What utter tosh. Of course photons exist. If you think they don't, I'm there is a Nobel prize waiting for you. I'm sure the foremost physicists in the field would love to know what they've been missing.
@BlankVellum How can you prove that something exists if the moment you 'see' it, it vanishes? What did you actually see? Try thinking a little bit, it's good for you.
@dndn1011 What vanishes exactly? I'd be curious to know how a) you explain the photoelectric effect without invoking photons, and b) what it is exactly which creates a response in the photoreceptors of my eyes and allows me to see objects, and thereby infer the existence of some sort of reality. Is it magic? Is it that I am the only thing that exists? The latter is certainly nothing more than wanton sophistry.
@BlankVellum The point is that to say a photon exists is meaningless. It is not a particle, or a wave, cannot be measured during it's 'travel', has paradoxes that are incompatible with the concept of traveling or existence. It has no mass, travels instantly with respect to it's own frame of reference. It is well known a photon may only be detected once. There is no way to prove that a photon existed before detection, and once detected it certainly no longer exists.
@dndn1011 This is wrong on so many levels. It can be measured on its travels, but of course in the case of the double slit experiment that cancels the interference. That doesn't actually mean that photons don't exist. If they don't, then you would to explain a great many phenomena commonly associated with light. The entire field of optics, for a start, particularly lasers. If you can't provide a sufficient alternative, then your assertion really is literally nonsensical.
@BlankVellum Photons cannot be measured during their travel, therefore any idea you have about what direction they travelled in can only be an assumption. The problem is that this assumption causes all kinds of problems with the logical consistency of physics, which Niels Bohr tried to solve by stating that what you cannot measure does not matter. The model, as I said, is useful. But it has its limits, hence the swathe of paradoxes that quantum mechanics has yet to resolve.
@dndn1011 False. You can measure the effect that shining a light on something will have. The path the photon takes is open to debate. Feynman went as far as to propose the 'sum over histories' interpretation, whereby the light takes all possible paths. This concept is used in string theory (flop transitions), whereby the universe is shielded from tears in space by strings. That doesn't mean photons don't exist. You premise is valid, your conclusion most certainly is not.
@BlankVellum I am asserting that a photon does not exist as an entity that has any classical properties. No mass, velocity or direction. Something happens, but that does not prove a particle exists which travels. This is compatible with Feynman's interpretation. My reason for this focus is that in my opinion it removes the conflict of the dual split experiment. Such conflict exists only because of the assumption that photons travel. The effect of light is provable. The photon itself is not.
@BlankVellum I believe I have justified this through my proposed experiment. Clearly the 'photons' have to 'agree' to pass through, or not pass through the polarising filters even though they 'hit' them at different times. I argue that this shows the photons do not travel, but the whole event is 'executed' as a single transaction.. which would be compatible with Feynman.
@dndn1011 "I argue that this shows the photons do not travel, but the whole event is 'executed' as a single transaction.. which would be compatible with Feynman."
Ok, and does this show that photons do not exist? No. Something is providing the observational outcomes of the experiments. If that something are not photons, what are they?
@BlankVellum It would appear that, as I state in my slides, the whole sequence from 'creation' to detection is executed as a single transaction. There is no traveling. There is just a big probability wave. Nothing travels. A probability function is turned into an event from a random selection of possibilities. And that's Feynman. My point is that trying to answer "Which Way did the photon go" then makes no sense at all. Photons does not exists in the classical sense of existence.
@dndn1011 "the whole sequence from 'creation' to detection is executed as a single transaction"
But this would be to ignore the vast swathes of experimental evidence that it is not a single transaction. We can measure the speed of light precisely. We can measure the primordial matter structures in the CMB and know that the light from them have been traveling at the speed of light for the entire age of the universe. QED does not do away with the photon, it merely reinterprets it.
@BlankVellum When does a reinterpretation become worthy of a different name? I really feel you are getting a bit pedantic. I am really questioning whether whether photons travel, rather than whether light exists, because clearly light does exist, doesn't it?
It offends you, feel free to ignore the provocative title, and draw what you find interesting, if anything, from the thoughts I present. I feel I have been very clear about what I am actually trying to say.
@dndn1011 If the only thing you are disputing is that photons travel, then surely the title of your video; that they do not exist at all, is spurious? But we can infer that photons travel because we can measure the time lag between the emission of light from a single KNOWN source, to its detection at its endpoint. There is no other explanation for this.
@BlankVellum If your objection is to the provocative title of my video, then thank you for making that known. However, I don't think it is really so important, do you? I mean it is not like I am anyone influential; if I make people think, I am happy, whether or not I am right, which is not actually very important.
@dndn1011 Well you could have at leas put a caveat in your video or something highlighting that your title wasn't meant to be taken literally. But sure, I see your point. Cheers anyway man.
@dndn1011 It's an improvement. Of course, I still disagree. I mean, the photon still needs to get from A to B (source and detector), and there is traveling involved in that. And no one seriously doubts the veracity of the universal speed limit (the speed of light), laid down by Maxwell and expounded upon by Einstein. So, from this we can infer that the light from the CMB was, under any definition, traveling across the vacuum of space until it reached the detectors of our most advanced telescopes
@dndn1011 "I argue that this shows the photons do not travel, but the whole event is 'executed' as a single transaction.. which would be compatible with Feynman."
Ok, and does this show that photons do not exist? No. Something is providing the observational outcomes of the experiments. If that something are not photons, what are they? if you cannot provide a reasonable alternative, then I can dismiss the entirety of your argument.
@dndn1011 "There is no way to prove that a photon existed before detection,"
Is this such a bizarre train of thought. I could easily say that because matter cannot be shown to exist without being observed, then prior to observation, it didn't exist. Now, could you explain either a) or b) that I presented to you earlier? The photoelectric effect particularly, as Einstein established beyond reasonable doubt light comes in packets of energy, or 'quanta'. it is these quanta that we call photons.
@BlankVellum "There is no way to prove that a photon existed before detection," is easily shown. It is known by experiment that a photon cannot be detected twice. Thus there is no way to prove, in any individual event, that a photon existed at a previous point in time, or what path it took. In practice we have a pretty good guess. If the light hitting your retina goes through a lens, then it gives you an idea of where the photon 'came from', but only because other paths are ruled out.
@dndn1011 "If the light hitting your retina goes through a lens, then it gives you an idea of where the photon 'came from', but only because other paths are ruled out"
Imagine you had your eyes shut, and you shone a torch in a completely dark room with a black object in the center (ie it emits no light at all). You're not seriously suggesting that before the light hit your eyes, it could have come from the torch OR the black object? That is absurd.We know the mechanism by which light is emitted
@BlankVellum If you shut your eyes, any light seeping through your eyelid is scattered and thus you lose nearly all directional information when your retina detects a photon. Further if you detect a single photon, you would have no way to prove where it came from. Perhaps the black object emitted a single photon anyway. You open you eyes, and then assume it came from the torch. If you know the black object cannot emit light, you are simply using that prior knowledge to answer the question.
@BlankVellum Sorry for the confusion. I will rephrase for you. If you assume that a photon exists and travels before detection (after which it certainly ceases to exist) there is no way to prove where it came from apart from inferring it from the physical conditions of your experiment. I hope that's clearer. However if you want more robust discussion, maybe this comment page is not the best place.
@dndn1011 But a photon is merely a packet of energy traveling at the speed of light. It certainly disappears when it hits something, because it is absorbed by the electron, which in turn shunts to a higher energy shell. This is basic quantum physics. And yes, the way we demonstrate where it came from is to use our understanding of the mechanism of photon emission by electrons, which is very solid indeed. A torch has a filament with a current that is exciting the electrons, which emit photons.
@BlankVellum I should point out that your statement uses the word "Traveling" which I believe cannot be applied to light. Light does not travel like a ball through the air. That's the point of what I am saying. Light is a form of energy, and it appears this energy can be at one point at a certain time, and another at a later time. It appears to travel and take time in doing that. But it is wrong to think it is like a packet of energy localised in space traveling at the speed of light.
@dndn1011 "But it is wrong to think it is like a packet of energy localised in space traveling at the speed of light"
Well, because of the uncertainty principle, we cannot know both the momentum and the position of a particle such as a photon. So now it seems your argument has been reduced to 'photons do not travel in the 'classical' sense of objects whose position and momentum can be simultaneously verified'. But this fact has been know for nearly 100 years, since Heisenberg. It's nothing new.
@BlankVellum It is clear that something occurs to create effects that are witnessed in detectors such a the retina, however it is not clear at all that this something is caused by an actual physical entity. The existence of photons as an actual physical entity is an axiomatic assumption. It's a useful assumption, of course. But still an assumption. Check out my video "Truth" for more information about science and assumptions.
