[General] Photon

David Mathes davidmathes8 at yahoo.com
Sat May 30 16:54:05 PDT 2015


Martin and Chip
That is certainly true for waves and even photons to some extent, there may a theory with demonstrated experiment evidence 
In 2013 Pharis Williams provided a paper at SPIE on "Phat photon and phat lasers" where he noted that Energy = N^2 hv  while the E vector is multiplied by N which results in E(total) = N E(0).  Pharis found supporting experimental evidence in NIST data which has been cited in the CRC handbook for a few decades. The net proposal is that the photon has a quantum number for amplitude of the E-vector. In "Phat photon and phat lasers" Williams also derives the "Phat Compton effect." For your review the paper "Phat photon and phat lasers" is attached.
ref: Garcia, J. D. and Mack, "Energy level and line tables for one-electron atomic spectra" J. E., J. Opt. Soc. Am. 55, 654, 196
>From "Phat Photons" http://physicsandbeyond.com/pdf/Phat%20Photons.pdf
    "The prediction of quantized photon energy in Equation (9) argues that the frequencies        associated with quantum numbers above unity may have already been measured. A look at the     National Institute of Standards and Technology web site shows C.E. Moore11 reported the     fundamental frequency for hydrogen was listed with a magnitude of 1,000, the N=2 frequency     showed a magnitude of 80 and the N=3 frequency magnitude was 12. J. D. Garcia & J. E.Mack12     reported similar numbers for the helium atom. Further, these frequencies do not have asource     noted for them as do the other frequencies reported as these frequencies do notcorrespond     to any known transitions. The predictions of Equation (9) then find verification indata already reported."    
See also Moore 1972, http://www.nist.gov/data/nsrds/NSRDS-NBS3-6.pdf

The coupling requirements for photons to create a phat photon are not well understood. Possibilities include mixing two photons at a time in two or three steps, parametric  amplification (two frequency), and wavelet photon trains 4, 9, 25...)to create a phat photon. 
Best
David

 
      From: "Mark, Martin van der" <martin.van.der.mark at philips.com>
 To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion <general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org> 
 Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 3:50 PM
 Subject: Re: [General] Photon
   
Chip, what john is trying to argue is that if you add two identical wave trains, whatever sort of wave, em, sound, water, that the amplitude is doubled but the energy is quadrupled. But energy must be conserved, so this cannot (and indeed does not) happen: normally, an atom can only send one particular photon at a time. In a laser they may run on parallel or be strung one after the other, but not really on top of another. On the other hand, in the nonlinear process of frequency doubling this does happen! Two photons are forged into one photon.Depending on their source, photons my come in bunches or more evenly spread over time, at this late hour i believe the first is typical of blackbody radiation and the second more of lasers. In a single electron turnstyle device fed laser one could make photon statistics totally clockwork, this is a fermionic type statistics characterized by anti-bunching.I should know al of this, but i am not certain, so i will look it up to see if i was correct.
Best, Martin


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Op 30 mei 2015 om 21:11 heeft Chip Akins <chipakins at gmail.com> het volgende geschreven:



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Hi John W. Thank you.  Very well written and enlightening. My comments about two “photons” of the same frequency in the same place and perfectly coherent, was not regarding the merging of two photons to become one, and therefore was not regarding ONE photon with twice the energy, and therefore a higher frequency, but two photons of the same, original frequency.  That is precisely my point. Because if “photons” are just waves, made of fields, this is how they could work, in fact this is how it appears they do work. I understand that this does not agree with your interpretation of the method of energy exchange, or therefore with your current set of field equations, but it does seem to agree with the observable. It seems that when two “photons” become incident upon each otherin any configuration, even perfectly in phase and coherent, that they simply add in the region of incidence.  There is no indication of an “exclusion principle” for photons, and adding such a constraint which does not allow two photons of the same frequency to be at the same place and time, simply because it is required by the rest of a theory, may indicate that there is something else wrong. Since photons are NIW it seems they should remain NIW under all phase and coherence conditions. But I am not saying thereis something wrong, just providing comment regarding issues that I currently feel do not reflect nature and the observable. Of course this does not mean that I am right, and you may be precisely correct, but so far we have a slight difference of opinion.  I think the difference of opinion may start with the “single point in spacetime” approach to energy exchange, and the repercussions of using that approach to create field equations compatible with the approach. In my opinion this is the root of the problem and where the error lies, if there is an error. What I am saying is also what you have said before, in creating a new theory it must precisely describe nature, nothing more, nothing less. Chip    From: General [mailto:general-bounces+chipakins=gmail.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org]On Behalf Of John Williamson
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 10:31 AM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Cc: Manohar .; Nick Bailey; Anthony Booth; Ariane Mandray; Kyran Williamson
Subject: Re: [General] Photon    Good morning everyone,

