[General] position

Sun May 3 05:50:34 PDT 2015

Dear Andrew,

Good for you!

I'll go green ...
________________________________
From: General [general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] on behalf of Andrew Meulenberg [mules333 at gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2015 10:20 AM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Cc: Mary Fletcher
Subject: Re: [General] position

Dear John W.,

Some comments on your standpoint.

On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 9:26 AM, John Williamson <John.Williamson at glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:John.Williamson at glasgow.ac.uk>> wrote:

Dear Richard, Andrew and everyone,
My standpoint would be that given in blue
Dear Richard,
You have raised important questions:

  1.  can you cut a photon in 1/2?
     *   not with a pair of scissors, but it can be done
     *   if so, how does its nature change?
  2.  can you 'rectify' a photon?
     *   can this give only the positive OR the negative fields diverging from each component?
     *   if so, how do you do it?
     *   if so, how does its nature change?
  3.  If you can split or rectify a photon so that all + charge is in one part and all - charge in the other:
     *   are the parts still photons?
     *   are they stable over time and space as the the neutral photon is?
     *   If so, under what conditions? (or are they unconditionally stable for some condition?)
     *   if the condition fails, what happens to the charged photon?
     *   Does a particular condition exist similar to that of a neutron. In free space it is not stable. In a nucleus it is.

  1.  can you cut a photon in 1/2?
     *   I would say no. If the definition of a photon is a single exchange event not so by definition

Any suggestion as to what is happening in the interferometer experiments where a single photon appears to go along both paths to interfere with itself downstream?

Yes. One is thinking in the lab frame of reference. Not the best one for insight. As one approaches the speed of light all path lengths shrink relativistically. The photon is at (or near) lightspeed. Let this be the photon frame. At lightspeed, all points of equal phase appear, in the photon frame, at the same point in space-time. This means that for a particular phase psi, the emitter, absorber and all intermediate points are simply at the same space-time point. Anything any other observer may think about intermediate stuff is simply their problem (and this problem is widely manifest in the popular literature). This transformation encompasses all points of equal phase, whatever their path might be in any other frame - all contribute equally to the amplitude. Fir any given phase all (Feynmann) paths are at the same point. Just add them linearly. This gives the right answer

  1.
     *   if so, how does its nature change? . Half a photon is a different photon.

I agree. However, does the 2 parts have the same properties as the original? Are there photons with different properties (beyond polarization etc.). Yes. however there may exist other photons, emitted from afraction QHE system for example, with fractional quantisation. "Split" photons however, from the same source, have the same properties - simply because they are the same photon.

  1.  can you 'rectify' a photon?
     *   Not directly -yet– you need to create a particle pair

This statement is critical and yet seems to be ignored in most of these discussions.

Too true. This is the central part of the problem! Dont worry- we are going to fix it.

  1.
     *   if so, how do you do it? not easily – you would need to get it to low enough energy to get inside it. We have neither the fast enough technology to do this nor the (extremely robust) materials required. You need (at least) a neutron star density to start thinking about doing this

In my opinion, rectification only requires a non-linear element. A nuclear near-field provides field gradients of the same magnitude as the neutron star.

You are right for pair creation. I was thinking, however, of electron-proton creation. Manifestly one needs to have such a process if you just look about you. No antimatter!

  1.
     *   if so, how does its nature change? Its an electron –proton pair (of course! – Look around you!)

Are you proposing that the proton is the paired element with an electron formed by a 1.1 MeV photon? Or was that a 'typo'?

No typo!

  1.
  2.  If you can split or rectify a photon so that all + charge is in one part and all - charge in the other:
     *   are the parts still photons? No

Does this mean that you do not consider an electron to be a bound photon, but an entirely new creature?

Yes. Electron and photon are both aspects of a deeper underlying theory. However it is precisely the nature of the binding that is crucial in relating the photon nature to the electron nature.

  1.
     *   are they stable over time and space as the the neutral photon is? Yes, manifestly.

Agreed

  1.
     *   If so, under what conditions? (or are they unconditionally stable for some condition?) Under condition that they cannot decay to a lighter configuration with the same topology.

Agreed

  1.
     *   if the condition fails, what happens to the charged photon? Mu

?? Mu = permeability or meson?

No. Mu = third logical state. Yes, no, mu. Mu = "unask the question".

This kind of exchange begins to focus ideas and perceptions.

Thank you,

My pleasure!

Andrew

John.

I guess that I have assumed general relativity is required for photon stability from the beginning. Distortion of space is required to change the local refractive index for solitonic self-focusing of the photon to give a photon its stability. I would say that a charged photon is only stable in an electron or positron. They can appear to be independent (e.g. when the wormhole breaks, becomes delocalized), but spin momentum (as a vortex?) is conserved and it can reform (as a wormhole) or achieve stability (in a less-concentrated form) in a net-neutral environment.
Does a particular condition exist similar to that of a neutron. In free space it is not sta
I would never consider a photon to be charged, unless it is constrained as a lepton.
Agreed
This includes my extension of leptons as the building blocks of all real matter (perhaps including quarks). They might have short term existence and, if a source can be found/made and if they are actively sought, then they might be found. I do not know of any hints that would support their existence. However, this is the same problem with cold fusion or populated deep Dirac levels. They could be produced all of the time and we would never know.
Andrew

- John Williamson.

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