Vern -Be sure to read the footnotes - you will like them as perhaps there is support for you there. I think what you are somewhat imprecisely suggesting is that facts I have given about how much the two paths of an interferometer can differ in length and still the single photon going thru the interferometer makes the interference pattern can be explained by imagining that single photon of say E9 cycles is "really" a chain of exactly "phase locked" one cycle photons with E9 of these single cycle photons in the chain. That would be a reasonable position to take, I think, except for the fact that you now must explain why all of the E9 single cycle photons are either transmitted or absorbed together when striking thin glass sheet. I.e. why does it never happen at the front surface of a glass sheet, 1E8 are reflected to make a reflected far IR photon of 10% of the original energy and 9E8 are transmitted into the glass? This transmitted chain of 9E8 single photons perhaps when striking the second internal glass to air interface again divides to let 8E8 emerge (about 80% of the original energy) and 1E8 long chain reflects back inside the glass towards the front interface again. That is, unless you can suggest some reason why the E9 long chain is "unbreakable" in all possible interactions*, it would seem that blue light could fall on one side of a piece of glass and yellow light emerge from the other side as yellow photons do have approximately 80% of the energy of blue ones. To make your approach even plausible, you will need to postulate some never observed glue holding these individual single cycle photons together in the chain. (not only together but with fixed phase relationship, etc.) If it is true that a chain of E9 single cycle photons is an "unbreakable energy packet" then to consider it an "unbreakable energy packet" composed of many single cycle photons is very arbitrary, at best. Normally, an "unbreakable energy packet" of electromagnetic energy is called a "photon." What you are suggesting is the same as saying: "7 is not a number that exist "in reality." Seven is really an "unbreakable collection" of individual ones. I.e. Seven is, "in reality" the unbreakable packet (1+1+1+1+1+1+1) and I guess if you want to be strange, there is nothing wrong with that. (Except that view would be problematic for subtraction. I.e. seven is "brakeable" as in 7-4=3.) ---------------------------------------- *In some sense photons are "brakeable." - The photon induced polararization in some crystals is not linera and as you may know for your EE backgroung if you drive a non linear circuit you can get frequency doubling and sub harmonics (It is easy to show mathematically) That is how these impossible to understand quantum mixed state photon pairs are produced. - Experiments where measurement of one with vertical polarization miles from the other one instantly causes the other to be horizontal polarized (or something like that.) It is relatively easy to convert N photons of energy 2e into 2N photons of energy e, but going the other way also is possible (2N photons of energy e converted into N photons of energy 2e.) Neglecting absorption losses etc. Photons can also interact with sound waves (or perhaps it is the IR energy levels of a liquid - I have done this with Carbon diSulphide, but so long ago I forget much of the point.) in crystal to lose a chunk of energy (the so called "stokes" lines) or even gain energy (called the "anti-stokes" line, and it is always much weaker, but I could see it in my spectragraphic film!) You should look into these cases if you want to build support for your strange view of a long chain of usually firmly-linked single-cycle photons. I.e. perhapse the quantized internaly-stored energy in the CS2 molecule vibrations can some how "resonately" chop off a reasonable definite number of single cycles from the incident photon chain incident upon it to make the stokes line.
Well, maybe we're getting closer Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But I'm still not quite with you. I do think that the most common photons come in pulses of a few to thousands of phase-locked one cycle photons. However each one of these phase-locked photons has E = hv in its own right and can interact with a target by itself. Each chain of phase-locked photons would be entangled (to me just another word for phase-locked) and so be special to each other but would still be separable. The fact that a single photon of E1 cycles interferes with itself makes perfect sense when you consider that it is the radiated E and B fields that do the interfering. They are radiated in all directions, at the speed of light and so form a kind of cone behind the photon's moving points of saturated E and B fields. The radiated fields still contain the wave functions and since they are spread out in space, easily go through both paths of an interferometer at the same time. So single cycle photons must interfere with themselves and if they did not it would falsify this "hunch" of electromagnetic gravity. Yes; I know about these very interesting things. Engineers use these principles to make a device called a "Conjugate Mirror" that reflects light (and maybe a laser weapon's beam) right back in the same direction from which it came, no matter the angle of incidence.