Firstly - yes indeed I do not think I have it precisely right in the paper I have circulated yet. I am not in the habit of being completely right first-time every time! I'm actually quite pleased about that - otherwise where would be the fun? I have certainly not explained myself well enough yet. Martin has, already, done a better job than me, on the nature of the photon, in his comment yesterday. Secondly, though, I do not agree with Chip that it ok to put photons on top of one another, or with Richard that the solution is to think about charged photons.

The problem is description - and language is such an imprecise tool - words carry far too much weight yet you need to use them. More, if one is going to properly describe nature in a theory – you need the actual theory – not just vague notions that address a single problem. For me the phrase “charged photon”, for example, is an oxymoron. The photon is for me, by its nature an uncharged and rest-massless thing. If it has charge it has rest-mass. If it has rest-mass it is not a photon. This is my problem though: I do not own the word “photon”.

Having a word for "photon" means that one is tempted to think that it is a thing. I say it and mean something – most of you hear something else (except Martin – he and I are pretty close on this and I agree with his description). For most, the concept separates it from the complete process of charge-charge exchange of a quantum of energy - which is actually what is going on, and what is actually observed. So, when I say the photon is self-quantised I am not talking about a little self-contained quantized EM bullet being emitted independent of its emitter or absorber. One must include the properties of emitter and absorber as well - these are essential to the quantisation and it is from these that one calculates the (mere) value of the charge and Plank's constant. It is, as I argue, the properties of the emission-absorption process which give the quantisation. It is the initial configuration of the fields, engendered in the emitter that must modulate the carrier to a pure zero-rest mass configuration in order to propagate. The initial fields in the emitter must fulfil strict criteria – corresponding exactly to those observed physically. They may only transform with the same factor as does the frequency (this is just normal relativity – not an extra condition). Fields transform, however, only perpendicular to the boost, whereas the 4-vector transforms only parallel to it. Again, just the standard relativity of fields and vectors. If the fields are right, then they can be transported by a hypercomplex exponential which normally contains rest-mass components and cannot itself propagate. It remains at rest at the site of the emitter (though it may recoil a bit). I think the reason I am getting the wrong value for the constant of Plank is nothing to do with the velocities I’m using but comes about because I am assuming at first that the usual emitter is an electron – when in fact it is usually an atom. Isolated electrons cannot emit. I need now to brush up on atomic physics, Next job. Next paper – hopefully.

No matter. The argument in the paper I have already posted is precisely that electromagnetism remains continuous and un-quantised. The point is that - for a long distance exchange of electromagnetic energy ONLY states which have certain properties may propagate. Chief amongst those properties (for the wave-function proposed) is that constrained by this form, electromagnetic energy, propagated over a distance in space, must come in "lumps". The wave-function proposed supports ONLY a change in frequency. That is the wave-function I propose works if, and only if, the energy transferred is proportional to the frequency. This is what is new about it. It only "works" if the light comes in lumps. It only propagates strongly constrained fields. This is not to say that electromagnetism itself is quantised - it is not. It remains free to chirp and stretch and polarise freely as Martin explains. It describes only non-interacting waves NIW, as Chandra argues. Most of the physics is still just classical electromagnetism. Chandra is mostly right (in my view). Read his papers! The inter-action is not between photons, it is between charges. Photons are the bit that do not inter-act. This is what NIW means. The new theory allows (actually it requires) the description of continuous waves, locally. They just do not propagate over long distances (even a few wavelengths!) because that is excluded at the level of the first turn (the first differential).  It is the whole process that exhibits the quantisation – just as Martin says. It is just that if light wants to go anywhere it, necessarily, starts looking a lot like a photon. Richard is right to separate out the different levels of quantisation as well. It is not one thing, but the separation of the continuous into integer units of various dimension. There is not one “quantisation” in nature, but many. The new theory pertains only the process usually called photon exchange. The quantisation I am talking about here is the quantisation of EM into "photons".