@dndn1011 I think I see where you're going with this, and I have to simply say that I've heard it all before. Yes, strictly speaking you cannot prove that photons exists in any absolute sense, but then science does not deal in absolutes. You have asserted that photons do not exists (not 'maybe', or 'possibly' don't exist), yet you have provided nothing in the way of an alternative explanation. Feel free to overturn the entire field of quantum physics. I look forward to your Novel prize.
@BlankVellum Funny that, you have now agreed with me "Yes, strictly speaking you cannot prove that photons exists in any absolute sense". Which now leaves you with only the option for attacking me remaining: an attack because I said something. Did I say anywhere "Bring me a Nobel Prize?". No. See the last slide, which states "Nothing new? Then call it a mini Thesis then", and STFU.
@dndn1011 No, I agreed with your premise. It don't think it is ultimately true, but it is logically consistent. Your assertion that therefore photons do not exist, however, needs some heavy duty justification. That is the reason why I am attacking you. At least be intellectually honest and say that PERHAPS this means photons do not exist. Write a scientific paper highlighting your method. Otherwise this will be viewed (and rightly so) as fringe pseudoscience without content or validity.
@BlankVellum If the existence of something is determined by measurement, and we have an entity that can only be measured once, we then cannot prove that it exists as an entity. We cannot prove it existed in the past, or will exist in the future. All we can prove is that we detected an event. We could say that it existed at the moment of detection, but that is a infinitely small slice of time. So, I think it is reasonable to say that they do not exist in the classical sense of existence.
@dndn1011 "If the existence of something is determined by measurement, and we have an entity that can only be measured once, we then cannot prove that it exists as an entity. "
We can measure the existence of one photon once. We can measure the existence of many photons as many times as we want. Your using a very extreme form of induction to argue that knowledge about anything past or present is impossible. Forgive me if I ignore this linguistic sophistry.
@dndn1011 (cont)..this is of course removed from whether they travel on one single path, or every possible path, as Feynman thought. The point is, they still travel, and they still have a source. if they did not, we would not be able to know about anything in the universe, as what we do know comes from light traveling across the vast distances of space, as well as that of time (because photons, traveling at the speed of light, do not age).
@BlankVellum The traveling by all paths is actually the same as the execution of a single probability function. That is, like one massive equation. In that sense there is no traveling. It is possible that this massive function executes for each photonic emission, giving a probability function of where it will be detected. Then the probability field collapses at a single possible detection point from the entire set. *That* actually matches experiment evidence AFSIK
@dndn1011 By probability function I presume you mean wavefunction. Most interpretations still conceive of the photon as 'traveling'. I see I'm just getting bogged down in semantics here. My primary objection was that photons do not exist. As I see you didn't actually mean that, then the rest, as they say, is history.
@BlankVellum Well I argue that something that does not travel does not really exists "In the way that we know it", but anyway glad we sorted that out.
@dndn1011 Conventional ideas of "existence" and "traveling" carry a locality implication. But I think we can salvage these concepts, as long as we understand how far down the rabbit hole non-locality requires us to go, particularly with respect to time. The universe works in parallel, not in series, and what we see is very much influenced by the "branches" we don't have direct access to.
Don't most things that show wave patterns exist as nothing more than energy? Heat exists, but it isn't a thing. It's a transfer of energy from one thing too another. Maybe light travels the same way, as energy passed from one thing too another.
@dvholston You are right that photons are technically energy, but like all quantum particles, it can present itself as a wave or as a particle. The difference with photons it that in order for it to behave like a particle it must have "mass". Physicists have given the photon a virtual "mass" based on its energy, described by Plank's constant. Actuall most things that show wave patterns are more than energy and contain mass. Even people have wave patterns (though near infinitely small :P)
I agree with you. Photons exist only as copies of an original waveform they don't really 'travel' as particles. Its like a throwing a stone in a lake, the water molecules don't travel from the point of impact to the shore only a copy of an original waveform impacts the shore. Same for sound and electricity. Without a resistor nothing exists. Thats Russelian physics for you ie the real physics. Read his book "The Universal One" its pure genius.
@Hobbzie22 It exists as an electron frequency waveform first. This waveform causes a ripple through a sea of plasma aka space. Every ripple is a wavelength or but its only a copy of that original electron waveform and it only becomes apparent when it hits resistance. Then it is absorbed into the resistor and ceases to exist as a photon but can still exist as a memory for example or as an electron again when it gets absorbed into another atom.
@Hobbzie22 Can you disrupt a wavefunction without destroying it? If you have a blue photon and you disrupt its wavefunction its no longer that wavelength so it becomes a different color so that should make it a different particle I think. Its definitely something to ponder, I gotta think about that a little.
@rushwarp The distrupted wavefunction of a blue photon would technically still be blue. Not distructive as in interference. I'm not talking about interference. Look up the double slit trick on google. If you are look at a particle while it is going through the slits, the trick doesn't work. This is quite the question, I'm not quite sure if anyone can really answer the question unless you define existence.
@Hobbzie22 Please clarify are you speaking about behavior of a stream of photons or a single one? Are you disrupting a stream or an individual particle?
@Hobbzie22 Well sure, but you can argue definitions forever. With all the newances of photons or fields etc. You can argue that plasma is really The Holy Spirit or you can claim its boson field or you can say its a vectored magnetic field. Take you pick enjoy yourself. :)
I recommend Bill Gaede's videos on the topic of architecture of light & atoms. He proposes an EM Rope (entwined helix threads), so that light is simply tension between stimulated interconnected atoms, pumping signals via torsion "waves" along the entwined threads (EM Rope). Links in the rope are what we understand as wave behavior; each link a particle (photon, electron); intersection of threads a proton/neutron (depending on cross-section); threads slinking around atoms the electron shell, etc
@altonator91 yeah you know i was taught about photons in college and i never believed in them... the professor just taught us that they were for the visible light spectrum only, but once i went to the NASA website and read about how photons and how they are part of the whole spectrum i did understand it. i do see they exist, but i just dont fully understand. i realized that probably photons from a spectrum which is not visible act a lot like the ones we do see. which is awesome to think about.
if light where made of photons then what is really in the power transformer supplying current to your house, big marble sized photons emmited from one coil then impact in the other coil? don´t you guys think photons may seem a bit stupid? i can explain how light induce currents in a material, when a wave with a lenght of blue hit electrons, the wave move as a single pole on a magnet, and the electrons aligns and attract toward the wave. in between the electrons they repel, want to fly apart.
@maplebayou1 yes light consist of classical waves.
there is no need for light to be particles to explain how light can induce electricity.
the funny part is that electrons are waves to, its just that these wave move in a confined space and are called standing waves. its the standing waves that interact with light and not the particle center itself. the frequency of the standing wave determine how big the particle is. a standing wave consist of an out wave and an in wave that are out of phase.
If your only point was that photons aren't particles in the classical sense, doesn't this apply to pretty much all fundamental particles? Or am I missing something?
@pyVlad They aren't waves either, certainly not classical waves. If you send a classical wave through an apparatus, its behavior at a particular time does not change based on what you do AFTER that. People often try to resolve the issue by invoking wave/particle duality. But the issue is not whether the particle can have 2 different "natures." The real mystery is how it can possibly adjust its behavior at a given point in time based on something that hasn't happened yet.
@maplebayou1 Quantum electrodynamics, if I recall correctly, solves this by making them particles (or rather, quanta, since they can't be talked about as particles in the classical sense) with some properties that, under the right conditions, look like waves. I don't know if other parts of quantum mechanics follow this, although I do know that quantum chromodynamics is being developed using QED.
@pyVlad I have a hard enough time with QM. But surely our common-sense notions of time are at risk. Fermions don't seem to know if they're coming or going, and photons don't seem to know what time it is.
@maplebayou1 Yes, the universe isn't required to obey our common-sense notions. The universe is the way it is, and we happen to live in a place where the laws that actually exist are multiplied, cancelled out, and other things, and that's what we've evolved to think about.
@maplebayou1 as far as i can tell. the wave is existance itself. the crest and the trough is where the particle is more likely to exist and bottom of the crest is where the particle avoids,
@mignik01 Indeed, I think you could conceptualize it that way. Although some interpretations would have it that the wave is not a physical thing, but merely a mathematical construct that we use to describe the behavior of a physical particle. In terms of its creation and absorption, a photon doesn't partially exist. It springs into being taking a given amount of energy with it, and it ultimately vanishes, imparting the same amount of energy. What is happening in between is the question.
The time differentials become much more severe in quantum eraser experiments involving entangled particles. In principle we could have one set of particles "doing their thing," with the results recorded but not observed by human eyes, only years later deciding what to do with their entangled twins, which will determine the "previous" outcome.
