where does light from a torch go?

[exchemist]

"Photons are photons and have both wavelike and particle-like attributes, depending on the circumstances."

I agree. All I'm asking is whether the wave-like attributes are only ever evident in flight? And is the particle component only every evident following absorption?

From what i can see of the double-slit experiment, its results support what I am suggesting. Multiple waves in flight interfere and then convert to distributed particles at the screen where they are received (or observed).

Even where a single photon is emitted, one after the other, each photon remains as an energy wave during flight and takes all available paths as the wave is spit. When it reaches the observation screen, it collapses into a particle (but only as a result of being observed). The pattern is still evident because the light was always an interference-potential wave right up until observation.

It appears to me that this is why trying to observe the photon at one of the slits effectively breaks the wave down into a particle and destroys the potential for interference at the screen.

I'd guessed you had this in mind. But as usual you overlook the part of what I said that does not fit your eccentric view. The energy of the photons is proportional to their frequency. Frequency is a wave property. How could we measure a frequency if photons were just particles that appeared at the instant of measurement? There are numerous experiments done with light that show its wave character and these, being experiments, obviously involve measuring.

If you want to make a case that photons and subatomic particles like electrons behave primarily as waves and only as quantised "lumps" of matter, i.e. as particles, when they interact, that would I think be a fairly respectable position. It is close to how for convenience I picture things myself.

But that is utterly, utterly, different from claiming that photons etc do not exist until they are observed, which is what you were initially arguing.

 

[dav57]

I am suggesting that there could be connections between everything in our closed universe, connections which act as enablers for the transfer of energy from source to receiver. Where there is no potential to transfer energy, the wave doesn't even get emitted in the first place. Or at least it never gets detected and as such doesn't exist (I know you don't like that bit).

Without beating about the bush, I'm wondering if light could actually be a standing wave between a capable source and a capable receiver, with an already predetermined path, which has the capability to transfer discreet packets of energy from source to observer. Information would still take time to travel along the path but the information is contained within a waveform. The result, only apparent where a predetermined path is available, would be a transfer of energy from source to observer (or receiver).

This would account for spooky action at a distance as well as other weird phenomena whereby light appears to "know" its future.

 

[origin]

I'd guessed you had this in mind. But as usual you overlook the part of what I said that does not fit your eccentric view. The energy of the photons is proportional to their frequency. Frequency is a wave property. How could we measure a frequency if photons were just particles that appeared at the instant of measurement? There are numerous experiments done with light that show its wave character and these, being experiments, obviously involve measuring.

Good point, dav57 could just get himself a prism and a piece of paper and he would see the wave nature of light (the separating of white light into different colors) and the particle nature of light (the absorption and reradiation of the photons on the paper).

 

[dav57]

"Frequency is a wave property"

I thought it was simply a count of how many times something regularly ocurred over a given period of time: things that wave, bump, bang, whatever. Frequency could be related to how often information gets translated into observation.

 

[dav57]

"How could we measure a frequency if photons were just particles that appeared at the instant of measurement?"

Easy.

 

[dav57]

"If you want to make a case that photons and subatomic particles like electrons behave primarily as waves and only as quantised "lumps" of matter, i.e. as particles, when they interact, that would I think be a fairly respectable position. It is close to how for convenience I picture things myself."

Then we agree.

"But that is utterly, utterly, different from claiming that photons etc do not exist until they are observed, which is what you were initially arguing."

yes, and i am still querying that (not arguing). Anything seems possible in our weird and wonderful universe.

 

[origin]

I am suggesting that there could be connections between everything in our closed universe, connections which act as enablers for the transfer of energy from source to receiver. Where there is no potential to transfer energy, the wave doesn't even get emitted in the first place. Or at least it never gets detected and as such doesn't exist (I know you don't like that bit).

No, that is demonstrably false. You are saying in effect that if I were shooting a laser in the path of a satellite that is 1 light second way from earth and the satellite crossed the area that I am point the laser then the laser light would never hit the satellite.

Get it?

If the light is not emitted until there something in the path of the light to absorbe it, when the satellite crosses the area where the beam should be, at that instant the light waves are emitted, but it will take the photons 1 second to reach the spot where the satellite crossed the beam path, but by that time the satellite will not longer be there so the laser light (according to your idea) will never shine on the satellite.

 

[dav57]

Good point, dav57 could just get himself a prism and a piece of paper and he would see the wave nature of light (the separating of white light into different colors) and the particle nature of light (the absorption and reradiation of the photons on the paper).

No. I would be seeing the result of an interaction. I never get to see the waves.

 

[origin]

No. I would be seeing the result of an interaction. I never get to see the waves.

Particles do not separate into different colors - waves do. The particle like interactions that you are seeing is the result of the waves separating. Try not to cling to and idea if you are shown evidence to let it go. That is the wonderful act of learning.

