Celestial Mechanic

Thank you for a definitive exposition on the electromagnetic quantum. I now modify my above statements accordingly. You mentioned six properties of a photon: energy, momentum, frequency, polarization, electric field, and magnetic field. You wrote Since the momentum p = E/c, momentum and energy are not independent and E alone would suffice. That leaves 5 properties. However, you also wrote: If energy is not intrinsic to a photon it cannot be an independent property of a photon. Furthermore, the energy is already represented in the electric and magnetic fields. Therefore, we can remove energy as an intrinsic property. But wait! That would leave us with only 4 intrinsic properties. Is there a way out of this predicament? Sure.

Light in a transparent medium other than vacuum is a combination of a photon's fields with field changes of the medium excited by the photon. The combined fields produce a group velocity that can be greater or less than the velocity of the photon depending on circumstances. A photon, however, maintains its velocity and frequency unchanged before entering the medium, while entering the medium, while in the medium, while exiting the medium, and after exiting the medium

So presto-changeo, and out pops velocity as the missing 5th intrinsic property. The velocity of a photon, independent of source, independent of observer, and even independent of the medium through which it travels, is surely an intrinsic property of a photon. Here, then, are the five intrinsic properties of a photon: velocity, frequency, polarization, electric field, and magnetic field.

Now back to the original point of this thread. If the expansion of space acts on a photon it would have to act on at least one of that photon's intrinsic properties. Since wavelength is a function of velocity and frequency it is not an intrinsic property of a photon. To increase the wavelength of a photon, expanding space would have to alter the photon's velocity or frequency during the time interval between it's emission and it's observation.

A photon's velocity and period are unaltered in passing through the strong fields in a transparent gas, liquid, or solid. Doesn't it seem unbelievable that space should be able to do what those strong fields cannot? How can the expansion of space alter a photon's velocity or frequency? If that question cannot be answered, the cosmological red shift hypothesis would seem to have no basis.

Well, electric and magnetic fields are mutually implying so therefore, you only need one to get the other.

Well, it looked serious, but she is getting better and is now home. Broke two ribs and a small puncture of her lung. Was in a car accident. My daughter is still a bit sore all over, but not otherwise hurt.

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Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

That's serious enough! Your close call makes the business of photon stretching seem suddenly quite trivial.

I've already given my answer to this quandary: the expansion of space doesn't alter the photon in any way whatsoever. As far as the photon is concerned its entire existence - from its creation to its destruction - takes place at the same point in space and at the same point in time. There simply isn't any time for a photon to change any of its attributes.

The comological red shift is a relative effect. It is due to the expansion of space, but it's the expansion acting on us - not on the photon.

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- Learn a lot teaching others.

Anyone heard about this new 'mystery meson' just discovered in Japan?

It's made of 4 quarks instead of 3 and lives for an infintesimally short period of time before decaying. Trillionths of a second no less.

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You cannot create a truth by believing in a falsehood.

Eroica, are you saying that light does not change because it's moving at the speed of light? I wonder if you're applying SR outside its normal range. SR allows us to describe how light signals appear for a source and receiver in relative motion. A photon is neither a source nor a receiver, so it would be improper to use a time dilation analogy on it, as you seem to be doing.

Glom wrote: I'm not sure that they mutually imply each other in the case of a photon, Glom. But if so, Celestial Mechanic would have to settle for a photon with 4 intrinsic properties, i.e. velocity, frequency, polarization, and electric field. But by what mechanism can the expansion of space cause red shift by acting on any of those 4 intrinsic properties of a photon?

Eroica wrote:The idea of expansion implies the passage of time. For every present effect (action) there is a present cause. If space expanded in the past, that expansion would not constitute a present cause and would not produce a present effect. Past expansion of space could not act on us now.

Furthermore, if the expansion of space acted on us but not on photons traveling through space, all photons would always have their original velocities, original frequencies, and original wavelengths. Why should the past expansion of space cause us now to observe wavelengths increasing with the distance of the source if the velocities and frequencies of the photons have not changed?

If the expansion of space caused us to now observe longer wavelengths we should observe the same proportional elongation for the wavelengths of all photons, regardless of the distance/time they traveled. However, that is not what we observe.

It's Maxwell physics. You can't get an electric field without a magnetic field. Relativity showed that the two are the same thing observed from different frames of reference.

Did you really understand what he wrote? Photons are described by two 4-vectors, which means 8 numbers. Due to the nature of photons, some of those numbers vanish leaving 5 numbers. Which is what he meant by this:
Note he said quantities, not properties.

Who said it is? Energy is dependent on the 4-vector k. And k is different for each observer, which means each observer sees a different energy for that photon.

Do you understand coherent forward scattering? The photon that enters the medium is not the same photon that leaves the medium.

Again, go back to CM's post. He specifically states that frequency is the time component of the 4-vector k.