I kinda get what your saying, but polarized light is a reduction of the E field in the “y” direction, the photon is not eliminated. Your presentation is literally very blurry, I do not know if this is a fact that others have noticed. If you wish to continue discussion drop me a personal message. Thanks.
thanks it's an interesting thought experiment. i will think about this. would the same effects occur with interference of spin half particles? my first thought is - does introducing the polarizing filter amount to somehow conducting a measurement which will have a disturbing influence on the "particle"? if we did it with a beam of electrons - passing them through a spin-selector before the slit, we would surely say that it would...?
when i see that experiment, it always reminds me of the binary distribution models where pingpong balls fall down through pegs in a glass front box and form a bell curve in the slots in the bottom. The pegs are like the high/low cancellation points where the waveform interferes with itself. Am I on the right track here?
@breaneainn freaky. I was thinking exactly the same thing last night, as a model for the effect of refraction (causing a lower speed of light in materials)... the atoms probably act as "slits" so the photon probability function can be considered to consists of a very large set of slits arranged in rows. It's no longer which way, but which path: the resulting probability field is from the sum of all paths: and this must cause a slowing of light as the path is no longer straight.
I get the impression that this experiment points to photons being an artifact of energy in spacetime. Does light have a fractional symmetry >1? If the slits were only just wide enough to allow the photon through, would it destroy the interference? Would firing alternate photons of differing or harmonic frequencies result in complimentary distribution or would one subtract from the other? I have a headache now.
It is important to realize that things like photons and electrons are not particles, nor are they waves, they are something else that have similar properties to both.
@legacyspy Yes, I know. Except what I am saying is that it is wrong to say a photon is both a wave and a particle: a photon is probably neither, because it probably does not travel at all (Travelling is common to both waves and particles). It is more like a mathematical equation (a probability field) that determines where the photon will be detected. If you accept my view, then it is meaningless to ever talk about "Which way did the photon go?" at all.
You came to your conclusion by noticing an inconsistency with what happens if you use polarization in the double slit experiment, but you did a classical treatment of it so this inconsistency may go away if you use quantum photon polarization.
@legacyspy I do not believe that this is relevant, however even if it is in this experiment, the delayed path interferometer shows the same idea without using polarization.
Your conclusion is correct, the current consensus in physics is that the particle wasn't anywhere until you(or a device) observes it. Observing the particle forces it to take a stand. However, the photon definitely did exist, as in a bell's theorem experiment it makes a difference if the particle had an unknown, but defined position. Additionally I don't think your logic for it is correct as you are applying a classical treatment of polarization to a quantum effect.
@legacyspy The key point I am making is to do with time, which you make no mention of. Take a look at my proposal for what I call a "Delayed Path Interferometer", maybe it will help understand where I am coming from. The reason I call this "Photon's don't exist" is because I believe I show that a photon can have no history, no path. Something that is destroyed the moment it is detected and has no history does not actually ever exist. Existence implies existence for some period of time...
Nothing really exists until it's observed, that's the basic idea of quantum mechanics. Things don't appear from nowhere when the wave function collapses, the wave function calculates the probability that it was already there and that probability increases to 100% at the point where it's observed and 0% everywhere else when it collapses.
@dndn1011 Observed, as I understand it, means to detect then analyse. Any method of detection means an interaction with the particle or wave of interest and the net result of the interaction when analysed is reality for that observer at that moment. A photon is a complete expanding sphere so it can “be” wherever it's detected, leaving no history that it was anywhere else.
@857frank but what is not clear is where the chain of causality ends up with a measurement. Is it when consciousness observes the photon (or a device that detected the photon)? This is called "Consciousness Causes Collapse" and despite being the only logical destination of this train of thought, CCC is called "Quantum Mysticism" by some. Quite irrationally I should add.
This is what I have allways thought from a relativistic point of view. Light (traveling at the speed of light) experiences no time traveling from point to point. If it experienced any time then it woudl experience all time, so it must not actually exsist for any time. From the perspective of the photon it travels instantaineously and does not travel any distance either.
It is true photons only seem to exist when the light waves comes in contact with an object. Then the wave function collapses forming a discrete or quantized form of energy in the shape of a photon. If this is a universal and continuous process could it be forming the passage of time? Because each new photon will have a unique position in space and time that the light waves never had before they made contact with an object.
@nickharvey7 maybe the best way to approach the problem is by removing the concept of time, which may have no meaning at the quantum level. Time is defined by the rate of movement of objects. If the concept of movement does not have meaning at the quantum level, then perhaps neither does time.
@dndn1011 The paradoxes of QM like Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle are based on the movement of the wave function. You say that Time is defined by the rate of movement of objects. If this is so could the universal process of the w function collapsing and reforming represent the Time continuum itself? Each new photon will have a unique position in space and time that never excised before the collapse. This would make the Uncertainty Principle the same uncertainty we have with any future event.
@dndn1011 If classical physics is based on quantum physics then our everyday life is based on the paradoxes of quantum physics. We have a continuous flow of time that forms future probability that cannot be measured. Could the Uncertainty Principle and the Measurement Problem at the quantum level be forming this continuous flow of time?
When you close your eyes does the world disappear? Are the football results there until the exact moment when you read about them? Do the lottery numbers exist until you see them?
Replace any of the above analogies with photon and the answer is no. Makes me wonder about these football results...
@sewageable When you do not observe the world, you cannot prove it is still there. That it is still there is only an assumption. However, assumptions can be very useful, and it is a very useful assumption.
not only would you have to be blind, but be at loss with the other senses. imagine living in a world without the five senses. you would never know of your own existence..or death. if you do not know of your own existence, does the world exist?
My interpretation is the one that runs like this: a photon (or electron or any object small enough to exhibit wave properties) does not have a specific location, it is like a fuzzy cloud defined by mathematics. Sometimes these waves can become elongated, stretched, squeezed, and there is no limit to how big the field can get. You can stretch out a photon's probability field to the size of a galaxy if you want to. Just make a double-split experiment out of starlight.
photons do exist, their movement would suggest that a wave is present ,
but what is a wave? its easy to say something like " oh its not a particle look at how it moves it has to be a wave"
but what is a wave? a wave is just a chaotic movement of a particle ...its a particle that can literally exist in more places at once , or in no places , or dissapear and reappear , creating a wave like movement ...but it is ultimately a particle.
you are right. I have though about this question in connection with other questions; the entire notion of a field of quanta between atomic events, is in-between measurement and therefore is intrinsically untestable, and also it reduces the concept of D scontinuos Ch nge, by replacing it with a macroscopic metaphor in the image of continuos motion, just as any spatial medium reduces A p a r t n e s s between Planets, by replacing it with a metaphor that is in the image of something together
@dndn1011 That is a nice point!, for even what they measure as a constant rate 'c' cannot be compared with clock motion, at least literally. and this 'c' would not literally be a number or even a speed, per se, if there is no photon moving inbetween atomic events...and 'c' would be the very basis of time. I'm glad I found your channel ; )
@CammieSpectrum The best analogy I can come up with is the idea of transactions in a database. It is almost as if the entire experiment is executed in a single transaction. There are no stages. The universe may be functional rather than procedural. Classical mechanics is procedural. Make any sense?
@dndn1011 I think what you call Transactional, I call D scontinuos Ch nge, which I contrast with Continuos Motion, and Continuos Motion is an Actualized Potential, whereas D scontinuos Ch nge is Potentially Actualized(Non Decided), since I beleive that there is a teleological direction towards a result: Diffaction Pattern. Not to take anything away from what you are saying. Wittgenstein would like this video as well...he critiqued science's projection of macroscopic metaphors
are you refering to the probability of superposition, that an object is in multiple position until it is observed in a location thus it pops into existence, which is the current theory of how electrons work.
@GGAlice1 No I have not 'disproved' them, only pointed out that since we can only measure them once and when we measure them they vanish, and combined with the experiment I describe, we can only conclude that photons do not exist as either particles or waves, but as something else entirely... This comes directly from the existing understood laws of physics.
Forgive a laymen for a question. There exist, at least in design, solar sail space ships that have as an energy source not the conversion of light to energy, but rather the mass of billions of photons striking the sails accelerate it.
It seems irrelevant whether the photons are observed, so wouldn't the moving sail ship prove the exist of at least the mass of phontons?
I'm no physicist just a hobbyist so I apologise if the question makes no sense.
@TheSwamper - Don't pay any attention to this nutcase. dndn1011 is a kook who thinks he's smarter than Einstein, Bohr, Feyman and 100 years of physics.
@markeymonkey that's the funny thing, it does not actually spit in th face of anything; this is a consequence of what we know. All I am doing is highlighting an assumption.
@TheSwamper That is one of those very interesting questions that I have yet to find a satisfactory answer to. The problem is that a photon moves at the speed of light: something that is impossible for any object. If a photon had a mass, in the normal sense of mass, then it would be carrying infinite energy. If you find an explanation, let me know. try searching google for "does a photon have mass?".
@TheSwamper BTW, according to wikipedia (not the world's best source admittedly, but 1noen1 will believe it) a photon has no mass. All I am saying is that a photon does not exist because the moment it is detected it is destroyed... which leaves the troubling question "how can be prove it existed at all". How can we prove it traveled? How can we prove where it came from? Mathematically we cannot... we can only make assumptions. There is an important subtlety here.
