I certainly don't claim to have a mastery of the subject.. but like you, some of the ideas just don't work in my head. Perhaps I don't understand the theory the way it's supposed to be understood.. I'm certainly confused why so many well educated people accept photon theory if it's not well tested and understandable. Stranger things have happened though, so I don't discount the notion that no one really understands it.
Either way, have you noticed that the description of a photon seems to match pretty well with the description of a generic wave? The only thing I don't understand is why they are called particles. A particle that interacts with particles of a different type, and not particles of it's own type seems a bit odd to me.
A photon:
Moves at a constant velocity
Has zero mass and rest energy
Carries energy and momentum
Can be destroyed/created via interaction with other matter.
A ripple on the surface of a body of water:
Moves at a constant velocity
Has zero mass and rest energy
Carries energy and momentum
Can be destroyed/created via interaction with other matter.
Looks to me like a description of a standard wave.. Please feel free to correct me if I'm overlooking something.
The only thing that could upset this parallel is if there has been a confirmed and authenticated case of photon-photon collision that can't be duplicated in other forms of wave. Since waves don't collide with waves in the same medium, this would be pretty good evidence that a photon is a physical particle.
As it stands though, I'm convinced that the 'photon' is little more than a mathematical abstract that defines the interaction between EM waves and physical matter. Rather than the description of a physical particle.
And I derive from that the idea that a photon is just an omnidirectional hiccup in space... comparable to a basic pulse of sound.Statistics: Posted by Cryptonic26 — Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:49 pm
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