[General] Gamma from self-confined light

Thu Jun 9 01:00:19 PDT 2016

Discussion after Jun2016
Hello Richard Viv and everyone,

Apologies for having been absent for so long. This has been my heaviest ever teaching year, with more than a thousand scripts of various sorts being processed since February of this year. It has been non-stop (and still is until the final meeting later today).

I have not been following all of the discussion recently: though I concur with Viv's remarks in some of his more recent emails: serious science follows the scientific method. Everything we do must fit that which is observed in experiment or simply, it is wrong (at least in that respect).

Comments below in red.
________________________________
From: General [general-bounces+john.williamson=glasgow.ac.uk at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] on behalf of Richard Gauthier [richgauthier at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2016 4:54 PM
To: Vivian Robinson
Cc: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Subject: [SPAM?] Re: [General] Matter comprised of light-speed energy
Hello Vivian,

  Thanks for your further comments.

      Circulating photons cannot be the origin of gamma because gamma occurs in relativistic doppler shifting of normal photons. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_Doppler_effect .

No Richard - you are wrong here my friend. To get things (nearly) right for photons one has to apply both the relativistic transformations of space and time and the Doppler effect.  Gamma may be seen as being derivative of the localization of photons, (as Viv said), not the other way round (and always has been). Please see the derivation in my paper.

      I do not insist on the correctness of my model. Only a fool would do that.

Good man!

     No one knows why an electron is charged. How should I know what causes a spin-1/2 charged photon, proposed to compose an electron, to be charged? The circulating photon in your electron model is also charged. Why is that?

This is the point! It is charged because it is confined.

     The property of free space that requires gamma to be applied, is the same property of free space that causes the speed of light c to be the same as measured in all inertial frames.

This is one possible starting point, and the conventional one in most text books.

And nobody knows why that is. Do you?

Yes. This is not easy to understand, however. I have tried to explain this many times already in this discussion group. Some of you get it (Martin, John Duffield, Viv (that I know of)), many of you do not seem to - yet. John Duffield buts it simply: if everything is made of light you cannot make any such thing go faster than light.
 The underlying reason (for realtivity) is partially explained in the two papers I submitted to SPIE. It has to do with the fact that, experimentally, it is the energy that is linear (not quadratic as Viv mentioned) AND SO IS THE FIELD (as Chandra argues). To get both one needs space and time themselves to transform. This is precisely the condition for the Lorentz transformation. One must not start from the LT itself if one wishes to understand the linearity of energy and field, which are the experimentally observed facts. Some of the argument explaining this is contained  in the discussion around equations 18 19 and 20 in the attached paper.

 But experimental high energy physicists work with gamma every day with the momentum equation p=gamma mv  and the relativistic energy-momentum equation E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4  where E=gamma mc^2 , in order to get particles to circle round and round at a constant radius with increasing energy but always at speeds less than the speed of light. Let’s say that gamma is an unexplained experimental fact that also follows from the unexplained (apparent) constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum, independent of the speed of the source or receiver of the light.

Ok, this is a valid starting point, but not, of course, one where one has understood where the apparent constancy of the speed of light comes from, as above.

     Louis de Broglie didn’t support his theoretical prediction of the electron’s wavelength lambda=h/(gamma m v) with experimental observations as you recommend. Those came later, and by others, for which he then received the Nobel prize, as did the experimenters who confirmed his hypothesis. You don’t get this prize for predicting what is already known or experimentally established.