@dndn1011 -- If something is destroyed then it must have existed. A photon is a wave packet that has a certain energy. When it is detected it isn't so much as destroyed but rather it's energy is transfered to the detector. Nothing is lost. There is no paradox. You are a fool.
@1noen1 You are completely missing the point of what I am saying. The point is that because you can never observe a photon without destroying it, we can only ever guess at its existence before it was detected, at which point it no longer exists. Thus in a very real sense, a photon does not exist. You can never detect one twice. You can only guess at where it came from. This is 100% in line with current scientific thinking, and perhaps you need to do a bit of studying yourself.
@dndn1011 -- If you detect something then obviously it exists. Nor is it ever fully destroyed, it's energy is transfered to the detector. Usually by bumping an electron into a higher energy orbit from which it quickly decays releasing a photon.
Your logic is: "I detect a photon, therefore photons do not exist". You're a fucking moron.
"because you can never observe a photon without destroying it, we can only ever guess at its existence before it was detected"
This isn't just nonsense, it's nonsense on stilts. You are saying that because your eyes can see the photons all around us that means they don't exist.
@1noen1 FACT:photon can only be detected once. FACT:because of this you cannot measure the path of a photon.FACT:Because of this you can not build a detector that can detect where a photon came from (that requires two detections) FACT:Because of this you can only guess at where a photon came from by the way your experiment is set up (e.g. it must have come that way because all other ways are blocked) FACT:I am happy you don't like my music, rude,ignorant,brain dead,soul-less fans are useless.
wikipedia is more accurate then encyclopedia britannica for 1. it exist because when electrons change energy levels they release light in the form of photons. this is obvious if you've ever seen a neon sign or graduated high school. also regarding you video you dont say anythign for 1, and 2 the pictures are poor qualtiy.
@babashroud That's the problem: Mathematics cannot solve this quandry. Check out the delayed path interferometer experiment video in my upload if you want. Cheers!
i'm not sure the logic here is completely sound. without having spent too much time analyzing the details here, have you otherwise done any of the actual math involved in solving a double-slit problem? i've spent a solid month or so in a quantum mechanics course solving such problems, and it seems pretty uncontroversial. the double-slit experiment can, in fact, be explained in a photonic paradigm, although the details escape me now.
i will say, the notion of photons is pretty unintuitive.
I think maybe time is an illusion that we experience because our minds are designed to experience one instant after another in a logical order. But the underlying reality is a universe where everything exists simaltaniously as one big tapestry and each thread is a light ray. We think the photon is moving, but from its point of view, it exists in every point of its journey simaltaniously. That's how it "knows" whats in front of it.
As I understand, travelling means going from one place to another. If you turn on some source and you detect something in other place, it must be something that went from the source to the detector, don't you think?
I have seen your proposed experiment, I haven't made it but it could be interesting, I guess the "travelling time" would be different depending on the path the photon takes, so sending a single photon you could know the path it took, but the path difference must to be enough long
Photons exist, the notion of particle is explained accurately by QFT (quantum field theory) in flat spacetime (minkowskian). The vacuum |0> is just the state where you can't annhilate any particle, act some photon-creation operator 'a' and you get a photon: a|0>=|1>; it exists, detection is other point...
The point is that because you can only detect a photon once, you cannot infer that it travels, ever. This is an assumption (an axiom). The use of this axiom is a choice. If you disregard this axiom the whole of science falls apart. That is, the whole of science was built on the concept of waves and particles being things which travel. The failure of science to reach a unified theory could well be because of such a flawed axioms.
But we can infer there is something which connects the source and the detector, for that it must travel somehow. We have studied these phenomenons and build the theories that we know they work in their respective frames; the problems to reach a ToE are based specially in the gravity quantization
Define what is meant by the concept of 'Travel'. Then prove the scientifically observed behaviour of a photon is consistent with that concept. If you can do these two thing rigorously then the idea that photons travel will have meaning.
Unfortunately, this is proving impossible to do.
To see why this is impossible, check out my video about the delayed path interferometer experiment. Even as a thought experiment it presents what I believe to be an unsolvable paradox.
if we cant imagine a photon to be a miniball particle then how does it appear?....,how does it move?....,what causes it to move......in short "how can we visualise a photon".......well Im not too bright in science but I kinda lihe photon and energy fields stuff :-)
how about the theory that each piece of aether is only effected for a small scale of time and you could see it only if you can watch as fast as the force moves the aether.
I believe that your thoughts on the nature and behavior of a photon are in complete agreement with quantum physics. Read the book "Quantum for the perplexed" (you might have already, or perhaps its too simplified for you) and you'll see that the author makes a much similar argument. To the best of my knowledge, the different photons could indeed share some information about each other, something that could be explained using quantum physics.
The video title is eye catching, theres something to that idea.
Alas, without a soundtrack, rap or wild rock...its not possible to watch.
And so another brilliant scientific breakthrough falls by the wayside.
Will mankind never learn?
jonesgerard 7 months ago
What utter tosh. Of course photons exist. If you think they don't, I'm there is a Nobel prize waiting for you. I'm sure the foremost physicists in the field would love to know what they've been missing.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum How can you prove that something exists if the moment you 'see' it, it vanishes? What did you actually see? Try thinking a little bit, it's good for you.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 What vanishes exactly? I'd be curious to know how a) you explain the photoelectric effect without invoking photons, and b) what it is exactly which creates a response in the photoreceptors of my eyes and allows me to see objects, and thereby infer the existence of some sort of reality. Is it magic? Is it that I am the only thing that exists? The latter is certainly nothing more than wanton sophistry.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum The point is that to say a photon exists is meaningless. It is not a particle, or a wave, cannot be measured during it's 'travel', has paradoxes that are incompatible with the concept of traveling or existence. It has no mass, travels instantly with respect to it's own frame of reference. It is well known a photon may only be detected once. There is no way to prove that a photon existed before detection, and once detected it certainly no longer exists.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 This is wrong on so many levels. It can be measured on its travels, but of course in the case of the double slit experiment that cancels the interference. That doesn't actually mean that photons don't exist. If they don't, then you would to explain a great many phenomena commonly associated with light. The entire field of optics, for a start, particularly lasers. If you can't provide a sufficient alternative, then your assertion really is literally nonsensical.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum Photons cannot be measured during their travel, therefore any idea you have about what direction they travelled in can only be an assumption. The problem is that this assumption causes all kinds of problems with the logical consistency of physics, which Niels Bohr tried to solve by stating that what you cannot measure does not matter. The model, as I said, is useful. But it has its limits, hence the swathe of paradoxes that quantum mechanics has yet to resolve.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 False. You can measure the effect that shining a light on something will have. The path the photon takes is open to debate. Feynman went as far as to propose the 'sum over histories' interpretation, whereby the light takes all possible paths. This concept is used in string theory (flop transitions), whereby the universe is shielded from tears in space by strings. That doesn't mean photons don't exist. You premise is valid, your conclusion most certainly is not.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum I am asserting that a photon does not exist as an entity that has any classical properties. No mass, velocity or direction. Something happens, but that does not prove a particle exists which travels. This is compatible with Feynman's interpretation. My reason for this focus is that in my opinion it removes the conflict of the dual split experiment. Such conflict exists only because of the assumption that photons travel. The effect of light is provable. The photon itself is not.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "I am asserting that a photon does not exist as an entity that has any classical properties"
yet you have not provided any justification for this.
"Something happens, but that does not prove a particle exists which travels"
Then what does it prove? Provide a rigorous mathematical alternative, complete with observational verification.
There are many ways of removing the dual slit paradox, but asserting that photons don't exist is not counted as among the better explanations.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum I believe I have justified this through my proposed experiment. Clearly the 'photons' have to 'agree' to pass through, or not pass through the polarising filters even though they 'hit' them at different times. I argue that this shows the photons do not travel, but the whole event is 'executed' as a single transaction.. which would be compatible with Feynman.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "I argue that this shows the photons do not travel, but the whole event is 'executed' as a single transaction.. which would be compatible with Feynman."
Ok, and does this show that photons do not exist? No. Something is providing the observational outcomes of the experiments. If that something are not photons, what are they?
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum It would appear that, as I state in my slides, the whole sequence from 'creation' to detection is executed as a single transaction. There is no traveling. There is just a big probability wave. Nothing travels. A probability function is turned into an event from a random selection of possibilities. And that's Feynman. My point is that trying to answer "Which Way did the photon go" then makes no sense at all. Photons does not exists in the classical sense of existence.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "the whole sequence from 'creation' to detection is executed as a single transaction"
But this would be to ignore the vast swathes of experimental evidence that it is not a single transaction. We can measure the speed of light precisely. We can measure the primordial matter structures in the CMB and know that the light from them have been traveling at the speed of light for the entire age of the universe. QED does not do away with the photon, it merely reinterprets it.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum When does a reinterpretation become worthy of a different name? I really feel you are getting a bit pedantic. I am really questioning whether whether photons travel, rather than whether light exists, because clearly light does exist, doesn't it?
