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Post by enigma on Jul 30, 2014 14:51:55 GMT -5
Yes, Googled a bit about photons last night and they're strange non-critters fer sure. Formed at velocity by a mass/energy conversion such that we somehow have a new non-mass mass traveling zero distance in zero time at the speed of light ( from its own perspective, note sdp). (Ha! Fun stuff) This comment hints at what I was asking about superposition: "– The photon does not experience elapsed time and can cover any distance in zero time ( from its own perspective, note sdp). In effect, a photon can be everywhere at once. " A photon that does not experience elapsed time and and can be everywhere at once is not actually moving. My mindless blog entry would be that it's not actually actual either. OK, the key here is, from a photon's own perspective. When we're dealing with photons we're observing from our perspective, not theirs. That "a photon can be everywhere at once" does not compute for me (?) I don't have a reference for it but I'm sure I read that near the end of his life Einstein said that he still did not understand light. sdp Ironically, it was a comment of yours that triggered my interest. I thought you were suggesting that the particle nature of light is really a superposition of photons as a wave function; light in it's natural state. The photon, then, would be the collapse of the wave function. The more I read about it, the stranger this photon doohickey gets.
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Post by laughter on Jul 30, 2014 15:43:58 GMT -5
(** muttley snicker **)
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Post by enigma on Jul 30, 2014 16:57:02 GMT -5
I'd say there's a divide between the appearance of a physical object, in any configuration, (a detector) and a conscious observation of the data collected. If observing a pattern on a target collapses the wave function, does observing it in a mirror do any less? What about watching it on closed circuit TV? What about playing it back later from a recording? I say the collapse occurs, in every case, when the observing occurs and not necessarily when the supposed event occurs. If that's so, how does one devise an experiment to prove it? That's one of those two simple ideas that I alluded to: how could we ever prove or disprove, by observation, if an inanimate object can collapse the wave function? The answer is that you can't, because any data that an experimenter evaluates entangles consciousness into the events as a whole. That's the exact point of the Wigner's Friend Paradox. The other simple idea that for the life of me just seems impossible to miss is that the wave/particle is interacting with two inanimate objects in the system that don't collapse the wave function: the barrier with the slits and the screen on which the image forms. IOW: if "physical" interaction with the field with no subjective component were causal to collapse we'd never see an interference pattern. This is, in fact, what our experience with the classical world would lead us to expect, which is why the result was such a game changer to science and ultimately, the rest of the culture as well. The science of Physics can't resolve this controversy because what is referred to as the "Quantum Observer" isn't a physical phenomenon. We have the appearance of what is observed and the observer and there's no separating the two, but it can be inferred that the observer is not the observed by the various natures of the observed (particle or wave) in either the presence or absence of the observer on the special condition of a physical interaction at a fine enough granularity. It's simply the end of the line for objective physical reality, but it says nothing about the nature of any nonphysical component other than it is not physical. Since this component can't be observed it isn't subject to skeptical, quantitative inquiry. Science ends there, and it's just as big a mistake to use the collapse of the material assumption as the basis for a non-scientific theory of the non-physical as it is to spin up various metaphysical escape hatches to salvage an objective physical reality. The DS and all post QM Physics simply calls for metaphysical silence. ... and that's what Bohr, Heisenberg and the rest of their crew offered the world back in 1928: their interpretation was that Heisenberg's mathematical formulation did not describe reality apart from the point observation of it. Yeah, the idea that an inanimate object can collapse the wave function actually never occurred to me, though I can see it would be of interest to one intent on keeping the mechanical paradigm in place.
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Post by enigma on Jul 30, 2014 17:08:21 GMT -5
The key word here is idealized. That's gonna mean speculation, not anything we have seen in nature. Photons in nature are a sort of currency of the exchange of energy. For a photon to stop it would cease to be a photon, the energy would change into something else (for instance, you get a suntan from photons from the sun when enough of them hit your skin). In nature, time always applies, photons never have mass. I don't understand the point laughter was making concerning the rest mass of photons. The very definition of a photon involves it having no mass. This is why the 1919 observation of stars adjacent to the sun during a solar eclipse was so important in proving Einstein's 1915 General Theory of Relativity. The gravity of the sun itself could not displace the light from the stars, because gravity would have no effect on massless photons. The stars were displaced because the mass of the sun bent the space adjacent to the sun proving Einstein was right, mass warps space (gravity is the warping of space, from objects with mass). He became world-wide famous overnight. You can stop thinking about photons not actually moving. sdp Photons are a form of energy and as mass and energy are equivalent it can't be said that they have no mass, just no "rest mass". Bear in mind that it is only gravity that keeps a photon from going beyond the event horizon of a black hole. The concept of a photons mass became relevant because the point that any particle other than a photon traveling at the speed of light would have infinite mass became relevant. The bottom line is that the speed of light is not only a limit, it is only available to light and no other phenomena, because an infinite mass isn't possible. Which tells this novice that assigning mass to a photon at any speed is a mistake.
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Post by enigma on Jul 30, 2014 17:17:26 GMT -5
Photons are a form of energy and as mass and energy are equivalent it can't be said that they have no mass, just no "rest mass". Bear in mind that it is only gravity that keeps a photon from going beyond the event horizon of a black hole. The concept of a photons mass became relevant because the point that any particle other than a photon traveling at the speed of light would have infinite mass became relevant. The bottom line is that the speed of light is not only a limit, it is only available to light and no other phenomena, because an infinite mass isn't possible. To say that mass and energy are equivalent is not to say that photons have mass, it means you can convert mass to energy (atomic bomb one example) and energy to mass (happens every day in particle accelerators). I'm confident enough about that so as not to look it up. By definition photons can't have mass because to accelerate them to the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy. But photons automatically travel at the speed of light, (so they can't have mass). I thought long and hard about the fact that even light cannot escape black holes (thus the name) and if light has no mass, why does the gravity of the black hole keep light from escaping? But what is gravity according to Einstein? Gravity is the curvature of space. It's not that light cannot escape black holes because of the "force" of gravity. Light cannot escape a black hole because the mass of a black hole curves the space to such an extent that light can't escape the curvature. (I've never looked it up to check on myself). sdp Makes sense to me.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 30, 2014 18:11:51 GMT -5
To say that mass and energy are equivalent is not to say that photons have mass, it means you can convert mass to energy (atomic bomb one example) and energy to mass (happens every day in particle accelerators). I'm confident enough about that so as not to look it up. By definition photons can't have mass because to accelerate them to the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy. But photons automatically travel at the speed of light, (so they can't have mass). I thought long and hard about the fact that even light cannot escape black holes (thus the name) and if light has no mass, why does the gravity of the black hole keep light from escaping? But what is gravity according to Einstein? Gravity is the curvature of space. It's not that light cannot escape black holes because of the "force" of gravity. Light cannot escape a black hole because the mass of a black hole curves the space to such an extent that light can't escape the curvature. (I've never looked it up to check on myself). sdp Makes sense to me. Yea....I looked at several of laughter's links.......I'm satisfied. sdp
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