This is true! However, if your model is inconsistent with experiment then it should be adapted or rejected - de Broglies analysis was so good precisely because it incorporated two seemingly inconsistent, experimental facts in the theory of relativity: the slowing of clocks and the increase of frequency with energy. Many of the models which have been presented by some folk here (including your charged photon) are simply inconsistent with experiment as it stands. This can be ok as an intermediate step, but must be kept in mind as an inconsistency to be resolved by refinement of the model. My model is similar to yours, in that it consists of confined circulating electromagnetic energy, but differs in that I do not assume the photon to be charged, but try to derive the nature of that charge. This derivation MUST remain consistent with that which is established by experiment. I disagree with Viv a little here - in that I think a good test is that, where Maxwell is valid it should agree with Maxwell because Maxwell agrees with so much of experiment(the new theory agrees with Maxwell) and where quantum electrodynamics is valid it should agree with quantum electrodynamics (it does). This is not to say that my theory is complete (yet) either. There remain deeper inconsistencies to be resolved with it as well. The nature of charge, however, is not one of them. I concur entirely with Richard in asserting that I do not insist on the correctness of my theory either (as only a fool would do that!). All theory is a work-in-progress. It may be worth all of you listening to Susskinds lectures "the theoretical minimum". I forget precisely where, but he shows a reverse proposition at one point if I remember correctly- that if light deviated from rectilinearity it would violate the conservation of charge. Correct. If any of you do watch the lectures and pick this up could you share the reference? Of course Susskind was probably not the first to show this so if anyone knows a proper reference this would be even better. As Martin and I showed back in 1997, any self-localised electromagnetic wave has (approximately) a quantised charge. The problem, for all of us, then reduces to explaining why the photon is localised. Martin and I have a theory where there are forces which can do just that. Not just made-up forces but forces arising from the products of fields and their differentials (just like the Lorentz force, but generalised) within the (admittedly made up!) theory. In my theory the charge ARISES from the confinement.

  If we have different interpretations of p, the momentum of a particle with or without mass, mine is the standard interpretation:  p=gamma mv for a particle with mass and p=h/Lambda for a photon. Both expressions fit into the relativistic energy-momentum equation E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4 .  What is your interpretation of momentum?

Look, this is far more complicated than the question. If you are going to think of the electron as a pre-existing "thing" then it makes sense to talk about "its" momentum - otherwise you need to think in terms of momentum density and that brings in all of the relativistic complications of just what "volume" or "area" or "length" are anyway (not to mention time!). These quantities are all implicit in the first two "definitions" above. To get this one needs to understand where the “gamma” comes from and why it is not basic. The third is more complicated still as it involves a sum of squares. This means one really needs to understand how to take roots properly. The problem of momentum and its density is a famous one and one which Feynmann, for example, was deeply puzzled about, so do not expect to get an explanation in any big textbooks or online. Feynmann was smart enough to realise that he did not get this - and that was a huge source of fun for him. Don't think you are going to get this with a simple explanation then. The only way to begin to think about this is to think through the proper (and I mean relativistically proper) mathematics. Starting from the point of thinking of relativity at the textbook undergraduate level (using gamma!) is just not going to cut it here. I have tried (and failed!) many times already to explain some of this in previous emails and will not waste my time trying again. Some of the proper mathematics for this (though cryptically I admit) is in the SPIE papers.  I'm happy to give an hours talk about this sometime and try again at some point though.  The result must lead to – not start from – the proper value for the integral momentum in all relativistic frames. The underlying input is the physical requirement the linearity of energy, potential and field. That is the linearity of both things and the squares of things, simultaneously (and I do not mean in time!).

  I’ve proposed a new variety of photon that carries spin 1/2 and is electrically charged.

Yes, but this solves no problem and yet introduces one: the non-observation of charged photons other than as spin one half quantised charged objects. It does not solve charge, it does not impact on its quantisation at all and it has no supporting theory. You cannot solve the nature of charge by introducing it ad hoc and a-priori. I have said this before and will keep on saying it.

Just recently spin 1/2 photons were discovered.  What have you proposed about photons?

For the record, my Spie papers PREDICT the existence of photons with non-integral spin. It is fine to propose things about photons which fit with the observed properties of photons. It is fine to propose things about electrons that fit with the observed properties of electrons. It is not "fine" to propose things which, demonstrably, do not. This is the great thing about science: one can discard a lot of crap by just considering experiment. Saves a lot of time!

I think that this discussion list is doing exactly what it should be doing—promoting an exchange of ideas in a group effort to increase our understanding of the nature of light and particles.

This is what the group should be doing - but it has not always been doing so. Frankly, the discussion has degenerated to far too low a level from time to time. This has tended to discourage proper debate on points of real difficulty and has led to a lot of serious people deciding to put their effort elsewhere.

    with best regards,
         Richard

Regards, John.

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