It offends you, feel free to ignore the provocative title, and draw what you find interesting, if anything, from the thoughts I present. I feel I have been very clear about what I am actually trying to say.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 If the only thing you are disputing is that photons travel, then surely the title of your video; that they do not exist at all, is spurious? But we can infer that photons travel because we can measure the time lag between the emission of light from a single KNOWN source, to its detection at its endpoint. There is no other explanation for this.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum If your objection is to the provocative title of my video, then thank you for making that known. However, I don't think it is really so important, do you? I mean it is not like I am anyone influential; if I make people think, I am happy, whether or not I am right, which is not actually very important.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "I mean it is not like I am anyone influential; if I make people think, I am happy,"
The title is misleading, which does bother me. You could have at least put a caveat in the video. But sure, I see your point. Cheers anyway man.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@dndn1011 Well you could have at leas put a caveat in your video or something highlighting that your title wasn't meant to be taken literally. But sure, I see your point. Cheers anyway man.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum OK I changed the title. I hope you find it more acceptable.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 It's an improvement. Of course, I still disagree. I mean, the photon still needs to get from A to B (source and detector), and there is traveling involved in that. And no one seriously doubts the veracity of the universal speed limit (the speed of light), laid down by Maxwell and expounded upon by Einstein. So, from this we can infer that the light from the CMB was, under any definition, traveling across the vacuum of space until it reached the detectors of our most advanced telescopes
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "I argue that this shows the photons do not travel, but the whole event is 'executed' as a single transaction.. which would be compatible with Feynman."
Ok, and does this show that photons do not exist? No. Something is providing the observational outcomes of the experiments. If that something are not photons, what are they? if you cannot provide a reasonable alternative, then I can dismiss the entirety of your argument.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "There is no way to prove that a photon existed before detection,"
Is this such a bizarre train of thought. I could easily say that because matter cannot be shown to exist without being observed, then prior to observation, it didn't exist. Now, could you explain either a) or b) that I presented to you earlier? The photoelectric effect particularly, as Einstein established beyond reasonable doubt light comes in packets of energy, or 'quanta'. it is these quanta that we call photons.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum "There is no way to prove that a photon existed before detection," is easily shown. It is known by experiment that a photon cannot be detected twice. Thus there is no way to prove, in any individual event, that a photon existed at a previous point in time, or what path it took. In practice we have a pretty good guess. If the light hitting your retina goes through a lens, then it gives you an idea of where the photon 'came from', but only because other paths are ruled out.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "If the light hitting your retina goes through a lens, then it gives you an idea of where the photon 'came from', but only because other paths are ruled out"
Imagine you had your eyes shut, and you shone a torch in a completely dark room with a black object in the center (ie it emits no light at all). You're not seriously suggesting that before the light hit your eyes, it could have come from the torch OR the black object? That is absurd.We know the mechanism by which light is emitted
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum If you shut your eyes, any light seeping through your eyelid is scattered and thus you lose nearly all directional information when your retina detects a photon. Further if you detect a single photon, you would have no way to prove where it came from. Perhaps the black object emitted a single photon anyway. You open you eyes, and then assume it came from the torch. If you know the black object cannot emit light, you are simply using that prior knowledge to answer the question.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "Further if you detect a single photon, you would have no way to prove where it came from"
Wait, so now you admit that photons exist? I'm confused.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum Sorry for the confusion. I will rephrase for you. If you assume that a photon exists and travels before detection (after which it certainly ceases to exist) there is no way to prove where it came from apart from inferring it from the physical conditions of your experiment. I hope that's clearer. However if you want more robust discussion, maybe this comment page is not the best place.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 But a photon is merely a packet of energy traveling at the speed of light. It certainly disappears when it hits something, because it is absorbed by the electron, which in turn shunts to a higher energy shell. This is basic quantum physics. And yes, the way we demonstrate where it came from is to use our understanding of the mechanism of photon emission by electrons, which is very solid indeed. A torch has a filament with a current that is exciting the electrons, which emit photons.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum I should point out that your statement uses the word "Traveling" which I believe cannot be applied to light. Light does not travel like a ball through the air. That's the point of what I am saying. Light is a form of energy, and it appears this energy can be at one point at a certain time, and another at a later time. It appears to travel and take time in doing that. But it is wrong to think it is like a packet of energy localised in space traveling at the speed of light.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "But it is wrong to think it is like a packet of energy localised in space traveling at the speed of light"
Well, because of the uncertainty principle, we cannot know both the momentum and the position of a particle such as a photon. So now it seems your argument has been reduced to 'photons do not travel in the 'classical' sense of objects whose position and momentum can be simultaneously verified'. But this fact has been know for nearly 100 years, since Heisenberg. It's nothing new.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum I take more from what I am saying than you do. Feel free to ignore me, although you seem to be having trouble doing that.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@BlankVellum It is clear that something occurs to create effects that are witnessed in detectors such a the retina, however it is not clear at all that this something is caused by an actual physical entity. The existence of photons as an actual physical entity is an axiomatic assumption. It's a useful assumption, of course. But still an assumption. Check out my video "Truth" for more information about science and assumptions.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 I think I see where you're going with this, and I have to simply say that I've heard it all before. Yes, strictly speaking you cannot prove that photons exists in any absolute sense, but then science does not deal in absolutes. You have asserted that photons do not exists (not 'maybe', or 'possibly' don't exist), yet you have provided nothing in the way of an alternative explanation. Feel free to overturn the entire field of quantum physics. I look forward to your Novel prize.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum Funny that, you have now agreed with me "Yes, strictly speaking you cannot prove that photons exists in any absolute sense". Which now leaves you with only the option for attacking me remaining: an attack because I said something. Did I say anywhere "Bring me a Nobel Prize?". No. See the last slide, which states "Nothing new? Then call it a mini Thesis then", and STFU.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 No, I agreed with your premise. It don't think it is ultimately true, but it is logically consistent. Your assertion that therefore photons do not exist, however, needs some heavy duty justification. That is the reason why I am attacking you. At least be intellectually honest and say that PERHAPS this means photons do not exist. Write a scientific paper highlighting your method. Otherwise this will be viewed (and rightly so) as fringe pseudoscience without content or validity.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum If the existence of something is determined by measurement, and we have an entity that can only be measured once, we then cannot prove that it exists as an entity. We cannot prove it existed in the past, or will exist in the future. All we can prove is that we detected an event. We could say that it existed at the moment of detection, but that is a infinitely small slice of time. So, I think it is reasonable to say that they do not exist in the classical sense of existence.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 "If the existence of something is determined by measurement, and we have an entity that can only be measured once, we then cannot prove that it exists as an entity. "
We can measure the existence of one photon once. We can measure the existence of many photons as many times as we want. Your using a very extreme form of induction to argue that knowledge about anything past or present is impossible. Forgive me if I ignore this linguistic sophistry.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum But for any individual photon, the form of induction is not extreme; it is reality.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 (cont)..this is of course removed from whether they travel on one single path, or every possible path, as Feynman thought. The point is, they still travel, and they still have a source. if they did not, we would not be able to know about anything in the universe, as what we do know comes from light traveling across the vast distances of space, as well as that of time (because photons, traveling at the speed of light, do not age).
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum The traveling by all paths is actually the same as the execution of a single probability function. That is, like one massive equation. In that sense there is no traveling. It is possible that this massive function executes for each photonic emission, giving a probability function of where it will be detected. Then the probability field collapses at a single possible detection point from the entire set. *That* actually matches experiment evidence AFSIK
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 By probability function I presume you mean wavefunction. Most interpretations still conceive of the photon as 'traveling'. I see I'm just getting bogged down in semantics here. My primary objection was that photons do not exist. As I see you didn't actually mean that, then the rest, as they say, is history.
