That's sounding a little better, but you've been saying reality is 'made of' waves, which is nonsensical.I'm saying that wave-functions (math) represent a real phenomena of nature.
'Not detecting' seems odd, since all detectors are swamped with noise at the threshold of detection. That is, there's no 'detection' of 'nothing'. In fact, at the highest sensitivity, there's a detection of 'everything' (background noise).Do you know what the expectation value is... When you attempt to detect a particle, but you find nothing, then what you really found was empty space.
You mean 'expected' value, E{x}. I have no idea what you mean by 'try again' since observation is what collapses the wave function in the sense we mean here.Do you know what the expectation value is...But if you try again, and you find the particle (e.g. a photon), then you find it's energy content E=hf.
There you go again. It's not there because 'it' is not an object. It's an abstraction, a mathematical representation, not an actual wave, but a model of a special kind of random behavior, one that can't be resolved to a fixed probability density, and this is describable as wavelike behavior.When you don't find the photon, the wave-function is still there.
Photons are not wavy. That's meaningless. Photons propagate as waves.When you do find the photon, you find something that is energized, has frequency, and is wavy.
No, therefore photons propagate as waves which has nothing to do with the wave function per se.Therefore, photons are just energized wave-functions; wave-functions are just space waiting around to be energized.
The problem with analogies is that they lead to wild speculation about how apples are like oranges. Quantum numbers (in the sense you seem to be analogizing) are abstractions that help us understand the range of discrete properties that distinguish particle types. They describe properties of real things, but are not themselves real. Properties are not things, merely behaviors or characteristics. Blue is not a thing. Nor is angular momentum.Ever hear of the Pauli Exclusion Principle? In a quantum system that holds electrons (fermions), every electron gets its own set of quantum numbers. Quantum numbers are like addresses for each "space" in the quantum system.
To say 'present' is to infer substance, but these are the intrinsic properties (impedance) of space, nothing more. Permittivity is not a thing. Again, you continue to merge the notion of properties with the notion of a thing, like a particle. This may explain why you think space contains ether-like 'things', but this just a figment of your imagination, nothing more. You aren't distinguishing reality from fiction.Permittivity and permeability of free space are present whether there are photons around or not;
Because the intrinsic nature of space is that it is actually a physical manifestation of spacetime. The intrinsic impedance of space establishes the relationship between space and time in terms of wave velocity, the direction and magnitude of electric and magnetic fields, and it establishes the basis for these phenomena under both the inertial and relativistic scenarios.both of these constants are inextricably tied to the speed of light, c. Why is that?
That's measurement, a subset of all observations.Observation means you tried to detect the particle.
Huh? That's just a play on words.When you find your keys in the bathroom, your house doesn't collapse (fortunately); neither does the wave-function collapse.
No. It's not supposed to exist. Because it doesn't. That was a very old idea that has been found to be an erroneous interpretation of how waves propagate and why.The luminiferous aether is supposed to be the medium that bears light.
In the first place there wasn't anything to disprove but speculation. And it was disproved, far beyond the degree of any other speculation, including the very wild ones you are advancing here. Furthermore, generalizing physicists to a stereotype of "irrational fear of ether" is paranoid conspiracy theory. Physicists study and characterize nature. Along the way they set up possible scenarios to explain phenomena for which they have no science. Ether was one of those styrofoam propositions, originating from an age of superstition. Subsequent science has been discovered to prove that this is not how nature operates. M&M set out to prove it, not to disprove it, and were humiliated by their results. We have to go with what nature actually is, not what some ill-informed people thought it might be when they had no better explanations. to do otherwise is to exhibit a fear of reality, and that's the worst kind of paranoia imaginable, since it leads to delusion - aliens, or hearing voices, for example.Physicists have an irrational fear of the aether. They fool themselves into thinking that M&M disproved the aether.
You can say all you want, but your words - like mine - are trumped by nature. Nature is what it is, and like it or not, newer and better work has been done to dispel some of the older myths and superstitions about it, giving us a picture that is gradually coming into focus.All M&M did was demonstrate that the aether was not a point particle. I say that the aether is a collection of waves that look like $$e^{i(kx - \omega t)}$$, such that $$c=\frac{\omega}{k}$$. M&M didn't test for that.
To reject that progress toward better focus is irrational, and it moves contrary to the direction of science.