If they are "planes" why not call them that? E.g. the plane of the E field oscillation - "flux" is very confusing. Aslo, just to be sure, this "distance away" is measured transverse to the path of photon, I am assuming, but is there any angular dependency wrt the E field plane? how important is a location directly on the path of photon but "miles ahead" of it curent location?Vern said:...this is how I think of a photon.
Photon Flux are the electric and magnetic planes that define a photon. They are strongest near the central path of the photon and diminish in strength with distance away.
By center of the photon do you mean one point or the line of its path? I will not yet touch your "why" statement. What is determining the "saturation level"? Is it just an inherent property of the vaccuum? What is taking on a saturation value? The E and B fields? you seem to say it is the point in space.Vern said:...center of the photon. These fields are the photon, it consists of nothing else. This point of saturation at the center of all photons is why photons exist as a quantum entity. The fact that points in space saturate electromagnetically is the fundamental cause of the quantum nature of the universe.
I only mentioned a meter to be sure you were considering fact that photon do have length and in some sense a long thin aspect ratio.Vern said:...A single photon consists of one wavelength. Some photons could be miles long; a meter is not difficult to visualize.
you are on very slipper ground if you think there is a difference. don't misunderstand- Certainly often we are ignorant of what is real due to measurment limitations - I am making a comment about the lack of any difference between what is real and what, in priciple, is knowable. I.e if in principle it is unknowable, then it is not real.Vern said:DaleSpam; are you sure you are not confusing your ability to know with what is real.
I always thought that uncertainty meant you couldn't predict with certainty. We can know with more certainty after the fact, can't we ??BillyT said:you are on very slipper ground if you think there is a difference.
Billy T said:I did not bring any of my physics books to Brazil, but is not Gauss's law: Divergence of E = rho ? (perhaps some factor to get the units correct) I.e I may be wrong again, but can not claim it was just a typo.
That is fundamentally incorrect, even in macroscopic measurements. No measurement is infinitely precise, there is always some uncertainty even after you have performed a measurement.Vern said:Even with uncertainty it is your inability to know before measurement what the precise energy is, but after you measure it, you know what it certainly was.
The Heisenburg uncertainty principle is considered a fundamental part of nature, and not simply a technical limitation.Vern said:DaleSpam; are you sure you are not confusing your ability to know with what is real.
No, it is still an undetermined number even after it is observed.Vern said:How many wavelengths does a photon consist of; some undertermined number that is only decided when it is observed ??![]()
DaleSpam said:No, it is still an undetermined number even after it is observed.
-Dale
and it can't be measuredd without changing it. Agreed. I was inferring that a single photon exists at a single wave lengthWagner said:A photon will have a discrete energy, and a discrete, finite speed, and a discrete momentum. We will not know precisely the energy or momentum unless it is measured (or inferred, i.e. electron transisitions from atomic 'orbitals' produce discrete energies).
No, we will still not know precisely even after it is measured. Have any of you ever done a measurement of any kind?Walter L. Wagner said:We will not know precisely the energy or momentum unless it is measured
I would use a similar argument that if a photon exists, then it must exist at a certain wavelength even though we may never be certain what that wave length is.if we accept the concept of free will as a God-given trait of mankind, then each one of us can cause an event by our free will. Thus there is cause for those events, and if true cause exists for those events, true cause must exist for each event, even though we may never be completely certain of that true cause.
That addresses the first issue, that all measurements have some uncertainty. But it does not address the second issue, that the precision of one quantity is inversely related to the precision of another quantity.Vern said:I would use a similar argument that if a photon exists, then it must exist at a certain wavelength even though we may never be certain what that wave length is.