BlankVellum 9 months ago
@BlankVellum Well I argue that something that does not travel does not really exists "In the way that we know it", but anyway glad we sorted that out.
dndn1011 9 months ago
@dndn1011 Conventional ideas of "existence" and "traveling" carry a locality implication. But I think we can salvage these concepts, as long as we understand how far down the rabbit hole non-locality requires us to go, particularly with respect to time. The universe works in parallel, not in series, and what we see is very much influenced by the "branches" we don't have direct access to.
maplebayou1 9 months ago
Don't most things that show wave patterns exist as nothing more than energy? Heat exists, but it isn't a thing. It's a transfer of energy from one thing too another. Maybe light travels the same way, as energy passed from one thing too another.
dvholston 9 months ago
@dvholston Since matter and energy are interconvertible, I think you might have a hard time convincing many physicists that energy isn't physical.
maplebayou1 9 months ago
@dvholston You are right that photons are technically energy, but like all quantum particles, it can present itself as a wave or as a particle. The difference with photons it that in order for it to behave like a particle it must have "mass". Physicists have given the photon a virtual "mass" based on its energy, described by Plank's constant. Actuall most things that show wave patterns are more than energy and contain mass. Even people have wave patterns (though near infinitely small :P)
Hobbzie22 9 months ago
Depends on how you define "exist."
catchersmitt0 10 months ago
I agree with you. Photons exist only as copies of an original waveform they don't really 'travel' as particles. Its like a throwing a stone in a lake, the water molecules don't travel from the point of impact to the shore only a copy of an original waveform impacts the shore. Same for sound and electricity. Without a resistor nothing exists. Thats Russelian physics for you ie the real physics. Read his book "The Universal One" its pure genius.
rushwarp 11 months ago
@rushwarp but what happens when we observe photons? They then travel as particles. So is that to say that they only "exist" when being viewed?
Hobbzie22 9 months ago
@Hobbzie22 Yes thats pretty accurate.
rushwarp 9 months ago
@Hobbzie22 It exists as an electron frequency waveform first. This waveform causes a ripple through a sea of plasma aka space. Every ripple is a wavelength or but its only a copy of that original electron waveform and it only becomes apparent when it hits resistance. Then it is absorbed into the resistor and ceases to exist as a photon but can still exist as a memory for example or as an electron again when it gets absorbed into another atom.
rushwarp 9 months ago
@rushwarp It can still be a particle by itself if its wavefunction is distrupted, this does not always have to happen because of a resistor
Hobbzie22 9 months ago
@Hobbzie22 Can you disrupt a wavefunction without destroying it? If you have a blue photon and you disrupt its wavefunction its no longer that wavelength so it becomes a different color so that should make it a different particle I think. Its definitely something to ponder, I gotta think about that a little.
rushwarp 9 months ago
@rushwarp The distrupted wavefunction of a blue photon would technically still be blue. Not distructive as in interference. I'm not talking about interference. Look up the double slit trick on google. If you are look at a particle while it is going through the slits, the trick doesn't work. This is quite the question, I'm not quite sure if anyone can really answer the question unless you define existence.
Hobbzie22 9 months ago
@Hobbzie22 Please clarify are you speaking about behavior of a stream of photons or a single one? Are you disrupting a stream or an individual particle?
rushwarp 9 months ago
@rushwarp A single one sorry about that.
Hobbzie22 9 months ago
@Hobbzie22
watch this video it explains things very well. its called:
The geometry and probability of Time within Quantum Mechanics
rushwarp 9 months ago
@rushwarp nonono I am saying that noone can really say whether or not photons exist unless they define existence
Hobbzie22 9 months ago
@Hobbzie22 Well sure, but you can argue definitions forever. With all the newances of photons or fields etc. You can argue that plasma is really The Holy Spirit or you can claim its boson field or you can say its a vectored magnetic field. Take you pick enjoy yourself. :)
rushwarp 9 months ago
@rushwarp Exactly :D I love physics :P
Hobbzie22 9 months ago
I recommend Bill Gaede's videos on the topic of architecture of light & atoms. He proposes an EM Rope (entwined helix threads), so that light is simply tension between stimulated interconnected atoms, pumping signals via torsion "waves" along the entwined threads (EM Rope). Links in the rope are what we understand as wave behavior; each link a particle (photon, electron); intersection of threads a proton/neutron (depending on cross-section); threads slinking around atoms the electron shell, etc
lukeev 11 months ago
74 people dont understand
Educationey 1 year ago
It's just logical that photons don't exist. They are just a noticed effect that visible light spectrum creates that's very misunderstood.
kezdodik1 1 year ago
@kezdodik1 photon's are part of the standard model, they do exist. And photon's are for all the EM spectrum not just visible.
altonator91 1 year ago
@altonator91 yeah you know i was taught about photons in college and i never believed in them... the professor just taught us that they were for the visible light spectrum only, but once i went to the NASA website and read about how photons and how they are part of the whole spectrum i did understand it. i do see they exist, but i just dont fully understand. i realized that probably photons from a spectrum which is not visible act a lot like the ones we do see. which is awesome to think about.
kezdodik1 1 year ago
if light where made of photons then what is really in the power transformer supplying current to your house, big marble sized photons emmited from one coil then impact in the other coil? don´t you guys think photons may seem a bit stupid? i can explain how light induce currents in a material, when a wave with a lenght of blue hit electrons, the wave move as a single pole on a magnet, and the electrons aligns and attract toward the wave. in between the electrons they repel, want to fly apart.
coldarc 1 year ago
@coldarc I'm not sure I understand the alternative you're suggesting. Are you saying that light consists of classical waves and is not quantized?
maplebayou1 1 year ago
@maplebayou1 yes light consist of classical waves.
there is no need for light to be particles to explain how light can induce electricity.
the funny part is that electrons are waves to, its just that these wave move in a confined space and are called standing waves. its the standing waves that interact with light and not the particle center itself. the frequency of the standing wave determine how big the particle is. a standing wave consist of an out wave and an in wave that are out of phase.
coldarc 1 year ago
@coldarc
Explain the photoelectric effect without light being quantized, please.
DasKrabbe 1 year ago
If your only point was that photons aren't particles in the classical sense, doesn't this apply to pretty much all fundamental particles? Or am I missing something?
pyVlad 1 year ago
@pyVlad They aren't waves either, certainly not classical waves. If you send a classical wave through an apparatus, its behavior at a particular time does not change based on what you do AFTER that. People often try to resolve the issue by invoking wave/particle duality. But the issue is not whether the particle can have 2 different "natures." The real mystery is how it can possibly adjust its behavior at a given point in time based on something that hasn't happened yet.
maplebayou1 1 year ago
@maplebayou1 Quantum electrodynamics, if I recall correctly, solves this by making them particles (or rather, quanta, since they can't be talked about as particles in the classical sense) with some properties that, under the right conditions, look like waves. I don't know if other parts of quantum mechanics follow this, although I do know that quantum chromodynamics is being developed using QED.
pyVlad 1 year ago
@pyVlad I have a hard enough time with QM. But surely our common-sense notions of time are at risk. Fermions don't seem to know if they're coming or going, and photons don't seem to know what time it is.
maplebayou1 1 year ago
@maplebayou1 Yes, the universe isn't required to obey our common-sense notions. The universe is the way it is, and we happen to live in a place where the laws that actually exist are multiplied, cancelled out, and other things, and that's what we've evolved to think about.
pyVlad 1 year ago
@maplebayou1 as far as i can tell. the wave is existance itself. the crest and the trough is where the particle is more likely to exist and bottom of the crest is where the particle avoids,
mignik01 1 year ago
@mignik01 Indeed, I think you could conceptualize it that way. Although some interpretations would have it that the wave is not a physical thing, but merely a mathematical construct that we use to describe the behavior of a physical particle. In terms of its creation and absorption, a photon doesn't partially exist. It springs into being taking a given amount of energy with it, and it ultimately vanishes, imparting the same amount of energy. What is happening in between is the question.
maplebayou1 1 year ago
The time differentials become much more severe in quantum eraser experiments involving entangled particles. In principle we could have one set of particles "doing their thing," with the results recorded but not observed by human eyes, only years later deciding what to do with their entangled twins, which will determine the "previous" outcome.
maplebayou1 1 year ago
@KoRnmunk00 With your analytical skills, the world is in safe hands I see.
dndn1011 1 year ago
@dndn1011 Send this video to Ed Witten's email
GunsNRosesbitches 1 year ago
I kinda get what your saying, but polarized light is a reduction of the E field in the “y” direction, the photon is not eliminated. Your presentation is literally very blurry, I do not know if this is a fact that others have noticed. If you wish to continue discussion drop me a personal message. Thanks.
dickwa 1 year ago
thanks it's an interesting thought experiment. i will think about this. would the same effects occur with interference of spin half particles? my first thought is - does introducing the polarizing filter amount to somehow conducting a measurement which will have a disturbing influence on the "particle"? if we did it with a beam of electrons - passing them through a spin-selector before the slit, we would surely say that it would...?
commodoreherring 1 year ago
GALTON BOARD! reminds me of the galton board probability machine.
breaneainn 1 year ago
@breaneainn If you want to continue discussion outside of here, send me a private message :)
dndn1011 1 year ago
when i see that experiment, it always reminds me of the binary distribution models where pingpong balls fall down through pegs in a glass front box and form a bell curve in the slots in the bottom. The pegs are like the high/low cancellation points where the waveform interferes with itself. Am I on the right track here?
breaneainn 1 year ago
@breaneainn freaky. I was thinking exactly the same thing last night, as a model for the effect of refraction (causing a lower speed of light in materials)... the atoms probably act as "slits" so the photon probability function can be considered to consists of a very large set of slits arranged in rows. It's no longer which way, but which path: the resulting probability field is from the sum of all paths: and this must cause a slowing of light as the path is no longer straight.