Which prior knowledge are you refering to? You didn't understand spin, you don't seem to understand 4-vectors. I don't understand how you can come up with an model of a photon, if you don't understand the basic concepts used to describe observations.

You also still haven't answered this question from me:

__________________
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

First off, I want to apologize for doubting your understanding. From reading your posts, I got the impression that you may have been confused.

Tim is doing a good job using analogies to describe what is happening. As far as theorists go, I'm not a professional, just someone who has worked hard to understand the math behind the concepts. I got tired of basing my understanding on analogies.

OK, let me take a whack at it. You're right, it's not a straight doppler. That would imply that the galaxy (or whatever other object you want) ,emitting the photon, is moving through space away from us at a certain velocity (let's say v. This would be called an intrinsic motion). What is happening in the BB model is space itself is moving away from us at v, due to expansion, and the galaxy is carried along at v. Space is thus stretching (getting bigger) , and I think this is what Tim means when he says space is streched. But, space is not streching the photon, the stretch is responsible for the galaxy's motion, which causes the change of the photon's frequency. I realize that the difference between moving through space and moving with space is subtle, but there is a difference. Please remember that this is my interpretation, no one elses. Any errors are mine.

Also, thanks for your concern with regard to the accident.

__________________
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

Thanks for getting back on that question, Tensor. Your explanation is different from the ones I've read so far. It seems you are saying that the velocities of galaxies are steadily increasing due to space expansion, and that these velocities then lead to steadily increasing redshifts. In other threads where the conventional Big Bang view of this is discussed (and I think Tim said this too), the redshift does not occur entirely at the source (as in a straight Doppler shift), but instead is spread out along the photon's whole trajectory from the distant galaxy to us. Now I don't know if the latter is actually true, but that's what they're saying. If it is true, however, I don't think your mechanism would work, because it does not allow for a change in wavelength to occur after the photon leaves the distant galaxy. If their view is wrong, then I suppose your 'changing Doppler' mechanism could be on.

I hope things are slowly getting back to normal for you after your accident. It seems that drivers are getting worse every year. In Toronto there are more pedestrians killed each year by cars then there are homicides, more also than died in the whole SARS thing. I got bumped twice on my bicycle in the last year alone, and am thinking of calling it quits. My wife and daughter drive around too in all this chaos. There needs to be some heavy action taken, but nothing is being done.

Conjecture
How to resolve the schizophrenic property of light. Particle or wave?

If a photon were like an arrow. (The electrostatic and magnetic fields can be combined into one vector since they are perpendicular to each other)

And the arrow were allowed to spin.

And the tail of the arrow was fixed to a dimensional relationship based up the expansion of space, which keeps the photon moving in a “straight” (metric) line.

Then as the arrow spins it would form a sinusoidal wave representing the electric and magnetic properties of the photon

If the photon arrow were to pass though a constriction, such as Young’s double slit experiment, the “arrow” will not be able to stay on its straight line path through space time and be probabilistically deflected.

The reason for the probabilistic deflection of the photon is not entirely because of its arrow shape. It is primarily due to the expansion of space-time, which occurs as a small quanta sized volume of space-time. . As a photon passes through a slit or similar restriction, a quanta sized expansion of space-time will probabilistically appear in and near the restriction. This quanta sized expansion of space will cause a probabilistic deflection of the passing photon. (Drop a ball on a pin, which then deflects to another pin, which then deflects to another pin, etc. etc) Once the photon is beyond the constriction, the photon regains it’s stability and can proceed in it’s straight path according to the large scale structure of space time.

Light is a “particle” or a localized region of space-time
The wave properties are the result of the probabilistic expansion of space-time.

snowflake

To Snowflake:

cyreks reply:

I have always wondered about the nterpretation of these double slit experiments.

Since I consider the photon pulse as a disturbance in the EMF surrounding all electrons, I am inclined to believe that the atoms at the edges of these slits would have some influence over these photon pulses.
These atoms are surrounded by electrons. Therefore, these electrons would have some affect over these passing photons.
This is probably what causes the wave patterns since the electrons patterns would vary with each photon passage.

Photon pulses are BBR pulses traced out by transitional electrons in closed orbits.

These slit waves are sinosoidal which are the result of open orbits as in plasma's or contiuous orbits as those man made radiations in radio technology.
These are the reasons why I question the slit interpretations.

__________________
aka Michael Cyrek

Regarding the increased wavelength of light as it travels through an expanding space time field I’d like to toss in my two cents.

Often the expansion of space is illustrated with an expanding balloon, but the analogy is done with “fixed” sized galaxies usually described as pennies or buttons. (Which according to my theory is wrong since galaxies also expand with the expansion of space).

