Re: Questions (Space)

Tina Hall <Tina_Hall@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina Hall <Tina_Hall@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Photons would be something I can imagine even, but no one mentioned
them. (I would like to know more about how they come to be, though.)

I imagine them as little fuzzy balls, about 10cm across for light, or
about 1 km across for radio wave photons. It's not true, but just how
I imagine them.

Is that the same way that an electron can be seen as having the size of
its atom, even though it's just whizzing around and the 'size' seen is
just the space it travels through?

No, I imagine them as fuzzy balls.

But I don't mind if other people imagine them as tiny things whizzing
around.

Because I would think those particles are a lot smaller (and certainly
visible if that big). I mean, bowling balls whizzing around _ougth_ to
be noticed, even ones without weight. <g>

The bigger they are, the lighter they are. It's the small ones that are
heavy :-)

Because they can get through small holes, it might help to think of
them as fuzzy balls made out of something like sponge, or foam
rubber, that can be scrunched up small, and then pops out full size
again.

I don't think that works. Somehow, I don't expect them to scrunch up
just to get through a hole, I expect them to fit through because they're
so tiny.

Well, I do. I think they are big, and scrunch up. But that's just my way
of thinking about them. The idea that they are small is more common, I
think.

Or maybe like some kind of sticky fog, which remains in a clump and
doesn't dissipate. (So it can float through a mesh, people can walk
through the big ones (radio photons) etc.)

I think I'll stick to 'space they're occupying' rather than imagining
all those man-sized ballons. There would be much less lighting here if
they were the size of balloons. (Because there would be no room for the
neighbours inside the balloon.)

<shrug>. As you like. I don't mind.

But what you're trying to say is that that space is indeed a physical
change in location (other than forwards), the wave?

I don't understand this.

I don't like that. It gets me back to what I didn't understand right at
the start; physical 2D waves in 3D.

Um, the waves are side-to-side, while travelling forwards. I wouldn't
call that a 2D wave.

I think we are failing to understand each other here. It's probably not
worth the effort to straighten out.

I don't usually think about what they're made of though. Just how
they behave.

Well, they originate somewhere.

You've asked that question (or said that) a few times. I haven't
attempted to answer it because I don't have an answer. I'll be
interested to see if anyone else attempts an answer.

For a wave motion, *nothing* moves from A to B. If you think of
light as an EM wave (instead of photons), then nothing physical
moves.

Where's the problem in assuming that the photons create a wave when
measured (like you do with electrons)?

No problem at all, if you like it.

But now I'm confused. Because I got to think that the wave is just
measured, not something that happens _with_ the photon.

It *is* more like something that happens *with* the photon, (or the
electron, or any other particle). That's why I don't like your picture
that the photon (or electron etc.) makes the wave. It doesn't.

Don't ask why. Or ask why if you like, but I've never seen an
explanation. Waves describe the way the particles behave, but there are
no waves - only particles. (From one point of view.)

Perhaps in another thousand years, we'll have an explanation. But real
science is often confusing at first, while scientists are still trying
to understand what experiments reveal. Quantum mechanics is still quite
new.

But the wave is just the intensity (rising and falling), no? They
don't

I've no idea what the wave is. Sometimes it's called a "probability
wave". I can't see any way for this to make sense. I know what is
*meant* by it. Meanings don't have to accord with common sense.

Does reality have to make sense?

Huh?

I take that as a "yes, reality has to make sense".

Looks like you're losing interest. Better say so than confirm images
that don't make sense.

No, I haven't lost interest yet.

But I'm less certain that things have to make sense than I was when I
was younger.

Or to put it another way, I'm less certain that I already know every
different way things *can* make sense. So if something doesn't make
sense, I'm less inclinded to shoe-horn it into one of my existing ways
of understanding, and more willing to wait for new ways to understand,
or accept that maybe I won't ever understand[*].

The crucial point here is that there might be more than one way to
understand, and that not all ways work for understanding each thing.
Maybe no way works for understanding everything.

[*] Actually, I don't accept that. But I might have to sell my immortal
soul[**] to Dark Powers for the understanding. Cheap at the price.

[**] Assuming I have a soul, and haven't accidentally mislaid it
somewhere else.

So since light is both particle and wave, it both travels and
doesn't travel. At this point, anyone whose head isn't hurting
hasn't understood the problem! :-)

You're right there. I don't understand the problem. :) (And my head
isn't hurting, yet.)

Usually people get confused when told that something both travels and
doesn't travel. You may be an exception. Perhaps you'll have the big
insight which makes sense of quantum mechanics ... trouble is, no one
will believe you because you don't do the math. (And most of the rest
of us wouldn't understand this big insight anyway.)

Nothing new there. I'm used to insights no one understands. :)

It's just a shame that I don't know all this stuff, and thus no
insights.

<shrug> I doubt you're more than a few thousand years old. That's hardly
any time at all to know stuff. If you are younger than that, I'm
surprised you've had time to learn anything at all. I'm only <mumble>
years old, and I've barely started.

Jonathan

--
"I think too much - therefore I am mad!"
Agatha Clay playing Lucrezia Mongfish.
.

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