dndn1011 1 year ago
I get the impression that this experiment points to photons being an artifact of energy in spacetime. Does light have a fractional symmetry >1? If the slits were only just wide enough to allow the photon through, would it destroy the interference? Would firing alternate photons of differing or harmonic frequencies result in complimentary distribution or would one subtract from the other? I have a headache now.
breaneainn 1 year ago
It is important to realize that things like photons and electrons are not particles, nor are they waves, they are something else that have similar properties to both.
legacyspy 1 year ago
@legacyspy Yes, I know. Except what I am saying is that it is wrong to say a photon is both a wave and a particle: a photon is probably neither, because it probably does not travel at all (Travelling is common to both waves and particles). It is more like a mathematical equation (a probability field) that determines where the photon will be detected. If you accept my view, then it is meaningless to ever talk about "Which way did the photon go?" at all.
dndn1011 1 year ago
@dndn1011 Yeah that is not anything new, and most physicists would agree.
legacyspy 1 year ago
You came to your conclusion by noticing an inconsistency with what happens if you use polarization in the double slit experiment, but you did a classical treatment of it so this inconsistency may go away if you use quantum photon polarization.
legacyspy 1 year ago
@legacyspy I do not believe that this is relevant, however even if it is in this experiment, the delayed path interferometer shows the same idea without using polarization.
dndn1011 1 year ago
@dndn1011 I'll take a look at that.
legacyspy 1 year ago
Your conclusion is correct, the current consensus in physics is that the particle wasn't anywhere until you(or a device) observes it. Observing the particle forces it to take a stand. However, the photon definitely did exist, as in a bell's theorem experiment it makes a difference if the particle had an unknown, but defined position. Additionally I don't think your logic for it is correct as you are applying a classical treatment of polarization to a quantum effect.
legacyspy 1 year ago
@legacyspy The key point I am making is to do with time, which you make no mention of. Take a look at my proposal for what I call a "Delayed Path Interferometer", maybe it will help understand where I am coming from. The reason I call this "Photon's don't exist" is because I believe I show that a photon can have no history, no path. Something that is destroyed the moment it is detected and has no history does not actually ever exist. Existence implies existence for some period of time...
dndn1011 1 year ago
Comment removed
legacyspy 1 year ago
@legacyspy Try judging what I am saying once you can read it. I'll fix the link as soon as I can.
dndn1011 1 year ago
@dndn1011 Okay thanks, I was just guessing what you thought based on trying to read it.
legacyspy 1 year ago
@legacyspy fixed...
dndn1011 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
All can be explained with the idea of paralell universes, for know more, read the book "The fabric of reality" written by David Deutesch.
reirodolfo 1 year ago
Comment removed
reirodolfo 1 year ago
Nothing really exists until it's observed, that's the basic idea of quantum mechanics. Things don't appear from nowhere when the wave function collapses, the wave function calculates the probability that it was already there and that probability increases to 100% at the point where it's observed and 0% everywhere else when it collapses.
857frank 1 year ago
@857frank but was does "observed" mean?
dndn1011 1 year ago
@dndn1011 Observed, as I understand it, means to detect then analyse. Any method of detection means an interaction with the particle or wave of interest and the net result of the interaction when analysed is reality for that observer at that moment. A photon is a complete expanding sphere so it can “be” wherever it's detected, leaving no history that it was anywhere else.
857frank 1 year ago
@857frank but what is not clear is where the chain of causality ends up with a measurement. Is it when consciousness observes the photon (or a device that detected the photon)? This is called "Consciousness Causes Collapse" and despite being the only logical destination of this train of thought, CCC is called "Quantum Mysticism" by some. Quite irrationally I should add.
dndn1011 1 year ago
This is what I have allways thought from a relativistic point of view. Light (traveling at the speed of light) experiences no time traveling from point to point. If it experienced any time then it woudl experience all time, so it must not actually exsist for any time. From the perspective of the photon it travels instantaineously and does not travel any distance either.
phookadude 1 year ago
It is true photons only seem to exist when the light waves comes in contact with an object. Then the wave function collapses forming a discrete or quantized form of energy in the shape of a photon. If this is a universal and continuous process could it be forming the passage of time? Because each new photon will have a unique position in space and time that the light waves never had before they made contact with an object.
nickharvey7 1 year ago
@nickharvey7 maybe the best way to approach the problem is by removing the concept of time, which may have no meaning at the quantum level. Time is defined by the rate of movement of objects. If the concept of movement does not have meaning at the quantum level, then perhaps neither does time.
dndn1011 1 year ago
@dndn1011 The paradoxes of QM like Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle are based on the movement of the wave function. You say that Time is defined by the rate of movement of objects. If this is so could the universal process of the w function collapsing and reforming represent the Time continuum itself? Each new photon will have a unique position in space and time that never excised before the collapse. This would make the Uncertainty Principle the same uncertainty we have with any future event.
nickharvey7 1 year ago
@nickharvey7 Not sure.. I am not really following you sorry
dndn1011 1 year ago
@dndn1011 If classical physics is based on quantum physics then our everyday life is based on the paradoxes of quantum physics. We have a continuous flow of time that forms future probability that cannot be measured. Could the Uncertainty Principle and the Measurement Problem at the quantum level be forming this continuous flow of time?
nickharvey7 1 year ago
When you close your eyes does the world disappear? Are the football results there until the exact moment when you read about them? Do the lottery numbers exist until you see them?
Replace any of the above analogies with photon and the answer is no. Makes me wonder about these football results...
sewageable 1 year ago
@sewageable When you do not observe the world, you cannot prove it is still there. That it is still there is only an assumption. However, assumptions can be very useful, and it is a very useful assumption.
dndn1011 1 year ago
not only would you have to be blind, but be at loss with the other senses. imagine living in a world without the five senses. you would never know of your own existence..or death. if you do not know of your own existence, does the world exist?
cannibuzz83 1 year ago
Well duh nothing exists. That's what an illusion is, something that doesnt really exist.
gongargongar 1 year ago
Did anyone ever heard about the Aether?
jatigre1 1 year ago
This is called Einstein's spooky action at a distance.
Pests 1 year ago
My interpretation is the one that runs like this: a photon (or electron or any object small enough to exhibit wave properties) does not have a specific location, it is like a fuzzy cloud defined by mathematics. Sometimes these waves can become elongated, stretched, squeezed, and there is no limit to how big the field can get. You can stretch out a photon's probability field to the size of a galaxy if you want to. Just make a double-split experiment out of starlight.
Snootwaller 2 years ago
photons do exist, their movement would suggest that a wave is present ,
but what is a wave? its easy to say something like " oh its not a particle look at how it moves it has to be a wave"
but what is a wave? a wave is just a chaotic movement of a particle ...its a particle that can literally exist in more places at once , or in no places , or dissapear and reappear , creating a wave like movement ...but it is ultimately a particle.
sidewaysfcs0718 2 years ago
...onto the macroscopic world. sorry my comment got cut off
CammieSpectrum 2 years ago
you are right. I have though about this question in connection with other questions; the entire notion of a field of quanta between atomic events, is in-between measurement and therefore is intrinsically untestable, and also it reduces the concept of D scontinuos Ch nge, by replacing it with a macroscopic metaphor in the image of continuos motion, just as any spatial medium reduces A p a r t n e s s between Planets, by replacing it with a metaphor that is in the image of something together
CammieSpectrum 2 years ago
@CammieSpectrum Indeed. The key point here is that it not only makes no sense to ask "where" the photon came from, but also "when".
dndn1011 2 years ago
@dndn1011 That is a nice point!, for even what they measure as a constant rate 'c' cannot be compared with clock motion, at least literally. and this 'c' would not literally be a number or even a speed, per se, if there is no photon moving inbetween atomic events...and 'c' would be the very basis of time. I'm glad I found your channel ; )
CammieSpectrum 2 years ago
@CammieSpectrum The best analogy I can come up with is the idea of transactions in a database. It is almost as if the entire experiment is executed in a single transaction. There are no stages. The universe may be functional rather than procedural. Classical mechanics is procedural. Make any sense?
dndn1011 2 years ago
@dndn1011 I think what you call Transactional, I call D scontinuos Ch nge, which I contrast with Continuos Motion, and Continuos Motion is an Actualized Potential, whereas D scontinuos Ch nge is Potentially Actualized(Non Decided), since I beleive that there is a teleological direction towards a result: Diffaction Pattern. Not to take anything away from what you are saying. Wittgenstein would like this video as well...he critiqued science's projection of macroscopic metaphors
CammieSpectrum 2 years ago
you're fucking wrong
chowfung00 2 years ago
@chowfung00 about what, Mr. Eloquent?
dndn1011 2 years ago
are you refering to the probability of superposition, that an object is in multiple position until it is observed in a location thus it pops into existence, which is the current theory of how electrons work.