Now, coming onto that process and that argument, you say, Chip, that it should be perfectly possible to put two photons precisely on top of one another so that they add linearly. 1+1=2. Yes – but no. Such an object is and has to be an object with a different frequency. That is the point. This comes to the heart of the matter and the heart of the reason I argue the whole process should come in lumps defined by the frequency alone.  If it were so that one could put two photons on top of one another, one would observe the two "photons" to be emitted at precisely the same time in the same emission event, and absorbed at precisely the same time and place in the absorption event. That is one would propagate two red (say) photons and get a blue's worth of energy in the exchange event now involving two photons. Now you may want this to be so, it may feel like a nice friendly thing photons (which are after all bosons) should be able to do. Only problem is that such a notion is in contradiction with what is observed experimentally. One could put a diffraction grating between source and detector, for example, such that the photons appeared in different places according to their frequency. Place the detector at the "red" position. No signal. No di-photon events with the characteristics of red photons. Where are they? Try going to the blue position. There they are! Appearing as one lump of energy one at a time. They do have the doubled energy one would expect from 1+1= 2 – but they do not – experimentally- have the same wavelength, or frequency. You get only blue ones. This is what you observe and what has been observed all along in experiment since the photo-electric effect. In your thinking you must be rigorous enough to bear this in mind. What is observed in experiment is what your theory must parallel. Otherwise it is just fantasy (fantasy is good!). To be proper physics, though, it must not just describe what does happen. It must also say why what is observed NOT to happen does not happen.  Too many of the current batch of theories do describe a wee bit of nature, but also predict vast slews of phenomena that just don’t happen. Not good! This may have become fashionable in the last half-century or so. It is certainly convenient for some theories as it means they cannot easily be toppled by pesky experiment which would otherwise wipe most of them out. People have become used to theory predicting lots of things that do not happen. This is not good enough for proper progress. These theories cannot be used for engineering applications. One would predict lots of things to work that would not. We need precision and rigour. This is why I appreciate criticism so much. Thanks Chip! It helps us all get to the point. The ultimate "reason" for the quantisation of the compete solution I have made up in the paper is exactly the two conditions that energies should add AND that fields should add LINEARLY.  This is what the new wave-functions do. It feels that one should have freedom of thought (and one does!), but for thinking to parallel the physical world it must be constrained, not by one thinks about nature, but by what one observes it to do. It must fit experiment. All of it. In other words to parallel nature it must fit the whole of your physical understanding - all at once. This is very strongly constrained thinking. Worse- not all of us know all of experiment all at once (especially me!). Coming back to another point you raise – you suggest, Chip, that I should possibly try going to  root two of c  and then I’ll get my numbers to fit. Now, if I just wanted to get the numbers to fit this might be an option. I cannot allow myself to do this though. Why? Because light travels at c. Experimentally. This is not a floppy condition. It is not a parameter you can just vary with no consequence elsewhere. It is fun to think about it – but in doing so one moves away from the whole constraint of the whole of physics I talked about above. One goes out in a soft, friendly, mushy area of thinking where all things are possible. One goes out in the world of untamed imagination. Great! There is plenty of room for that. I love fiction! Physics is now so complicated, however, that such thinking will rapidly move away from that which is observed in very many areas. One is in a world without proper signposts or fixed points. This is a very similar world to the world of string, or the world of QCD where nothing is well-defined. One is already lost. Coming back to Richard’s point of the charged photon. Again one is going into the mushy – into the mist. Give the photon an intrinsic charge. Why not?  