First things first. No force is needed to "drive" anything in free space. Newton's first law of motion says that an object will continue to travel in a straight line at constant speed forever, unless slowed down or sped up by a force. In other words, forces are only needed to change motion (speed), but not to keep it going.
Now, photons of light, from the moment they are created (in the sun or wherever), travel at the speed of light. They never change speed, so no force is required to "drive" them.
Thanks for the reply. But don't i remember something about an object will remain at rest until etc etc.
So, photons are they called? I suppose that's the particle or wave?
I think you may have ducked the question. Sure after creation they travel at the speed of light and never change speed. But during creation and before the speed of light starts, what gets it going?????????????
I don't want to seem difficult, but I've been told scientists know what propels light, but they seem a bit tight liped.
How are photons created?Photons of light are never at rest. They always, from the moment of creation, travel at the speed of light.
How are photons created?
Well what about gravitation? Could gravity be the force that propels the photon?
And since Newtonian law rules, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Compressing two atoms together will case an emission of energy.
Some of that energy would be of the visible wavelength.
The speed of light may have something to do with the enigmatic Higgs Background. The hypothetical energy field that applies the equal and opposite force to the compression of gravitation.
I believe that the residual energy left over from infinite decay of infinite particles in infinite space/time are what composes the Higgs background, and the reason light can travel smoothly through space is because it is slicing through the particles both propelling them and being degraded by them.
Photons of light are never at rest. They always, from the moment of creation, travel at the speed of light.
It's essentially the same for light. Some applied force essentially shakes an atom and it makes waves that travel through space. See what I said earlier about wave/particle duality. There's no friction at all, so they keep on going just like the earth keeps on going round the sun.Farsight, thanks. Yes I can imagine all that, but it didn't get down to my question as someone has to shake the mat, and something starts waves moving. What I was wondering is what caused light to travel.
It's simpler than you might think. The key is to focus on the original Maxwell in say On Physical Lines of Force and home in on displacement current. As a photon passes you by there's an electromagnetic field variation, but there's no charged particle present. Instead it's "displacement current" passing you by, and it's effectively alternating because the field variation goes this way ↑ then that way ↓ in line with the typical sinusoidal waveform. For myself I think the best way to think about it is as a "pulse of displacement", or "a pulse of spacewarp".I think my biggest problem is not realising the strange nature of light. Tried to post a link to a site that had a few examples of experiments, including a video and photo of a light particle/wave, Young's double slit etc but broke some rule that I didn't see in the rules.
As farsight pointed out, the original Maxwell equations demonstrate how the speed of light can be measured (frequency * wavelength) and James R highlighted Newton's first law of motion stating that a force is not needed to "drive" anything in the vacuum of space. Both examples hint that a photon will always move at a constant rate from the moment it is created. This velocity maxes out at 299,792,458 m/sec in a pure vacuum and there have been experiments preformed that show, in certain mediums, a photon can "stand still". This brings us to post #13 where you bring up the refraction index of diamond.Originally Posted by Fidget
Light rays, from the sun etc. Is there a simple and quick explanation of the force that "drives" them. IE why do they move/travel?
There's an easy one to start. :shrug:
Photons don't need a force to propel them.
When I learned that nuclear hadrons were composed of even smaller bodies of positive and negative energy than the hadrons themselves, I became very interested in them. Even the proton has a negative componet quark. To me this flooring. There is no neutrally charged quark though. This gave me the idea that neutrality is an unstable relationship between + and - charges, that is broken by force. When the balance breaks a charged particle appears and energy escapes that circuit. Some of that light could be of the visible wavelenght.
That law is only about forces, you know.
The force I'm trying to work with is the electromagnetic-weak force, within the neutral entity. That aids it's decay. Taking matter that is neutral and balanced and jamming them together will both require and relinquish energy even if gravity is doing the jamming. Though any neutral object is constantly eroding away it is the nature of bonds of positive and negative energy to breakdown. They have an existince whose time is dependent upon their ability to continue as balanced. But something like gravitation greatly forshortens the life of a neutral body and greatly increases the amount of energy out put over time, by crushing it forcing it's componet positive and negative componets into a circumference that is too small for occupancy by the particles. They smash to pieces and emit energy.
Not always. Sometimes energy is absorbed, depending on the atoms.
Oh yeah, that is true,(nervous chuckle). I am glad you mentioned that. Energy is so cool .But is it not true that nuclear hadrons are composed of both positive and negative charges, at the quark level. I find that interesting. What becomes of a quark when it's life cycle is over? I believe that is the beginning of the process of beta decay. During this process all kinds of cool things happen, Protons swapping roles with neutrons and the emission of radiation and such. I'm saying that the neutral aspect of the atomic nucleus is the meat and potatoes of an atom. The positive and negative charges left over simply exist to establish equilibrium- hypothetically of course.
Not always.
Huh? How can you apply a force to the "compression of gravitation"? Compression is an effect, not an object.
I want to draw a picture of gravity as a perfect vacuum, just in a hypothetical sense. I know that gravity is mysterious. But what if at the moment before the big bang, what surrounded the super symmetrical singularity was a perfect vacuum, like an enoromous black hole, that can never entropy. You couldn't really call a hole an object, but I guess you could call it something.
Why do you believe that?
Lots of different ways.
One example, given earlier, is when an excited atom loses internal energy. Energy is conserved through the emission of a photon.
As farsight pointed out, the original Maxwell equations demonstrate how the speed of light can be measured (frequency * wavelength) and James R highlighted Newton's first law of motion stating that a force is not needed to "drive" anything in the vacuum of space. Both examples hint that a photon will always move at a constant rate from the moment it is created. This velocity maxes out at 299,792,458 m/sec in a pure vacuum and there have been experiments preformed that show, in certain mediums, a photon can "stand still". This brings us to post #13 where you bring up the refraction index of diamond.
Then this, from a Gem book; Speed of light in air 300,000 km/sec.
Speed of light in a diamond 124,120 km/sec.
I.e. 2.4 times faster in air.
So in science forums I've read light doesn't slow down. I guess it reflects or something, around a transparent stone, which would seem to slow it down in effect.
So, how are they created when two nuclei fuse?
:shrug:
...have been experiments preformed that show, in certain mediums, a photon can "stand still".