said, it doesn't combine the field lines. It isn't a great depiction. And it seems like it's the best any of you can do. Don't you think it's strange that you struggle to find a depiction of the electromagnetic field?

You say that as if any of your graphics are good depictions of anything!

The point is none of the graphics presented fully or accurately depict the physics being discussed. A fact you don't seem to understand.

 

[PhysBang]

That the electron doesn't absorb one photon and spit another one out. It takes a slice off the incident photon, and it decelerates it in the vector sense reducing its energy.

Well, now you just lied about your citation, like you do about almost every citation. Your citation claims that a photon is completely absorbed and another photon is emitted, that's simply the facts about your citation. You either didn't bother to read your own citation and you are lying about its contents without knowledge of them or you did read it and you are lying despite the contents.

I reject your assertion that the electron fully absorbs the incident photon and spits out another photon. Here's what another website says:

"As mentioned on the previous page, Compton scattering occurs when the incident x-ray photon is deflected from its original path by an interaction with an electron. The electron is ejected from its orbital position and the x-ray photon loses energy because of the interaction but continues to travel through the material along an altered path."

If you are going to go with this simplified picture, then you are going to reject the quantum mechanical picture. You are going to claim that a photon is a particle in the non-quantum sense.

 

[James R]

Farsight,

I think now would be a good time for you to stop trying to be an authority on quantum physics, because you're really bad at that. You're somewhat better when it comes to relativity, but you still make a lot of mistakes there, too. And you'll need to learn some maths at some stage if you really want to do physics. Otherwise, you're really just reduced to reproducing wordy explanations that other people have written, which you don't fully understand, or to posting pretty pictures that may or may not correspond to anything real.

It's hard to know where to start with your last post. I guess I'll just tackle it in the order it came.

A virtually photon is definitely not a photon in transit. I know people talk about exchange particles, but there aren't any particles being exchanged between the electron and the proton. The electron and the proton are the only particles there.

This is an unsupported assertion from you, again. We'll have to agree to disagree, because you can't back up your assertion with any kind of demonstration or proof. Knowing no mathematics, you have only your guesses and your interpretations of what real physicists have written on the matter.

No. What I'm telling up about is the interpretation. Like E isn't a field, it's a force.

E doesn't have units of force. Ergo, it is not a force.

And I repeat: it was Maxwell who talked about vortices well before me.

Did Maxwell derive Coulomb's law from a vortex picture? If so, please point me to where I can find his derivation. I'd be interested to see it.

You surely know that co-rotating vortices repel and counter-rotating vortices attract? So you know there's a force between two charged particles that depends on their charge and their separation. The vortex model explains why the force is there, no other model does.

Does the vortex model predict the inverse-square force law? If it does, where can I find the demonstration?

Oh, and QED explains why the force is there, very nicely.

It's not that different. Minkowski talked about the field and about electric and magnetic force.

I already walked you through Minkowski's sloppiness in a previous post. Didn't you read it?

Maxwell talked about vortices. They both talked about the screw nature of electromagnetism. And all of that is missing from the typical physicist's education on electromagnetism. It's like it's all gone, for no good reason.

The "screw nature of electromagnetism" is taught to first-year students of physics. If you'd studied first-year physics, you'd know that. Vortices obviously failed as a viable model of electromagnetism, or else first-year students would be taught about those, too.

Yes, and like I said virtual photons aren't real photons. They're field quanta. The electron and the proton exchange field. They don't throw photons back and forth.

You need to get your terminology straight, because it's a mess right now.

The field quanta of the electromagnetic field are photons, real or virtual. Yes, we can distinguish between real and virtual photons. There's no problem with the picture of "throwing photons back and forth". A Nobel prize was awarded for that.

Don't dismiss Maxwell like that. We do physics to understand the world, not to make predictions.

Here's how theories work in physics. Somebody invents a theory to try to explain some aspect of the physical world. That theory makes numerical predictions about measurable phenomena. Experiments are then done to test the predictions. If the predictions of the theory are borne out by the data, then the theory is regarded as successful.

Theory must always be tested against the real world. Otherwise it's just words and pretty pictures that somebody imagined.

Well it's wrong. It's an electromagnetic wave. It isn't an electric wave and a magnetic wave at right-angles to it.

That's what an electromagnetic wave is, Farsight. If you think an electromagnetic wave is something other than an electric and a magnetic wave co-propagating, then tell me what you think it is. And show me the maths. Oh wait, you can't do that, can you?

Remember what I said about the spatial derivative and the time derivative of potential?

Yes. I asked for the equations. You didn't provide any.

No it isn't. Now show me a depiction of the electromagnetic field or concede that there's an omission.

There's no emission. You just don't recognise electromagnetic fields to be electric and magnetic fields, that's all. I'm not sure what you imagine an electromagnetic field is made of.

Wrong again. Imagine there's an electron ahead of you, and you move past it. You detect what you call a B field. But you didn't create a B field for that electron just because you moved.

The electron created it by moving relative to you.

What I can say is this: there are no point particles, because the electron's field is what it is, and it's an electromagnetic field, not an electric field.