The answer is, not only that charge is a divergence inconsistent with light-speed motion as I argued earlier, (not a problem if one has a floppy light velocity though – such photons would be, necessarily, not composed of field and be sub-light speed), but that it is a mushy continuous charge thing. One should observe all sorts of charges. One does not. One sees charges only associated with “particles”. A charged photon should not close, but should repel itself. One causes far more problems with the conjecture than one solves. The theory must not only explain what is observed, but also why other things are NOT observed. That comes to the other problem. There is no charged photon theory. No differential equations describing its motion. It ends up just being a notion. A notion, effectively, of charged fields. Why not just make it a scalar charge? That is already complex enough. The theory for this was explored, for example, by Dirac himself in the fifties. It did not lead anywhere (yet, at least). Now coming back to Dirac and his (much earlier) linear relativistic theory. Dirac, in his relativistic quantum mechanics, does indeed integrate his linear equation and derives a motion consisting of a quickly oscillating lightspeed part, the zitterbewegung and an overall motion characterised by the normal energy as a half m v squared part.  Very beautiful. He does not get them separately – they are the first two terms in an expansion. Incidentally this also gets the de-Broglie wavelength right, with a doubled Compton frequency nota bene. The factor of two comes out. It is not put in a-priori. This is what happens in a proper relativistic linear theory. So what is the problem, why do we not just pack up go home and go fishing?  Job done. Two reasons: firstly the zitterbewegung fluid in the Dirac model is not fields but some stuff with peculiar properties defined by the new theory: Spinors. These have the peculiar property that you must rotate through 720 degrees to get back to where you started from. This is good in itself – and goes a long way to describing the fundamental difference between fermions and bosons. It is certainly a big element of the truth. Understanding these objects properly, however, has proved beyond the wit of generations of physicists (if they are honest) – including Dirac himself and Feymann- both of whom were bright and brave enough to simply say so. Dirac does so, for example, in his own book, directly after deriving the base solutions. Good man. Others waffle – or put the problem into simple two-valued groups such as SU(2). Stick it into simple maths and forget about it. Make it an inviolable starting point of further theory. Bit wimpy – but safe! Moving spinors – even slowly moving spinors start mixing with each other. They are not a relativistically invariant basis. Big problem! I think the base problem with the Dirac model is that it is still too simple – and I think that the point where Dirac goes wrong is when he makes two different identifications with the same thing. This messes everything up and leads to, not only solutions, but also basic dynamical terms “being difficult to interpret because they are complex” - as Dirac says. Where this comes from is that he has used, unwittingly, the same square root of minus one for two conceptually different things. Complex indeed, but not complex enough. And mixed up at that. Coming back to a more advanced theory: one has to explain why and how charges arise in a pair-creation process. To do this one has to understand field properly (at least as the six components of an antisymettric tensor – but tensor algebra does not go far enough (yet) either).  One needs to get going with a proper field theory – not just with a loosely based model. If you are going to charge a photon this cannot be ad-hoc. Are you charging the electric field part or the magnetic field part, for example. Are you adding a 4-vector (charge is the first component of the 4-current) to the six-vector? Just what is it, exactly, that you are proposing? How do you propose to modify the undelying theory to accommodate your conjecture? For me, the charge comes about more from, as Chip and John D are arguing, from a topological re-configuration of the field such that it is everywhere radial in a double looped configuration. The photon has field. The field is rectified by the twist and the turn. The confinement leads then to a confined object appearing to be (and actually being) charged. The turn itself – essential to the re-configuration of the field, is engendered in my model not by a charge, but by a dynamical scalar rest-mass term in conjunction with the electric component of the field. This is a seventh component in addition to the six components of the EM field. You may also see it as an element of energy. I agree with you partially here, that this is fundamental stuff – but so is field and field is different. It is not a scalar.  The resulting composite object is fermionic in that it a double-turn –a fundamental fermion. It is charged in that it can inter-act and exchange energy. In isolation, it exhibits a radial electric field – as does a charge. Why would you need to complicate things by wanting the poor photon to be charged as well? You do not need it! How are you ever going to calculate the charge from first principles when you put a random amount of it in to begin with? You are going to get the charge of the photon, plus or minus the charge engendered by the topology and the confinement. Why? I think at this point one is doubly lost. One has had to give up the idea that EM propagates at lightspeed and one has also arbitrarily assigned a charge to an imagined “charged photon” – an object which is not observed in the