A Light Discussion: Particles or Waves?
The debate on the nature of light in the early twentieth century, whether light was a particle or a wave, led to Einstein’s solution with the creation of the photon where waves could become particle like, having no mass but containing energy.
The solution meant everybody was right and a physicist could pick whatever nature of light best suited his needs. This politically correct answer may work in psychology, sociology, and other fake sciences but it is completely unacceptable in real science.
A wave and a particle have completely different characteristics and cannot be changed from one to another. A wave is an energy disturbance within a medium while a particle is an object containing energy. The photon is just giving a name to a problem and then believing the problem is solved.
There is experimental evidence supporting the wave nature of light but the photoelectric effect seemed to present a problem for light being a wave. When light hits certain surfaces it produces an immediate electric current. The objection was that if light were a wave it would take time for it to transfer a quanta of energy to an atom and dislodge an electron from its orbit. This would cause a delay between when the light struck the object to when the current was generated and no such delay was observed.
This is not a valid objection because it contains an implicit assertion that the only way to produce a current is to dislodge an electron from an atom. Very little, if any, of the electricity we use is produced this way. Atoms form molecules where there is a balance between attractive and repelling forces. If this balance is disturbed by a change in electric field, change in magnetic field, or other distortion a current can be produced.
In crystals there are ionic bonds where electrons are already detached from their parent atoms and in metal bonds there are similar detached electrons. In the piezoelectric effect mechanical pressure on a crystal distorts the bonds increasing repelling forces that dislodge an electron and create a current. The photoelectric effect is just another version of the piezoelectric effect except an electromagnetic wave of the right size distorts a bond causing the current.
Light is a disturbance or wave traveling in the electric and magnetic fields (It is not an electromagnetic field. There are two separate fields that interact but do not determine the strength of the other fields.) There is no particle nature to light or need for a photon other than the need for physicists to have it as the basis of the fantasy world they have created. It contains magic spells, invisible entities, and miraculous occurrences while abandoning reason, reality, and its foundation in experimentation. (If an experiment knows you are watching or if you will be watching in the future and changes its results you have invalidated the results of all experiments.) There are experiments and observation of distant stars that show objects travelling faster than the speed of light. Instead of changing theory to conform to reality physicist invent illusions to maintain their delusions.
If light is not a particle then the speed of light cannot be constant but varies with the strength of the fields in which it travels. Light does not bend around the sun because zero times a real big number, like the mass of the sun, creates a positive number. It happens because of the stronger electric and magnetic fields close to the sun. The red and blue shift of light coming from distance stars is not due to the Doppler effect and movement of the light source but the light traveling through fields with different strengths which varies the wavelengths. How could a Doppler effect cause light to have both a red and blue shift? Either the source is traveling towards you or it is traveling away from you, not both.
If there is no particle nature to light then its velocity is not constant and all of Einstein’s theories are wrong. The only thing he got right was that Newton was wrong and there is no force of gravity.
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Hans Schreuder
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Interesting concepts Herb. Here’s aother investigation into the nature of light:
http://tech-know-group.com/papers/Helical_Travel_of_Light.pdf
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geran
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More great comedy from Herb.
Herb never heard of the “double slit experiment”. But, that doesn’t stop him from dissing both Einstein and Newton.
Hilarious.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Geran
I’ve heard of the dual thin slit experiment. If an experiment concludes that the experiment knows when you are watching and knows when you will be watching, it is a true example of the ridiculous and invalidates the results of all experimentation. How can you accept such an absurd conclusion?
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geran
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Now Herb, how did you conclude that that was my conclusion?
Did you get caught again, and then had to go to building a straw man?
Just stick with your pseudoscience. It’s much funnier.
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James McGinn
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You don’t have a conclusion. You have an opinion. And your opinion won’t stray too far from your fellow political allies.
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geran
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Thanks James, for another meaningless comment.
More please, before they come to take you away.
James McGinn
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Science isn’t about certainty. Find another hobby.