It's not important for the purposes of Coulomb's law whether there are any point particles or not. If an electron were not a point particle (which it seems to be), then we could still use Coulomb plus superposition to calculate its electric field. And an electron only causes a magnetic field when it moves (excepting its intrinsic magnetic moment, of course).

There's a force between two charged particles, there's no problem with that. The problem is with the baggage.

What baggage?

Because [diffraction is] something you do with light. It's a wave thing. Not a point-particle thing.

Diffraction works just fine in the quantum picture, with photons.

Well it doesn't.

We can play that game forever. QED says this. No it doesn't. Yes it does. No it doesn't. Yes it does. Since you don't know what QED says, mathematically, we'll never get beyond that.

So if it does, QED needs fixing.

It seems to work pretty well as it is. Nobel prize. Most accurate scientific theory there is. And all that. All looks good to me. And the vortex theory apparently can't even reproduce Coulomb's law.

I gave the argument. A photon can't be travelling at c if it spends part of its time as an electron and a positron.

Actually, it can. Photons also generally travel in straight lines. But Feynman tells us that they actually explore all possible paths between two points in space as they travel from point to point. All kinds of weird stuff happens in quantum theories.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

A 511keV can't turn into a 511keV electron and a 511keV positron because energy is conserved. An electron and a positron can't annihilate into one photon because that's in breach of conservation of momentum. The given explanation is rubbish.

Which one is rubbish? The one you just gave (which sounds ok to me), or some other explanation given somewhere else?

The notion that pair production occurs because pair production occurs is cargo-cult trash.

I've never seen anybody attempt to explain pair production that way. I agree that it wouldn't be particularly helpful explanation if somebody did try that as an explanation.

No. You need two photons in gamma-gamma pair production because a photon stays a photon if it doesn't have something to interact with. And what you make is one electron and one positron.

We have been talking a little at cross-purposes about this. I took "gamma-gamma pair production" to be the process $$e^+ + e^- \rightarrow 2\gamma$$. That is, I assumed you were talking about the production of two gamma rays. Now, I see that you seem to be thinking of the reverse process, wherein 2 gamma rays produce an electron and a positron.

It does not follow from either the forward or reverse process that electrons and positrons are made of photons.

[The photon in a hydrogen transition] came from the electron. You need to do that circle-drawing thing. When an electron absorbs a photon its wavelength decreases. When it emits a photon its wavelength decreases. It's a bit like splitting one photon into two longer-wavelength photons.

Emission and absorption of light from a hydrogen atom (or any atom, for that matter) doesn't just involve an interaction between photons and electrons. It actually involves the entire atom, including the protons. It is wrong to say that photons are emitted by the electrons in the atom.

If you're still in doubt, consider gamma ray emission from radioactive atoms. Where do you think the photons come from in that case?

That the electron doesn't absorb one photon and spit another one out. It takes a slice off the incident photon, and it decelerates it in the vector sense reducing its energy.

That's a description that is often given. It's a hand-waving one that glosses over the details of what's really going on in Compton scattering. What actually happens is that one photon is absorbed and a new one is emitted. In the process, the electron also gets a kick.

IMHO [beta decay is] something like this:

View attachment 199

That picture tells me nothing useful about beta decay. It looks like somebody did some origami.

Because photons are the "lowest common denominator".

What do you mean by that? Electrons are not made of photons. Nor are neutrinos. Nor are pions or gluons or quarks or any other particles.

I reject your assertion that the electron fully absorbs the incident photon and spits out another photon.

You're entitled to maintain your ignorance if you want to.

Here's what another website says:

"As mentioned on the previous page, Compton scattering occurs when the incident x-ray photon is deflected from its original path by an interaction with an electron. The electron is ejected from its orbital position and the x-ray photon loses energy because of the interaction but continues to travel through the material along an altered path."

Yeah. That's the same kind of sloppy, hand-wavey description you see a lot. It's not wrong, but it glosses over the details so it's not quite right, either.

 

[Farsight]

That "electron rotates as it has angular momentum" is far too classical POV, for me. Why can't quantized angular momentum not just be, like the quantized electron charge or mass, a fundamental property of electrons?

Because there's hard scientific evidence such as the Einstein-de Haas effect and magnetic moment plus historical references to the rotation being a genuine rotation. And a non-sequitur wherein "it doesn't rotate like a planet" is used to say "it doesn't rotate at all". Besides, who say electron charge or mass is just "a fundamental property". That isn't good enough. I will not accept it.

Pauli's exclusion principle could ONLY explain the build up of the periodic table elements by assuming each electron had another quantum number that could take two values only. Very unfortunately it got called "spin" instead of for example "2bit" (or "bit2)."

I utterly reject that. Read The discovery of the electron spin by S A Goudsmit:

"Well, I had introduced those quantum numbers, but if I had been a good physicist, then I would have noticed already in May 1925 that this implied that the electron possessed spin. But I was no good physicist, I am no good physicist and thus I did not realize this. "

For example the ground state of both hydrogen and helium has the same first three quantum numbers: n = 1, l = 0 & m = 0, so He with two electrons is in violation of his principle. Sad fact is that the needed fourth was not designated "b" (for the new 2bit quantum number). I. e. the designations of the four quantum numbers should be: n, l, m, & b. With the 2bit quantum number, He has b = + for one of the electrons and b = - for the other in conformity with the exclusion principle.

