On Mon, 7 May 2007 09:13:54 +0100, "George Dishman"
wrote:


"Henri Wilson" HW@.... wrote in message
.. .


You are jumping in too early again George.

No, this was proven decades ago.

It IS a big question that includes things like 'free will' if human action
is
involved..

Indeed, without true randomness as an intrinsic property
'free will' could not exist, and with randomness it is
seen to be nothing more than noise in the system. Leave
the philosophers and religiously minded to deal with that.

No, it's a physics matter.

If I fire a bullet that misses the target, PROBABILITY says, 'that's OK,
it is
a statistical fact that no matter how good the shooter, occasionally one
WILL
miss'.
However, I say, it missed simply because I didn't aim in the right
direction.

dx.dp = h_bar/2

Yes, Heisenberg got in on the action too...but it's not really relevant to
bullets hitting a target.

No. even at the atomic level, this has never been completely resolved.

For instance, consider radioactive decay.
We know all about its exponential rate. ..but we don't know why each event
occurs exactly when it does.

What we know is that if it is exactly exponential, then
every decay event is independent of all others and occurs
with no cause.

Yes the rate depends on how many are left.....fair enough.. but that doesn't
tell us much either.
I say there is an exact physical reason why each atom decays when it does...put
it all together and you end up with an exponential decay pattern....but I could
be wrong if TRUE RANDOMNESS EXISTS.

Is there a unique physical explanation for each
one. Likewise, we don't know why emitted particles move in the directions
they
do even though the angular distibution is statistical predictable.

We know dx.dp = h_bar/2

George that doesn't tell us why photons move in the directions they do.
There has to be a physical reason that leads to the random distribution of
directions.


To within the intrinsic uncertainty of the energy property.
That means there is a fundamental lower limit to line width.
You can think of that either as the (gaussian) spectrum of
the line showing the power in each frequency that you get
from a Fourier transform of the received sine wave or as a
histogram of the photon energies (which will produce a small
spread of deflection angles) or by transforming to the time
domain as the phase jitter on the RF sine wave. They are all
just different coneptual models of the same feature.

If E=h.nu there is no distribution at all.

dt.dE = h_bar/2

If you measure with some certainty when a photon arrives,
you increase the spread of the energy. That is one reason
why a monochromatic laser line cannot have zero width.

Yes George, we all know what Heisenberg said...and I don't disagree with
it...but what's really behind the stats?


Frequency (or equivalently wavelength), not phase.

In the case of monochromatic light, the theory says energy is relfected
equally
at all angles but is reinforced only at one angle. Destructive
interference
occurs at all other angles thus nullifying energy transfer at those
angles.

Yes but it is the frequency that determines the angle, not
the phase.

That's a big statement.

Try to explain THAT with the particle model George. How actually do photon
'particles' cancel each other out?

Read QED Henry, that is exactly what it does.

I think it is clutching at straws. It doesn't offer any physical solutions.

Yes. When it hits a grating each photon deflects depending
only on its own properties and not the properties of other
photons that arrive some seconds earlier or later.

yes. That would have to be right.

Excellent. That is a major agreement Henry.

not really...

What? Didn't you just agree? "yes. That would have
to be right." sounds like an agreement to me.

I'm not 100% convinced. Your classical wave theory say it deflects in all
directions. How come?

Consider microwaves hitting a wire grid.
Each photon in the wave is deflected by an angle that depends
only on its own properties independent of any others.

But there is also a second diffraction based on the microwave
'wavelength'.

Same thing.

No it isn't. If you modulate a laser beam with a 100000hz signal, you get
two
entirely different diffraction patterns.

Suppose the unmodulated light has a frequency of fc.
If you fire the modulated light at a grating There
are two obvious possibilities, either you get a line
with time varying intensity at an angle corresponding
to fc, or you get a signal which has a carrier fc and
two sidebands at +/- fm

fc
|
fc-fm | fc+fm
______|____|____|______

and each frequency produces a line of constant intensity.
Either way, you don't get any power at the angle
corresponding to fm itself.

My understanding is that the stream contains a mixture
of three frequencies of photons and if you have the
resolving power in the grating, you get three lines
but a lower resolution will cause the lines to overlap
and the interference then causes the time varying
intensity.

See you don't really know the answer. You're just speculating.
I think there is a worthwhile experiment awaiting to be done here.


than 1.7 million cycles so would be more than 1 light
second long in a classical wave model, yet it is absorbed
instantly by a single electron in the photo-electric effect.

You have never seen zeeman lines from ONE transition.
there are always millions involved.

For the sodium doublet, I believe there are just four
for one line and two for the other.

OK ,....but I meant the lines you see are made of of many photons from the same
transition.

local EM frame that behaves like an aether.

I don't care what you belive, it is a fact that the measued
speed is independent of the speed of the source.

Nobody has ever measured OWLS at all George, let alone from a moving
source.

Still in denial Henry? Nothing you say will be treated
with anything but contempt as long as you are unable to
face reality. Sagnac does precisely that.

Sagnac is as big a mystery to you as it ever was. I still reckon there is an EM
reference frame involved. YTour explanation is certainly straight out of the
LET book.
What's the betting Sagnac wont work in deep space...below the WDT.

Come on George, you don't have any kind of model for a photon. You think
it's just a couple of sinewaves drawn at right angles on paper.

No, I think it is a fundamental particle like an electron
which has the property of carrying energy (and others).

'the property of carrying energy'
That doesn't really tell us much does it George...hardly a model...

Of course not, the model is the equations of QED. I'm
only giving you a hand-waving overview.

well QED is not worth worrrying about either...


George, you know how water waves can be diffracted, for instance by a
row
of vertical bars.

Yes, and the energy of the waves is then carried in
another direction to be deposited where the waves go.

If photons are particles that are reflected over 360 degrees from each
line, how
do you explain all that destructive interference over the 359.9 degrees.

A grating has to have a spacing that gives a sensible
deflection Henry or it becomes a mirror. That's why
chicken wire can be used as an RF reflector.

That doesn't answer the question.
How can you get destructive interference for particles?

Do you really believe that the water molecules that go up and down near
the
bars are the ones that end up making the diffraction pattern maybe 100
metres
away?

No Henry, exactly my point. That is what you are telling
me, that the grating angle for the wave is not the same
as that for the photons composing the wave.

Your theory has to rely 100% on the wave model of light to expain
gratings.

No, "my theory" is QED which is purely a particle theory.

and a very vague one...

..and then it fails.

... and it works perfectly, it is one of the most accurate
theories in the whole of science.

Which aspect?

My model of photons as independent vibrating quanta
explains it all.

Rubbish, it can't even explain the photo-electric effect.

Of course it can. Each photon has to possess enough intrinsic energy to knock
out an electron.
I tell you something though. I reckon a really intense beam of low energy
photons would knock out electrons that they should not, purely because there is
a chance two would hit at the same instant....another worthwhile experiment....


How about you calculate how much energy BaTh says is in
this extra mode you have invented. For a fairly bright
source with random arrival times (e.g. a sodium lamp
where the photons are emitted thermally) there should
be a background continuum under the lines. Make your
prediction of that level and then research the literature.

I'm too busy...how about YOU do it.

Easy, zero, each photon is independent.


That's settled then...


Perhaps, but for your bizarre idea to 'match the data
very well' requires _all_ the energy to go where the
1Hz deflection predicts and none to go with the photons.
As I said, it makes no sense.

How do you explain destructive interference with the particle model
George?

Look up "sum over histories".

What the hell is that?


George





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