Ken Hughes
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Photons are indeed particles as is proven by experiment and by Einstein’s conjecture. The problem we have is in visualising how the wave nature of light can be reconciled with this particulate nature. To understand this, we need to appreciate that any wave properties of light only ever appear when there are multiple photons. A single photon has no wave nature and behaves exactly as it should, like a particle. But, when you have many photons, some wave effect occurs, but this wave effect is not a physical attribute of photons or even groups of photons, it is literally a probability wave. It reflects the probability of a particular photon appearing at a specific position. I did not truly understand the “physics” of this until I realised that this wave nature is an attribute of space time and not an attribute of photons. Imagine the surface of a star emitting photons and the time rate varying sinusoidally over duration. Clearly, there will be many more photons emitted during the peaks of the time wave where time is running faster, than the number emitted during the troughs of the time wave where time is running slowest. This is the wave nature of light (but not of photons). I have applied this view to the double slit experiment with remarkable results. It brings together pilot wave theory, the Copenhagen interpretation and Einstein’s real world view in a perfectly logical and intuitive way.
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Her Rose
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Hi Ken,
If a single electron is moving in electro/magnetic field it will not create disturbance in those fields? Since the disturbance is traveling at the speed of light and the electron is moving much slower wouldn'”t it continue to produce disturbances as it moved creating an interference pattern until it was stopped/detected?
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Ken Hughes
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IMO, All particles are “disturbances of the field”, including photons, although photons have a much smaller effect on the field than electrons for instance. I believe all particles are “made” from the energy of the field, which is why the field diminishes in strength where there are particles. This field is the time rate field and so this is why time slows down near large masses.
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Herb Rose
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Hello again,
The dual thin slit experiment is cited as confirmation of Einstein’s duality theory where waves have particle properties. and particles have wave properties. When a light is directed at two thin slits close together an interference pattern is observed. The experiment was conducted where instead of light an electron (a known particle) was directed at the slits. When an interference pattern was again observed the interpretation was that the electron had wave properties. When detectors were positioned to detect which slit the electron went through the interference pattern disappeared. This led the experimenters to conclude that the experiment knew when they were watching and changed the results
What I am trying to point out is that the observed interference pattern is not from a wave nature of electrons but from waves produced by the moving electron.
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Ken Hughes
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Well Herb, you have one opinion and I have a different opinion as to what causes the probability wave, or “interference pattern”. You say it is due to the wave (of what and in what) created by the motion of a particle. I say it is due to the wave nature of space time itself. If you are right, then you have to explain what the medium is within which the wave is created and also, how a moving electron can create such a wave. Can you do this?
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Herb Rose
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Hi Ken,
I do not believe in an aether. I think the wave is propagated in the electric and magnetic fields that permeate the universe. The Earth has a magnetic and electrical field that interfaces with those produced by the sun. These fields radiated from out from their source. I believe that the size of an object is determined by its fields not its matter and these fields extend until the fields encounter another object’s fields of equal strength. A disturbance in the fields will transfer to the fields it encounters. The light from the sun travel in its fields until the disturbance is transferred into the Earth’s fields. where it travels in those fields
It is not an electromagnetic field. It is an electric and magnetic field that interact with each other.A change in an electric field causes a change in the magnetic field then that disturbance is transferred back to the electric field. You cannot determine the strength of a magnetic field from the strength of an electric field which indicates to me that they are two separate fields one created by charged matter and the other created by energy.
How an electron causes a wave is obvious. The moving electron cause a change in the strength of the electrical field which is then propagate through the electric and magnetic fields.
I hope this clarifies my concept of light and how it is transmitted, propagated and what the medium is in which it travels.
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James McGinn
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Herb Rose
I do not believe in an aether.
JMcG:
Do you believe in “cold steam”?
Moist Air Convection Myth
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16462
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
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Ken Hughes
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Well Herb, if that’s what you believe.
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Herb Rose
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Yes I have seen distant stars and the empty space between galaxies contains electric and magnetic fields whose strength declines with distance from their source but do not disappear. That is the media in which electromagnetic waves travel.
As to your temperature position let me try to clarify with a thought experiment.I have two identical containers with temperature probes inserted. In one chamber I insert one molecule of a gas with a velocity V. The frequency that the molecule will strike the probe is a function of V and the kinetic energy it will transfer to the probe is a function of V squared. I record the temperature and then double the velocity of the molecule. the molecule will strike the probe twice as often and deliver four times the kinetic energy to the probe. I again record the temperature.
In the second container I inject eight identical gas molecule with a velocity of V. The frequency of a molecule striking the probe increase by a factor of eight delivering the same kinetic energy to the probe as when doubled the velocity of the single molecule in the first chamber.
Your contention is that the temperature recorded in the second container will be the same as the first temperature recorded in the first container. not the same as the second temperature where the energy transferred to the probe is the same. Is this another case where the experiment knows your watching and adjusts results to conform to your beliefs.
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