 

[dav57]

Particles do not separate into different colors - waves do. The particle like interactions that you are seeing is the result of the waves separating.

please think a bit more about this. I agree with your statement. But everything we see is an interaction with a receiver, where waves have already been translated into particle interactions. We NEVER see waves.

 

[dav57]

I can think of no example where we actually observe waves. Even at the retina, we only observe the final interaction on the path of a wave. When we see colours of the rainbow, we are looking at an object which has interacted itself with the waves.

 

[dav57]

it's almost like we NEVER see a wave. It doesn't exist until it interacts.

 

[origin]

This is the same thing as the old adage, "if Helen Keller was alone and fell down in the woods would she make a sound". The answer is the same yes, the waves exist.

You can go on believing anything you want, I always like to go with the most logical but hey, that's just me.

 

[exchemist]

please think a bit more about this. I agree with your statement. But everything we see is an interaction with a receiver, where waves have already been translated into particle interactions. We NEVER see waves.

Tell that to a radio engineer.

 

[Aqueous Id]

I can think of no example where we actually observe waves. Even at the retina, we only observe the final interaction on the path of a wave.

No that is not how a retina works. It converts the energy of incident photons into neuronal action potentials. You will never get anywhere trying to explain how the visual cortex works, but we can touch on some gross oversimplifications of it.

When we see colours of the rainbow, we are looking at an object which has interacted itself with the waves.

No, you are receiving packets of energy onto your photoreceptor cells. They, and the rest of the visual system, take care of the rest. They just happen to be wavelets because that's how nature works. But you're far afield from what you are hoping to prove. For some reason you're stuck on waves, unaware that they are actually quanta we call wavelets, which are energy in its radiant form. You need to be focusing on how we measure energy. Once you understand that, I think your concerns will be allayed. When light diffracts near a rain cloud, producing a rainbow, the effects are taking place at the molecular level. You would need to dig into that because it covers optics which is fairly involved.

But everything we see is an interaction with a receiver, where waves have already been translated into particle interactions. We NEVER see waves.

No one knows exactly what "see" means in terms of visual cortical activity. We know it involves a biological wavelet called an action potential. These are not properly called particle interactions. They are changes to the electric field along the axon due to the pumping of ions across the membrane. It's a system effect, not a particle interaction. You would need to know a little systems theory to understand what I mean by that.

One of the simplest ways for you to see your error is to learn how an interferometer works. Once you study fringing you will realize that you are seeing waves. The same is true for interferometers which operate outside the optical band. Interferometers measure phase, which tells you the energy is transmitted as a wave.

Consider this remark

Tell that to a radio engineer.

The waves from a radio transmitter can be seen on an oscilloscope. They can also been seen on a spectrum analyzer which directly measures the frequency of a constant carrier, and which can also display the spread of waves we call spectra, when the radio uses certain techniques for modulating the carrier. You can send and receive waves in an antenna, or pipe the waves along coaxial cable. A coax is a waveguide. Same for fiber optic cable. They can both be used to "see" waves of selected frequencies. Tuned circuits, such as filters, are devices that operate on waves of a certain frequency in rejection of others. This is how baseband detection works. When a car radio tunes to a frequency of 88.5 MHz it's picking up broadcast waves of that frequency. When your car is driving down the road, the radio antenna is "surfing" that wave. Radar and sonar are examples of "seeing" waves. Acoustics is too. Your tympanic membranes "see" the compression and rarefaction of air molecules, which constitute sound waves.

 

[Russ_Watters]

it's almost like we NEVER see a wave. It doesn't exist until it interacts.

You are changing the argument without completing the previous, which looks like trolling. Please answer explicitly:
Do you recognize that your claim that a photon doesn't exist until detected is DEMONSTRATED FALSE by experiments that have already been done?

 

[dav57]

Tell that to a radio engineer.

The wave has already landed, interacted, and been converted to another kind of energy by the time a radio engineer hears anything.

 

[dav57]

"It converts the energy of incident photons into neuronal action potentials"

Yes, wave has been received and energy transformation begins. Wave has been transformed and "observed", but not as a wave.

 

[dav57]

"No, you are receiving packets of energy onto your photoreceptor cells. They, and the rest of the visual system, take care of the rest."

Once again, it is not the waves that we see at the point of observation. It is the conversion process at the point of observation from wave (which carries the energy) to a discreet "packet of energy" which is then "particle-like". I don't think we can "see" waves; it is only the interaction process at the point of observation that we can interpret as energy transfer/information.

This is hard to explain.

 

[dav57]

All I'm saying is that it's not the waves that you see. They exist along every possible path from source to observer until one single path is taken (the easiest and fastest path) until the waveform collapses and transfers information/energy from source to observer, which is interpreted as particle-like behaviour.

I'm not trolling Russ, give over!