See above. Think of the Pauli exclusion principle as something like two whirlpools cannot overlap.

If what is called "spin" had been called "2bit" instead, then the unfounded assertion that the electron must be rotating, probably never would have been made by anyone, including you.

I reject that too. Because in 1915 the Einstein-de Haas effect demonstrated that "that spin angular momentum is indeed of the same nature as the angular momentum of rotating bodies as conceived in classical mechanics". That was a hundred years ago Billy. I am reminded of The Sleeping Beauty.

As you and James have observed the electron's classical radius* is so small that a b of either + or - if erroneously postulated to be due to its charge spinning needs to violate the speed of light limitation, even if as classical physics would indicate all the charge has mutually self repelled to the surface only, but that too, is misapplication of classical physic ideas to what is really just a fundamental property of the electron, charge. Same as your assertion that the electron must rotate is a misapplication of classical physic ideas to what is really just a fundamental property of the electron, which should have been called 2bit, not spin, to avoid all the nonsense posted here.

The nonsense is thinking of the electron as a spinning ball. It isn't. You make it out of light, and you can diffract it, and it's got a magnetic moment. It's crystal clear that it's a wave in some kind of closed path. A field variation that now looks like a standing field. So charge isn't some fundamental property.

Oh well, the mislabeling damage has been done, just like with "cosmic rays," and we are stuck with "spin" for name of what should have been 2bit.

Again no. Again see The discovery of the electron spin: "When the day came I had to tell Uhlenbeck about the Pauli principle - of course using my own quantum numbers - then he said to me: "But don't you see what this implies? It means that there is a fourth degree of freedom for the electron. It means that the electron has a spin, that it rotates". "

* Nothing physical about that radius. It is the result of a calculation that assumes the electron's charge is initially on a large spherical shell

Which is the wrong assumption.

** Personally, I prefer to think of the electron as a point, with three inseparable fundamental properties.

Well don't, because it isn't. The photon isn't a point, it has an E=hf wave nature, we make electrons and positron out of photons, and we can diffract electrons. No way is the electron a point.

BTW, I also like, at times, to think that the electon's mass quantization can take a second much large value and that the negative muon, is just a "heavy unstable electron" or the mass excited state of the electron, it will decay back to. That seems more "fair" - why should only the electron's b get to take two values and its mass, M, not?

The muon is not an electron.

If you also misapply classical physics to this fundamental charge property of electrons, they should all explode in nanoseconds due their mutual mass energy stored in "compressed" negative charge.

That's wrong thinking.

SUMMARY: Don't apply classical physics to fundamental things of nature, just accept them.

No. I will not be told that it just is. I don't do physics to be told that we cannot understand the electron. Or the world.

 

[PhysBang]

Because there's hard scientific evidence such as the Einstein-de Haas effect and magnetic moment plus historical references to the rotation being a genuine rotation. And a non-sequitur wherein "it doesn't rotate like a planet" is used to say "it doesn't rotate at all". Besides, who say electron charge or mass is just "a fundamental property". That isn't good enough. I will not accept it.

Historical references do not make physics because the history of physics shows old ideas being superseded by ideas that match the observations better. Where is your model of the electron that can show the same spin as the electron? Whenever I ask this question, you dodge the question and then you insult me, presumably in the hope that I will forget the question. If you can't match the mathematical properties of spin, then you have no worthwhile theory.

So, for probably the 50th time: Where is your model of the electron that can show the same spin as the electron?

See above. Think of the Pauli exclusion principle as something like two whirlpools cannot overlap.

If one can think of it this way, it is because the mathematics matches. So, please, show us the mathematics of these whirlpools and how they create the mathematics that match the Pauli exclusion principle.

The nonsense is thinking of the electron as a spinning ball. It isn't. You make it out of light, and you can diffract it, and it's got a magnetic moment. It's crystal clear that it's a wave in some kind of closed path.

If it is, then you should be able to show us the mathematics. In any case, you should face the fact that your "crystal clear" is your own personal experience and not something objective. (I hope that this drives you to seek professional help.)

No. I will not be told that it just is. I don't do physics to be told that we cannot understand the electron. Or the world.

You don't do physics. You present your fantasies and then demand that other people ignore whether or not these fantasies match the observations of the world.

So, again, show us your mathematical model or admit that you don't do physics.

 

[Farsight]

So, for probably the 50th time: Where is your model of the electron that can show the same spin as the electron?

Huh? I don't have one. What I'm doing is pointing to the evidence and saying spin is real. That's evidence like the electron's magnetic moment: "A loop of electric current, a bar magnet, an electron, a molecule, and a planet all have magnetic moments". And I'm pointing to the history. And to the cargo-cult non-sequitur wherein people say the electron doesn't spin like a planet so it doesn't spin at all. Well of course it doesn't spin like a planet, it's a spin ½ particle.

And where have you asked me for "my" model of the electron before?