Tag: photon

What happens when squirrels do not move.

Stationary state and squirrels !

Okay so the squirrel isn’t moving around so much, giving a fuzzy image. We can call the instant during which the squirrel wasn’t moving akin to a “gross” stationary state.

But why is the railing of window fuzzy? It isn’t moving !

Diffraction.

Due to diffraction enough light is coming from the other side of the iron bar, to enable us to see whats there. That quadrangle is diffracting the light. But why its fuzzy?

Diffraction is by its own very nature even though purely classical in many sense, fuzzy towards energy if time window is small. [due to energy vs time uncertainty]

That is, full energy cycle isn’t available, because a small time window is chosen. If you time-lapse the photograph, diffraction will become quite insignificant. Although it might still be there depending on details.

Continue reading

Uncertainty Principle and Photography !

why a moving object becomes fuzzy when you take its picture. Speed bears an uncertainty with momentum (hence energy ) just like time with energy and position with momentum. But for photons which are always ultra-relativistic we should not talk about its positions. Due to speed (relative motion of objects such as your and moving while other body parts being still) energy and momentum are uncertain. Hence position becomes uncertain. (Do not confuse between position of photon vs position/location on your image although its connected to wave-function collapse BEFORE or AFTER the observation ? is the question you should be asking, BEFORE the observation no sense of photon’s position, but AFTER collapse we do see only a particular outcome in terms of fuzzy images.)

Continue reading

A particle that defies classical mechanics !

A photon has no mass but energy and it has speed and it has momentum although it does not have mass. Thats impossible in Classical Mechanics. Because Classical Mechanics associates with every mass; momentum and kinetic and potential energy. All those would be zero if mass were to be zero.

Also the speed of the photon is constant while its energy and momentum are changing. This is unimaginable in classical mechanics. In CM first momentum can’t be defined from mass and speed if mass is zero, then while speed is not changing how is momentum changing? So both variables speed and mass fail to define a momentum for the photon, and not just the failure to have a mass. How then momentum is defined for this particle? Its not defined as long as photon is just a particle. Thats impossible.

Continue reading

The photon saga.

5. Photon is a zero mass particle (not a zero rest mass particle) and its deflection in gravitational field, called gravitational lensing is due to two reasons; i. single photon effective mass is due to the definite energy and momentum of the same. ii. multiple photons have non-zero invariant mass, hence they behave like any ordinary particle with mass, bends under gravity therefore, in both cases.

6. talk about inertial or non-inertial frames hardly does complicacy (unless its a particle with mass, hence further degrees of trade-off in phase space) especially if you are dealing in terms of energy and not force etc. Which is why Physics is formulated on higher parameters like energy and action, from where these concepts do not make difference. Energy is already integrated and having an acceleration on every instant has already been taken into consideration.

I THINK THATS ENOUGH FOR YOU TO REMEMBER ABOUT PHOTONS FOR NOW. IF I STUMBLE ACROSS ANY MORE CONFUSION WE WILL DISCUSS MORE.

Continue reading

The latest trends in physics. Speed of Light.

Much of this article is reviewed and updated today, the: (07 January 2014). It has become more interesting, less confusing and more clarifying. Its totally worth reading this article, I would say. (since the cork that was creating confusion is out)

Please note that some of the speculations turned out to be factually not valid, that is neutrino can’t move faster than a photon. This article is from more than 2 years ago when OPERA experiment had startled the world by saying neutrinos move faster than photons, and I was explaining from simplistic view points, as to why that would be so, if that is indeed true. But OPERA experiment’s explanation of this invalidity IS their wire was loose. My painstaking analysis was NO, the explanation IS, Compton wavelength of neutrino. That analysis will be linked here when more edits and reviews have been done on such articles, written by me, yes there was more than 50 articles, as far as I recall, but 3 major problems of physics were addressed and answers found. Here is a summarized view though.

What is the latest development in Physics?

Here are some of my views on such a question which can be as wide ranging as asking “what are the life forms in an ocean”. Clearly enough thats not the purview with which this article is written. It is only to give an idea of what are some basic ideas that are being addressed in some way or other in taking up the recently (September 2011 ) occurring botheration in fundamental physics, the speed of light.

Continue reading

What do we know about photon? (light)

I should at some time try to be a little more comprehensive than what will follow, I have elsewhere said how photon is very special: zero mass, vector spin state, fastest particle, force carrier of electromagnetic force — actually Maxwell waves and so on.

We can not talk about the position of the photon in relativistic quantum mechanics — we do not have a complete consistency but still. Also photon is it’s own anti-particle …

I was just reviewing a little about the photon: in 1600 Galileo was trying to measure the speed of light, at that time light speed was thought to be infinite, that is; instantaneous. The light is there in alpha-centauri, and it is there in here, at the same instant.

Galileo took his postdoc (pun) to a distant place and took a light source and uncovered it so his postdoc can see it remotely, then he would uncover his, upon seeing this and Galileo would see that and note his time.

ha ha ha that’s silly Galileo, Galileo’s ghost: yes Mohan, easy for you to say that, how about detecting dark matter? Xenon, ha ha ha ha ha ha … Xenon will detect the dark matter, ha ha hahhh haah a

Needless to say Galileo failed or rather he measured light speed to be infinite in line with the PDG (pun) publication of 1600.

A few years later (1849) Fizeu (France) performed his experiment. This was the first experiment that provided the correct result. Compare to the most precise

Continue reading

1 2