GGAlice1 2 years ago
@GGAlice1 I suggest that you take a look at the legible pdf. The purpose of this video was to have a record of it.
dndn1011 2 years ago
if you disproved photons id like to see your nobel prize
GGAlice1 2 years ago
@GGAlice1 No I have not 'disproved' them, only pointed out that since we can only measure them once and when we measure them they vanish, and combined with the experiment I describe, we can only conclude that photons do not exist as either particles or waves, but as something else entirely... This comes directly from the existing understood laws of physics.
dndn1011 2 years ago
Comment removed
GGAlice1 2 years ago
light is.
sacredshakti 2 years ago
Forgive a laymen for a question. There exist, at least in design, solar sail space ships that have as an energy source not the conversion of light to energy, but rather the mass of billions of photons striking the sails accelerate it.
It seems irrelevant whether the photons are observed, so wouldn't the moving sail ship prove the exist of at least the mass of phontons?
I'm no physicist just a hobbyist so I apologise if the question makes no sense.
TheSwamper 2 years ago
@TheSwamper - Don't pay any attention to this nutcase. dndn1011 is a kook who thinks he's smarter than Einstein, Bohr, Feyman and 100 years of physics.
1noen1 2 years ago
@1noen1 How about some intelligent counter arguments rather than insults? No carry on insulting, it's probably all you are capable of.
dndn1011 2 years ago
I, for one, think it's an interesting idea, even if it does spit in the face of what we think we know.
markeymonkey 2 years ago
@markeymonkey that's the funny thing, it does not actually spit in th face of anything; this is a consequence of what we know. All I am doing is highlighting an assumption.
dndn1011 2 years ago
@TheSwamper That is one of those very interesting questions that I have yet to find a satisfactory answer to. The problem is that a photon moves at the speed of light: something that is impossible for any object. If a photon had a mass, in the normal sense of mass, then it would be carrying infinite energy. If you find an explanation, let me know. try searching google for "does a photon have mass?".
dndn1011 2 years ago
@TheSwamper BTW, according to wikipedia (not the world's best source admittedly, but 1noen1 will believe it) a photon has no mass. All I am saying is that a photon does not exist because the moment it is detected it is destroyed... which leaves the troubling question "how can be prove it existed at all". How can we prove it traveled? How can we prove where it came from? Mathematically we cannot... we can only make assumptions. There is an important subtlety here.
dndn1011 2 years ago
@dndn1011 -- If something is destroyed then it must have existed. A photon is a wave packet that has a certain energy. When it is detected it isn't so much as destroyed but rather it's energy is transfered to the detector. Nothing is lost. There is no paradox. You are a fool.
1noen1 2 years ago
@1noen1 You are completely missing the point of what I am saying. The point is that because you can never observe a photon without destroying it, we can only ever guess at its existence before it was detected, at which point it no longer exists. Thus in a very real sense, a photon does not exist. You can never detect one twice. You can only guess at where it came from. This is 100% in line with current scientific thinking, and perhaps you need to do a bit of studying yourself.
dndn1011 2 years ago
@dndn1011 -- If you detect something then obviously it exists. Nor is it ever fully destroyed, it's energy is transfered to the detector. Usually by bumping an electron into a higher energy orbit from which it quickly decays releasing a photon.
Your logic is: "I detect a photon, therefore photons do not exist". You're a fucking moron.
1noen1 2 years ago
@1noen1 No, you completely miss the point of what I am saying, probably because you are a fucking moron.
dndn1011 2 years ago
@dndn1011 -- No, I don't think so
"because you can never observe a photon without destroying it, we can only ever guess at its existence before it was detected"
This isn't just nonsense, it's nonsense on stilts. You are saying that because your eyes can see the photons all around us that means they don't exist.
Your music sucks too.
1noen1 2 years ago
@1noen1 FACT:photon can only be detected once. FACT:because of this you cannot measure the path of a photon.FACT:Because of this you can not build a detector that can detect where a photon came from (that requires two detections) FACT:Because of this you can only guess at where a photon came from by the way your experiment is set up (e.g. it must have come that way because all other ways are blocked) FACT:I am happy you don't like my music, rude,ignorant,brain dead,soul-less fans are useless.
dndn1011 2 years ago
@dndn1011
wikipedia is more accurate then encyclopedia britannica for 1. it exist because when electrons change energy levels they release light in the form of photons. this is obvious if you've ever seen a neon sign or graduated high school. also regarding you video you dont say anythign for 1, and 2 the pictures are poor qualtiy.
GGAlice1 2 years ago
Yes logic is, but mathematics gives your theory much greater support. Until then it is only plausible.
babashroud 2 years ago
@babashroud That's the problem: Mathematics cannot solve this quandry. Check out the delayed path interferometer experiment video in my upload if you want. Cheers!
dndn1011 2 years ago
Show me the math then I will believe you.
babashroud 2 years ago
@babashroud Is logic not enough?
dndn1011 2 years ago
@dndn1011 - Reality trumps logic.
1noen1 2 years ago
@1noen1 Let the grown-ups continue their discussion, will you?
trisky1234 1 year ago
math is logic in symbols
sacredshakti 2 years ago
i'm not sure the logic here is completely sound. without having spent too much time analyzing the details here, have you otherwise done any of the actual math involved in solving a double-slit problem? i've spent a solid month or so in a quantum mechanics course solving such problems, and it seems pretty uncontroversial. the double-slit experiment can, in fact, be explained in a photonic paradigm, although the details escape me now.
i will say, the notion of photons is pretty unintuitive.
twentyflights 2 years ago
I've carried out some photonic paradigms with my teacher and I can tell you that you're right there ;)
BF2OMG 2 years ago
I think maybe time is an illusion that we experience because our minds are designed to experience one instant after another in a logical order. But the underlying reality is a universe where everything exists simaltaniously as one big tapestry and each thread is a light ray. We think the photon is moving, but from its point of view, it exists in every point of its journey simaltaniously. That's how it "knows" whats in front of it.
bndkllr2 2 years ago
As I understand, travelling means going from one place to another. If you turn on some source and you detect something in other place, it must be something that went from the source to the detector, don't you think?
I have seen your proposed experiment, I haven't made it but it could be interesting, I guess the "travelling time" would be different depending on the path the photon takes, so sending a single photon you could know the path it took, but the path difference must to be enough long
darthyoda 2 years ago
Photons exist, the notion of particle is explained accurately by QFT (quantum field theory) in flat spacetime (minkowskian). The vacuum |0> is just the state where you can't annhilate any particle, act some photon-creation operator 'a' and you get a photon: a|0>=|1>; it exists, detection is other point...
darthyoda 2 years ago
The point is that because you can only detect a photon once, you cannot infer that it travels, ever. This is an assumption (an axiom). The use of this axiom is a choice. If you disregard this axiom the whole of science falls apart. That is, the whole of science was built on the concept of waves and particles being things which travel. The failure of science to reach a unified theory could well be because of such a flawed axioms.
dndn1011 2 years ago
But we can infer there is something which connects the source and the detector, for that it must travel somehow. We have studied these phenomenons and build the theories that we know they work in their respective frames; the problems to reach a ToE are based specially in the gravity quantization
darthyoda 2 years ago
Define what is meant by the concept of 'Travel'. Then prove the scientifically observed behaviour of a photon is consistent with that concept. If you can do these two thing rigorously then the idea that photons travel will have meaning.
Unfortunately, this is proving impossible to do.
To see why this is impossible, check out my video about the delayed path interferometer experiment. Even as a thought experiment it presents what I believe to be an unsolvable paradox.
dndn1011 2 years ago
if we cant imagine a photon to be a miniball particle then how does it appear?....,how does it move?....,what causes it to move......in short "how can we visualise a photon".......well Im not too bright in science but I kinda lihe photon and energy fields stuff :-)
kkchandra9991 2 years ago
That's the point: I argue that it makes no sense to suggest that it moves, and it cannot be visualised.
The closest I can get to it is that it is a blip connected in a complex way to reality, probably involving extra dimensions.
dndn1011 2 years ago
how about the theory that each piece of aether is only effected for a small scale of time and you could see it only if you can watch as fast as the force moves the aether.
kenny8331 2 years ago
I believe that your thoughts on the nature and behavior of a photon are in complete agreement with quantum physics. Read the book "Quantum for the perplexed" (you might have already, or perhaps its too simplified for you) and you'll see that the author makes a much similar argument. To the best of my knowledge, the different photons could indeed share some information about each other, something that could be explained using quantum physics.
aboodz 2 years ago
Thanks for the link.
guzguz21 2 years ago
someone read this to me
itsfakebytheway 2 years ago
Try the link
dndn1011 2 years ago
Will it read it out loud to me?
itsfakebytheway 2 years ago