[General] Group discussion at San Diego

Wed Mar 25 05:34:44 PDT 2015

Hi John W

Still working on coming to grips with emission and absorption interactions.

Lots of opinion follows.

I feel that photon exchange, and virtual particle exchange, is a mechanism
we can demonstrate and is a required part of our understanding, at least for
many short range interactions.  However I do not feel the "single point in
spacetime" approach provides the answer. I believe that photons are very
simple linear, principally transverse, quantized wave structures. And that
mater is made of wave structures as well. And as such photons are
responsible for creating relativity.  Photons are then the fundamental upon
which relativity is built, and are not subject to the spacetime velocity
transformations, but rather are the cause for these transformations being
required for mater.

Imagine an asteroid or planet orbiting a star a billion light years away.
Now envision the past light cone for an absorber on that asteroid or planet.
If photons zig, zagged in their paths to their destination, the popular
concept could work for absorption and emission.  But of course they travel
in "straight" lines in spacetime. Even if an absorber can see all of its
past light cone at one point in space time, it still does not correctly
explain photon exchange.  There is something else going on here, something
is missing, and something that is not really there has been "added" to try
to explain things. I feel we have reached for an explanation which is
convenient, but an error, and that we do not yet have the real answer to
this issue.

Still eager to understand.

Chip

From: General
[mailto:general-bounces+chipakins=gmail.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.
org] On Behalf Of John Williamson
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 10:28 PM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Cc: Anthony Booth; Hans De Raedt
Subject: Re: [General] Group discussion at San Diego

Dear Chip and everyone,

I am trying to start to get my act together in preparation for August, and
just came across the keynote talk from Carver Mead from nature of light and
particles 5. It is available here :

http://natureoflight.org/

It addresses the very issue of interaction with the absorber we discussed
earlier. In my opinion it is spot on - even though the answer to the last
question (similar to your worry Chip) was rather weak - that a lot of people
have trouble with resonances over million year plus-time scales. Indeed.

I think the proper way to view this is, as I said, from the point of view of
the observer being in touch with all points on the lightcone at previous
times, not that the emitter sees all "future" times all over the universe.
This is a "pull" not a "push" for the direction of causality. The observer
says "hit me!". The past is happy to oblige - zillions of hits per second
painting the universe of your perceptions.

Now I enjoyed Carver Mead's book thoroughly a few years ago when I first
came across it (thanks Nick) and he is one person I would very much like to
meet if I'm coming to California. That man can really think - and think
freely.  Is he coming to this one, and, if not, can anyone introduce me? He
would be a most excellent person to have on the group. Another excellent
chap - and I have just finished reading some spectacularly interesting work
of his- is Tony Booth (copied above). Tony is a real engineer (I am in an
engineering department but I can tell the difference). Please add him to the
general discussion group!

Further to this whole developing endeavour. I am perfectly delighted to try
and give classes on any aspect of the new theory - or to help bring people
up to speed on some of the other relevant theories and areas in my areas of
expertise - in quantum mechanics (relativistic or ordinary), experimental
solid state physics, elementary particle physics (including QED, the
standard model and various field theories), and relativity (special or
general). Another favourite theme of mine is current problems and mysteries
in Science as a whole. Another possibility is a question and answer session
on "how stuff works". I'm particularly interested in questions I cannot
answer. We should make a list!

I expect lots of you to contribute and educate me in areas where I am weak
such as optics, photonics, atomic physics to name but a very few (my
ignorance is, almost, boundless). Martin and I are quite used to this as we
both belong to an international study club (I was a founder member - but it
is still going strong after a quarter of a century) which does this sort of
thing regularly. It is BIG fun! I'm sure there will be  a lot of input from
others in the group in developing aspects of the above theories where, I am
sure, many of you go beyond me.

I already have tens of hours of lecture material prepared and am perfectly
happy to go on for multiple hours at a time (if people can stand it). I just
gave four hours of lectures on-the-trot yesterday (then had lunch and gave
another one). I am quite used to it - and it would be much more fun than the
first year vector and complex number maths given in two of the lectures
today. If a room can be made available either before or after the conference
with a projector and board all would be welcome. I know Martin would be
prepared to talk on his areas of expertise as well, and I'm sure others of
the more senior group would be delighted to help educate the younger ones as
well. 

We could, further, invite anyone from industry who was interested in new,
linear, paradigms for developing and thinking about new kinds of materials,
devices and systems for a further session, perhaps after the conference
proper. This may have the added advantage of snowballing into some other
meetings and prospects for the future. 

What does everyone think?

Regards, John.

  _____  

From: General
[general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticl
es.org] on behalf of chandra [chandra at phys.uconn.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2015 7:02 PM
To: 'Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion'
Cc: Hans De Raedt
Subject: [General] Group discussion at San Diego

Dear Out-of-Box "Electron Modelers":

We are arranging for a special 3-hour (8 to 11AM) discussion session,
especially, for this group, on Thursday, August, 13, 2015. The title has
been deliberately chosen as a somewhat open ended question: 

"Are electrons oscillating photons or oscillations of the vacuum itself?"

If needed, the 3-huor duration would be flexible; and we can add an extra
hour. During the main conference schedule, all of you have been given the
standard 20-minute slots. This compensating discussion period provides all
of you a better forum to debate and further develop your concepts. 

I will take the role of the Moderator. I would need a couple of volunteer
editors from your "Electron Modeling" group. Feel free to suggest their
names. Obviously, I am looking for "volunteers" who are very respectful to
logically self-consistent views of others in spite of those views being
counter to their personal views. All of you will be given the opportunity to
present the summary of your views, as well-articulated issues/point-of-views
to promote discussions. Duration of this first presentation will be short (5
minutes??).

The ideas presented above are suggestions, and obviously, they are not set
in stone; since we want to maximize the scientific outcome of this
discussion. So, please, feel free to send me your suggestions through this
"General Forum" to develop a better approach towards our ultimate ambitious
goal: The correct ontological model of the electron!

I am soliciting also suggestions and editorial support regarding how to
incorporate the summary of this discussion  in the SPIE proceeding. The
turn-around time has to be less than a month. Normally, SPIE publishes many
of the proceedings pre-conference publication available during the
conference. We have been holding out for post-conference. We must finalize
everything by the end of September.

Please, develop concepts and ideas on how to summarize the discussion/debate
and also relate them to your individual papers. Remember that SPIE
proceeding rule is 10-page limit for individual articles.

Also remember, while preparing your papers and presentations that our
dominant SPIE audience consists of engineering. Engineers think in terms
emulating nature allowed processes in different permutations and
combinations to create new working tools and technologies, in spite of their
incomplete understanding of the deeper complete theory. So, try to add
relevant experiments to illustrate the deeper ontological processes that may
be going on in nature; even though you are speculating them with your
mathematical models. 

Sincerely,

Chandra.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.natureoflightandparticles.org/pipermail/general-natureoflightandparticles.org/attachments/20150325/08b83b29/attachment-0001.htm>