real world. Further, one has lost the possibility of a theory to work with as there is no theory of the charged photon with equations like the Maxwell equations, or the Schroedinger equation, or the Dirac equation. One is then triply lost. Now, coming back to numbers, let us say that I did want Martin and my old model to get the charge exactly right (for example). There is a simple way to do this without too much fuss and without varying the lightspeed or introducing a charge to the photon. Just allow the ratio of the minor to the major axes of the torus to vary. If zero – one gets the charge slightly less than q. A bit more – hey presto- just right. More still … one can wind it up to about 20 times the charge observed. Why is this not a result? Why does this not fix the ratio of minor to major.  Well – for example could vary all sorts of other things – why not flatten it slightly? Why not put it in a cubical box (this value is then damn close –less than a percent!). Why not stick a hole in it – like a spindle? Why not make it pear-shaped (this is not as daft as it sounds and may end up being the answer!). Yes – you can do anything in your mind. The problem is that process is futile unless one has a proper theory, or some experiment which can distinguish these things. Now, clearly, I’m hoping that the new theory I propose may, ultimately, provide the answer. My second choice would be that the extension of the Bateman method, which Martin is pursuing, does the trick.  Maybe these will converge or merge with some other thinking in the group (even better!). Perhaps we will find some seminal experiment which fixes some aspect of it. Perhaps the experiment has already been done and one or other of you know about it. There is a lot of work between where I am now and there though, and perhaps not enough life and energy left in me to pursue it as much as I would like, (squished as I am by a pile of exams – though the marking is now nearly finished). The work to come requires developing a canon of work similar to that produced by dozens of the greats in non-relativistic quantum mechanics in the 1930’s – except the base equations are much more complicated than the simple Schroedinger equation. We have equations, but we need to find solutions to the equations.  Plenty of work to do!  I’m hoping to convince a few folk with enough talent and energy to start getting stuck in to this programme. The process can, and probably will, throw up problems with the original conception and formulation. I agree here with Chip!  No problem! If it is wrong – modify it or throw it out and make up a new one. That is the proper application of the scientific method. Anyway this has turned into too much of an opus. Though it was started in the morning it is now afternoon and time for me to go and get on with some proper work. Marking awaits! Bye for now, John W. From: General [general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] on behalf of Richard Gauthier [richgauthier at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 2:59 PM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Subject: Re: [General] Photon John and Martin,   Thanks for your encouragement. The electron is a photon going round and round in the case of a resting electron, otherwise it is a photon going round and round and forward in some kind of helical motion, in which case it is not a standing field in this reference frame. Whether or not the charge of a charged photon moves at the speed of light depends on the particular model of the photon that one has. The relativistic charged-photon/electron model does not require a particular photon model.The charge that is detected, like the electron mass that is detected, may be moving at sub-light speed. Mass is not more fundamental than energy, and is proposed to be composed of light-speed energy in the case of the electron.    Richard    
On May 30, 2015, at 5:03 AM, John Duffield <johnduffield at btconnect.com> wrote:    Can anyone clearly explain why a charged photon of spin 1/2 hbar and rest mass 0.511MeV/c^2 is not the missing link between the uncharged photon and the electron?   Yes, I can. The electron is a 511keV photon going round and round. It’s a charged particle because it’s a photon going round and round.  The photon moving linearly is a field variation, but when it’s going round and round, it’s a standing field. That’s why it has mass too.  It’s like the photon In a box . Only it’s a box of its own making. Light displaces its own path into a closed path, because light is displacement current. And it does what it says on the can. Because space waves.     Regards John D   PS: Counter-rotating vortices repel, co-rotating vortices attract, see On Vortex Particles by David St John. They ain’t called spinors for nothing!    From: General [mailto:general-bounces+johnduffield=btconnect.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of Mark, Martin van der
Sent: 29 May 2015 23:47
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Subject: Re: [General] Photon   Richard, yes, thank you. That is indeed a very good remark, you are probably very right.
Let me think about it a bit more, Best, Martin

Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPhone 
Op 29 mei 2015 om 21:45 heeft Richard Gauthier <richgauthier at gmail.com> het volgende geschreven: 
Chip, John and Martin,     I think you gentlemen are onto something. A photon has three related levels of quantization (E=hf, p=h/lambda and spin = hbar) — perhaps only the third is truly quantized in the sense of having a discrete value. An electron has two more levels of discrete quantization (charge and rest mass) which may be closely related to its spin 1/2 hbar. The electron’s charge may be closely related to its spin hbar/2 in the case of the electron, but not the case of the neutrino). An electron gains further levels of discrete quantization (its energy eigenvalues) by being bound in an atom. The more discrete quantum levels a quantum has, the more it is “bound” to a material condition.  Can anyone clearly explain why a charged photon of spin 1/2 hbar and rest mass 0.511MeV/c^2 is not the missing link between the uncharged photon and the electron?      Richard   
On May 29, 2015, at 12:07 PM, Chip Akins <chipakins at gmail.com> wrote:   Hi Martin   With your experience and depth of understanding regarding photons, and the evidence, I am of course inclined to agree with you regarding the nature of photons.   Regarding: “How and why that works the same for radio waves and gamma rays, is a mystery. Well this bit is my personal opinion, of course.”  There is perhaps a difference between the interactions we observe when using longer wavelength radio waves as compared to the particle-sized gamma rays.  The radio waves are a source of field influence which can cause electron drift, just as a DC field can move electrons, but at the scale of the electron, or even the electron’s “orbit” in an atom, the frequency of the radio wave is far less “important” than the frequency of a gamma ray would be.  The resonances of the particle would be less likely to be significantly influenced by the radio wave, but the radio wave would still exert a force on the electron. Radio waves are generally detected by measuring the movement of electrons in conductive materials where the electrons in the materials are fairly easy to move. It seems likely that it takes at least the motion of one electron in the transmitting antenna to induce any motion of an electron in a receiving antenna, assuming the same configuration of transmitter and receiver antennae. But the incident field on the receiving antenna may not be an integral value of “photon energy”.    Is this why you refer to a “continuum wave”?  Because the absorber only uses what is can use of the available energy? So that a photon may actually contain more energy than is absorbed in an interaction?   Chip   From: General [mailto:general-bounces+chipakins=gmail.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of Mark, Martin van der
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2015 12:42 PM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Subject: Re: [General] Photon   Dear Chip,
now you are really getting there for sure, those questions and statements are at the right level to begin with. But your kind of understanding certainly converges with my ideas. That me be good or bad, but I would judge it as good. ;-) See for extra comments below… Cheers, Martin   Dr. Martin B. van der Mark Principal Scientist, Minimally Invasive Healthcare   Philips Research Europe - Eindhoven High Tech Campus, Building 34 (WB2.025) Prof. Holstlaan 4 5656 AE  Eindhoven, The Netherlands Tel: +31 40 2747548   From: General [mailto:general-bounces+martin.van.der.mark=philips.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of Chip Akins
Sent: vrijdag 29 mei 2015 15:45
To: 'Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion'
Subject: Re: [General] Photon   H John W   Thank you.  One reason for asking the question and pursuing the thought process, was to try to further illustrate the lack of any explanation so far which supports the strict self-quantization of photons. This has been leading me to think that the source for quantization is the spin ½ configuration of fermions. (Which would act as quantizers both while emitting and absorbing). If this is true then it means that, for a photon, E=hv only holds true because of the emitter and absorber.    MvdM: This may be exactly right.   Regarding the uncertainty principle: If we take a single point snapshot of a sinusoidal function we are very uncertain about its frequency, the more time we spend sampling the wave the more certain we become of its frequency. Now if we are using sinusoidal waves to create particles, many of the properties of the particles will be uncertain with our measurements, because the measurements we can take disturb the system, and are only valid for brief times or spaces before the information is no longer valid, due to measurement. Because when we set up a measurement, we create conditions where discrete waves and fields will interact, creating an energy exchange which occurs in a very finite timeframe, disturbing completely what we are measuring. This correlation to the uncertainty principle is one of the reasons that I feel fields and waves are the best candidate for the fundamental makeup of particles. Fields and waves in these configurations naturally create an uncertainty in measurement which correlates exactly with the observed, understood, and measured uncertainties.  The hydrogen atom is such a nice tool for modeling and understanding these issues.   MvdM: yes and this kind of uncertainty is given by what is called the Fourier limit amended with hbar   Of course the use of the word orbit to describe the electron’s state in an atom is too ambiguous to actually describe its state.  The electron exists in a space surrounding the nucleus, and spins about it, but it’s more like the electron surrounds the nucleus and less like an orbit.   MvdM: true, and this is why detailed orbital calculations in a photon model for the electron are totally futile; only a real theory will tell.   So what I am getting to is that the different “spin modes” of the photon and the electron are significant.  I think the photon has what we may call a symmetric field spin mode, where it spins about the point between the positive and negative field lines, making it charge neutral. But the electron’s principal spin is a non-symmetrical field spin mode, with the point between the positive and negative fields displaced from the spin axis, giving it charge.  Apparently this has other important effects as well.  It seems this spin mode allows the electron to be quantized based on energy density, unlike the photon.   The underlying reason I am asking these questions is related to the formulation for field equations.  There seems to be a difference between the behavior of the fields in the photon and the quantization behavior of the fields in fermions.  The spin configuration seems to be the cause for the forces which create quantization.   MvdM: Yes and the reason is that the electron needs binding forces and nonlinearity, the “free” photon doesn’t   But back to the photon:  Since the photon cannot be quantized by its internal energy density, does it spin due to the spin angular momentum imparted by the emitter? Is the photon actually not internally quantized at all? That is to say, is there no inherent mechanism within the photon itself which imposed a specific quantization? Is the relationship E=hv imposed only at the emission or absorption? And therefore can we create photons without spin? Or can we create photons where E=hv is not true? And are photons really particles at all, or are they just waves, which seem like particles because of their interaction with the quantization of emitters and absorbers.   MvdM: Good questions, I go for waves. The photon is merely a quantum of energy that is taken up by the absorber from a continuum wave. It is not a particle by it self, and doen’t need to have the machinery on-board to keep itself together or be quantized or what. It is just a Maxwell wave. But this Maxwell wave can only be emitted and absorbed according to the rules of (boundary conditions imposed by) emitter and absorber. How and why that works the same for radio waves and gamma rays, is a mystery. Well this bit is my personal opinion, of course.   While we could view many of the question as rhetorical it seems that we may need to understand and answer them as literal.  Chandra, Martin, All?   Chip     From: General [mailto:general-bounces+chipakins=gmail.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of John Williamson
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2015 4:29 PM
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Subject: Re: [General] Photon   Hi Chip and everyone,

