Mr. Sammi

Photon - a quanta of light.
Light - a carrier of information to the human eye.
Light - observable through both particle & wave physics.

Pre-puzzle information : The spectroscopic eye AND the human eye are both able to evaluate information embedded in the light souirce. We have a gist of the information the spectroscopic eye can give us. There is still a lot of work to be done with the human eye. (Possibly when the spectroscopic eye rivals the human eye we are almost done research).

Puzzle : With the photon being a quanta of light how much information can this quanta 'carry', before it becomes part of a wave function? In other words what are the pure characteristics of the photon namely itz carrier capabilities?

Both topical equations and pratical verbose explainations are welcome.

Sammi Na Boodie (little piggy's back)

selfology

The information contents of a quanta of light is contained in its wavelength. E=(h/2pi)*f is the energy of a photon, where f is the frequency and h is Planck's constant.

Friar Bellows

No need for the 2pi. In other words, E = hf.

Osm bsm Y.

how can something traveling the speed of light (maximum speed) along one axis, have any kind of motion (oscillation, spin, ect) along another axis without having to go faster then the speed of light?

if it's spin, the surface of the particle is either traveling slightly slower then the average of the particle as a whole as it spins away from the direction of motion, or it is spinning slightly faster, with the direction of motion.

if it is compression waves, there is a point when the particle is traveling forward faster then the speed of light then slows back down to slightly slower. then faster again averaging out to be the speed of light.

if it is a sin or cos type function, there is motion on the y-axis even though the average in the x direcion is the speed of light. therefore the particle itself is moving faster then the speed of light.

right?

how can something traveling at a "maximum" velocity have any energy at all outside of the vector of travel?

also, why do we think there is a smallest distance travelable? i would think motion is not quantized. how can there be rotations on a small scale if motion is quantized? the surface of the smallest form of matter has to be able to move around the middle of itself, thus there is motion throughout the smallest particle at different velocities based on closeness to the center....right?

quantum theory isn't based on motion being quantized right? so why think of it that way?


next.

first, i'm assuming light from a star travels more or less equally in 3D space. therefore stars form a "sphere of light." like how the hubble sphere is how far we can see in all directions, this sphere of light is how far light from a star reaches. only that the larger this sphere gets, the more energy is required to send a registerable amount of photons to every place on the surface of this sphere.

basically here's what i'm getting at.

the equation for the surface area of a sphere is SA = (4[pi]r^2)/3.

radius squared!

doesn't this become a problem for light that we are receiving from stars at the edge of our own hubble sphere? if we are lying on the surface of a sphere with a radius greater than 13 billion light years. the star at the center of that sphere has to be churning out an nonsensical amount of photons just to hit earth, let alone hit the lense of a telescope and then hit it again the next minute and again a minute after that...and again and again.

and not only that but to have every single star firing photons in this kind of volume. it would seem it would quickly reach rediculous values.

are there other theories about what light is besides a quanta? isn't calling it a quanta like calling it a unit of the quantity it came from? quantum mechanics and theory seem so vague, almost like we're guessing which is kind of uncomfortable for serious science isn't it? i dunno....alot of questions here and i'd appreciate ANYTHING clearing even some of them up for me.

Friar Bellows

Why don't you work it out, roughly, and see if it's nonsensical? First of all, realise that there is no star bright enough to be detected at those distances. So let's talk about something we can actually detect, like light from a quasar. The typical luminosity of a quasar is about 10^13 times that of the Sun. Now the Sun emits 3.8 x 10^44 photons per second (look it up or integrate the Planck distribution for a 5800K blackbody between 400nm and 700nm). So (with some simplifying assumptions) a typical quasar emits 3.8 x 10^57 photons per second. The surface area of a 13 billion light years sphere is 1.8 x 10^53 m^2. And therefore about 20,000 photons per square metre per second (ideally) reach us from such a quasar. The real answer is possibly going to be a few orders of magnitude off my crude estimate, but I think the point has been made that there is nothing nonsensical going on here.

Oxymoron

We're not talking about a particle, though. We are talking about the coupling of an electric field, and a magnetic field at right angles to it. When viewed as a wave, the propogation speed of the wave (the rate of transfer of energy along the direction of travel) is c, the speed of light.

The surface? What's that, then? You are thinking too "classically".

Also, the quantised spin of particles is not intuitive. An electron needs to "rotate" through 720 degrees in order to "face" the way it was originally. I quote these words because they have only a superficial meaning - the real point is that you need to abandon classical ways of thinking when dealing with quantum systems.

No, there are no other models of light.

Remember, QM is the most successful scientific theory ever. Computers, microwaves, spaceflight... most technical achievements of the modern world could not exist without it. I do not think that there is a really big surprise in finding out that there is a limit to how much we can fundamentally know about a system; even if it is a bit of a shock, we're going to have to deal with it because that's how it is!

Shadowy Man

Part of the problem lies in the fact that the phrases "spin" and "angular momentum" are used in the context of quantum mechanics. You can't think of "spin" as a particle actually spinning like a little top. You can't think of electronis in "orbit" around nuclei in atoms - in fact, the lowest energy state of an electron in a hydrogen atom has zero angular momentum.

These terms are used because the particular quality of these particles behaves similarly to classical angular momentum in certain ways. But make no mistake, these systems do not act classically, as Oxymoron states.

Mr. Sammi

As far as I can tell, (**in some cases) the orthogonal planes are effects!

* * *

with E = hf, how exactly does one superimpose photons, assuming coherency. Is it h*(f1 + f2+..fn).

I am also assuming it may be difficult to "broadcast", n photons all within the same spatial parameters. Does this lead to overlap, with perhaps the concept of intensity (magnitude) needed to properly define a superimposed photon.

E1 = nhf ; En = nh*(f1 + f2 + .. fn) where En can be rewritten as E = nh*(fk).


Sammi Na Boodie ()

**edited to include (in some cases)

Oxymoron

That is not so. You need to read up on Maxwell's theory of EM radiation.

That's all a bit meaningless, Sammi. Photons don't superimpose as they are particles. Wave packets interfere, but that is something else entirely. Electromagnetic radiation does interfere, but two rays passing through each other will not change in any way (hence light-based computers can be more spatially efficient than conventional electronic ones).

Mr. Sammi

Oxymoron,

Photons do not superimpose as they are particles! I am not sure if they ARE particles seeing they may have no intrinsic mass - just energy!

You sure you got it ALL right?

Concerning Maxwell, what is a magnetic moment?

Sammi Na Boodie ()