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----------------------------- 2684 - LIGHT - keeps getting stranger?
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- The more we learn about light the stranger it gets. We can’t decide if it is a wave or a particle. The search for answers gets us wandering into anti-matter, and entanglement. It does not get any stranger than that.
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- Light is bundles of energy we call “ Photons”. We know photons have momentum. Therefore, we tend to think of them as particles of energy with momentum. It is the momentum of all the photons trying to leave the star that prevents the star from collapsing under the pressure of gravity.
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- Momentum is defined as mass times velocity. We know the velocity of light to be 186,000 miles per second, but the mass of a photon is zero. So, momentum must have another definition as well?
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- In the early 1900’s momentum of light was discovered to come in “quantums“. Every bundle of light we call a photon was equal to a “Constant of Action“, which is the product of energy and time, per wavelength of the light.
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- In physics the product of energy and time is called “Action”. Momentum = Planck’s Constant of Action / wavelength. The shorter the wavelength the higher the momentum. The longer the wavelength the less momentum it has. X-rays hurt a lot more than radio waves.
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- Planck’s Constant of Action = 6.6*10^-34 kilograms * meters^2 / second, which is a very small quantity. In other units “h” 4.14 * 10^-14 electron- volts * seconds.
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- This momentum of energy is enough to make you see. Light bounces off what you see and ends up in your eye. It is the momentum of light that strikes the cells, or cones, in you retina that stimulates the nerves leading to the brain.
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- Although we think of these as particles with momentum photons actually travel through space as waves. No two photons travel the same way every time. Different photons take different routes and form different patterns.
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- But, statistically these wave patterns are a function of probabilities of the photon’s positions. If you send one photon at a time through 2 slits an interference pattern will build up over time. It is the same pattern you would get if you sent 1000 photons through the 2 slits at the same time.
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- The interference patterns represent the distribution of probabilities for the location of the photons. The pattern can be a diffraction or an interference pattern, or , it can be a focused image of the two slits. In the latter case the waves behave like a lens.
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- Because of this dual property for light science has had 400 years of disagreement whether light is a particle or a wave.
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- If it is an interference pattern it must be a wave. It if reflects or ricochet’s according to mathematical formulas it must be a particle. Maxwell’s equations of electromagnet radiation treated light as waves. Einstein’s paper on the photoelectric effect treated light as particles. Particles he called “photons“.
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- The energy of light is related to its frequency, or inversely to its wavelength, not to its intensity.
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--------------------- Energy = E = m*c^2 = m * velocity * velocity = momentum * velocity = momentum * frequency * wavelength.
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--------------------- And, Momentum * wavelength = Planck’s Constant of Action.
E = momentum * h.
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- These are all equivalent relationships of photons of light. It turns out that every particle regardless of mass has a wavelength over which it can exist. It is simply that the wavelengths are so small the do not become important until the mass is so small, atomic level small. Then, wavelengths become important.
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- Then, waves are functions of uncertainty. Statistical probabilities control the existence of atomic level particles. Waves are the probabilities particles operate within. Photons have been shown to behave like waves, but , science has also shown this phenomena to exist with electrons, with atoms, with molecules, even with bacteria. These are all small enough masses to exhibit wave like properties that we can detect.
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- Two photons emitted form the same source can be entangled. If a photon is absorbed by a certain material and two photons are re-emitted. These two photons are of a lower energy than the original photon but they came from the same source and are “ entangled”.
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- They are inextricably linked together regardless of the distance in space they become separated. If the quantum state of one is changed, the other photon will experience the change, instantly. The quantum state of one is communicated to the other instantly, faster than the speed of light.
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- Experiments have proven this to be true although theories as to how have not. Once we can understand this it could be an extremely powerful technology in sending and encrypting information using light beams.
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- When the Universe first formed all particles were massless. As the Universe expanded and cooled particles gained mass in the forms of quarks and anti-quarks. Somehow, the Universe ended up with an excess of quarks. This excess of quarks accounts for the dominance of matter over anti-matter in our World.
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- Quarks make up the protons and neutrons that we call matter in our world. Calculations are that 30,000,001 quark particles were created for every 30,000,000 anti-quark particles. What can account for this slight imbalance, this slight asymmetry, remains a mystery for future scientists to study.
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- So, we have wave- particle duality, photon entanglement and anti-matter, matter asymmetry as three courses in our college of future study.
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- Personally, entanglement bothers me the most. My imagination can wade through the other two, but not that one. It is just too weird for me to comprehend. Entanglement in the brain?
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----------------------------------------- Other Reviews:
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- 2683 - LIGHT - the wave-particle duality? - At the time of Isaac Newton in 1687 science considered light to be a beam of particles. In the 1900’s some experiments measuring interference and diffraction concluded that light was indeed waves. Interference is when two waves come together and the beams amplify or cancel each other out depending on how the phases of the waves are intersecting. So, when did light become particles again?
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- 2661 - LIGHT - What It Means To Be Visible? If something is visible it usually means that your eyes are sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation they are receiving. Of course, other detectors besides eyes can be used to detect a much wider range of electromagnetic radiation.
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- 2609 - LIGHT - how to measure its speed ? One of the most common questions asked is whether gravity is instantaneous, or whether there’s a speed limit to how fast the force of gravity can travel. This is not as simple a question as it seems on the surface. Most would say at the speed of light. However the problem with the speed of light, is it gets here too early in the morning.
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- 2537 - LIGHT - stranger than you can imagine? - Is “light” energy what is warping space and time? What about Dark Energy that is the repulsive force expanding space in the Universe? Is “light” responsible for this as well? “Light” has a much bigger role to play in the Universe than what we can “see”. All that we do not see is stranger still.
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- 2402 - LIGHT - There is not enough light. We can never understand the Universe by studying starlight. There is just not enough of it. Starlight comes from the energy, or radiation, from ordinary matter and ordinary matter comprises less than 5% of the Universe. 30% more is Dark Matter and 65% more is Dark Energy. We need a telescope that can see in the ”Dark”.
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- 2387 - LIGHT - how light moves particles. Einstein had developed the theory of special relativity that revolutionized the way we understand light. To this day, it provides guidance on understanding how particles move through space.
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- 2310 - Getting Light from Electricity and Magnetism. Light, electricity, and magnetism seem to me to be three separate things. How can they be connected into electromagnetic waves? We had to discover each one at a time before Einstein even connected them with mass and space.
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- 2306 - How far away is the Sun? When at sea how can we use the Sun to determine our position, longitude and latitude? How can the moons of Jupiter be used as a clock? How can that clock be used to determine the speed of light? Learn from Ole the Danish astronomer:
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- 2210 - There is a star that is looping around the blackhole at the center of our galaxy. Theory of Relativity tells us that light would loose energy leaving a gravity well and it would gain energy entering the gravity well. This energy difference shows up in the change in wavelength of the light. Einstein’s math is tested again.
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- 2260 - Getting light from electricity and magnetism? How do the electric and the magnetic forces, or, waves create light. Or, is it the opposite? Is light that creates the electric and magnetic forces? See here, to learn the answer.
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- March 30, 2020 912 2684
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--------------------- Monday, March 30, 2020 -------------------------
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