Good thought but no- quantisation cannot be dependent on energy density. This is what experiment tells you - and is the beauty of experiment. Experimentally photons can have any wave-train length. The photon energy, however, is related to its frequency alone. Photons from a source have a well-defined energy only if they are pretty long (this is a consequence of the uncertainty principle). There are lots of people in the group (Martin and Chandra for two) - who know lots more about this than I do and some who perform experiments interfering, stretching and bending light.

Any proper theory needs to describe experiment - all of it - not just the bits we may happen to know about!

Regards, John From: General [general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] on behalf of Chip Akins [chipakins at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, May 25, 2015 4:51 PM
To: 'Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion'
Subject: Re: [General] Photon Hi John W and All   While looking at quantization which may be caused by a twist term included with Maxwell’s equations, at least one puzzle remains unanswered for me.  The nature of photons is still a bit difficult to understand.  It is much easier to envision a photon of a single wavelength than a photon which is many wavelengths. If energy density is the cause for quantization (spin and frequency) it is more difficult to see how that can be so, if a photon may have an arbitrary number of cycles, but have its energy density spread out over all cycles.  What do you think the likelihood is that not only frequency but also the number of cycles in a photon is quantized?  If this is the case then we could still understand how the correct spin would result from energy density for each cycle. But then we would have to also address the energy density to twist relationship for single wavelength structures like the electron models we have been creating.???   It seems evident that quantization for frequency is dependent upon energy, and I assumed it was therefore due to energy density. Which works nicely for single wavelength photons. Experiment seems to indicate that we can create photons, using various methods, which have an arbitrary number of wavelengths. How can we physically correlate this to photon frequency quantization, when the energy density of the photon has been spread out over many cycles? Is there some apparently “non-local” mechanism which couples the energy of all cycles in a single photon, and therefore helps to retain the E=hv relationship?   Thoughts?   Chip  


   
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