Using a balloon to represent the expansion of space is more interesting if we consider the energy contained IN the expanding balloon. If there is no added matter placed into a balloon, the only way it can expand is if the surface tension is reduced. As the balloon expands, energy is extracted. The atoms and molecules within the balloon decrease in velocity, and cool. The energy within the balloon is transferred to the work done in expanding the balloon. This is analogous to the expansion of space, as the universe expands, energy is lost. Since a photon is part of the universe, it too looses energy. This loss of energy is realized as a reduction in the spin of the photon, which causes the observed increase in the wave length. So as space time expands, the energy of the photon is diminished and the wave length of a photon is increased.

I should note that in my uniform expansion theory, not only is it the photon that looses energy, it is matter itself that must also loose energy since it too is part of the expanding universe. General Relativity makes a distinction between “local” and “global” locations.

Snowflake.

Glom wrote:Does that mean that there is a magnetic field between the plates of a fully charged capacitor?

Tensor wrote:andA number is a mathematical unit used to express an amount, quantity, etc. But numbers are used in two distinct ways. The first way is to express a count. Counts are given in integer numbers and are exact. The second way is to express a measurement. Measurements are given in real numbers and cannot be exact. There is always a range of error associated with any measurement.

In Tensor's quoted use of "two", "4", "8", and "5", those integers are used as counting numbers. When Tensor used the terms "8 numbers" and "5 numbers", the word "numbers" does not represent counting numbers; it represents measurement numbers.

Now the measurements of mass, length and time are so important that we have agreed on standard objects for purposes of comparison. But mass, length and time do not have existence independent of objects; they are not real things themselves. They are attributes or properties of real things. The quantity of a property is expressed as a measurement. Quantities independent of properties are meaningless. Every quantity implies the measured property of an object. Thus, "8 numbers" and "5 numbers" as originally used imply 8 properties and 5 properties respectively. The abstract nature of mathematics easily causes us to lose sight of the implications of the terms with which it deals.

Where Tensor wrote: I assume he agreed with me that energy is not an independent property of a photon.

I wroteTensor wrote:If a medium is truly transparent it will not support coherent forward, Compton, Raman, or resonance scattering. It will also not support light stimulated fluorescence. Think of a solid, transparent dielectric with no resonance for the incident light. In such a truly transparent medium the photon that enters is the one that leaves.

Tensor wrote:Does that give expanding space a way to change the frequency of a photon?

Tensor asked:[quote]Where was this published?[quote]
I didn't want to advertise in this thread, but Tensor leaves me no choice.
It was in my book A Journey Beyond The Universe

Tensor wrote:Shame on you Tensor, for accusing a poor little old galaxy of fooling around with a photon's frequency. Are you implying that the galaxy knew how long and how far the photon would travel to reach us when she emitted the photon? Different photon frequencies for different future observer distances from the same galaxy? Impossible!

Or would you want us to stand up like men/women and take the blame ourselves for moving away from different traveling photons at different velocities? Einstein would roll over in his grave if we did. Clearly, once the galaxy emits a photon it relinquishes all control over it. At least it's clear to me. Perhaps the following will shed some light (unshifted) on the subject of the light Doppler effect.

DOPPLER RED SHIFT OF LIGHT EXPLAINED
(and don't ask me for any !# !%^#*! equations.)

First, ground rule #1: nothing can move faster than the velocity of light. (Agreed?....OK!)
Therefore an electron cannot move from one energy state to another at infinite velocity or in zero time. The process of emission of a photon must take place over a finite time interval. We can think of the emission process of a photon as the photon's birth process.

A nascent photon has to break free of mama electron during its birth process. Now even a nascent photon travels at the velocity of light, otherwise it would be a nascent something else, like maybe a nascent positron, a nascent neutron, or a nascent zebra colt. So forget about mama electron passing on any of her own particular velocity to baby photon. All she can do is affect is the baby's heartbeat and its sex.

If mama electron is moving in a direction opposite to that being taken by her birthing baby, she doesn't have time to pass on enough of her heartbeats. The baby's heartbeat is therefore a little slower than that of her mother. The baby is a little weaker and less energetic than she might otherwise have been. "But, what the heck!" thinks that photon, "I can still move faster than anything else. I could win any race. I'm happy enough with that. What's more, I actually love my different color. I do like colors on the pink side and I sure like being a girl photon."

If mama electron moves in the same direction as her birthing photon, she has the time to pass on a few extra heartbeats, and give birth to a more energetic boy photon who likes his bluer color. Boy photons, of course, do not talk a lot like girl photons.

Isn't it obvious? The light Doppler effect is as simple as that. Of course the wave mechanics will complicate it with something like the electron's waves interfering with the nascent photon's waves so that it gets robbed of some of its cycles. The end results will be the same though.

WARNING! "Many a truth is said in jest."

Alex W. wrote:and
Eroica wrote:I imagine that we have many readers of this thread with the same problem but who were too busy to reply or were not as forthcoming as Alex W. and Eroica.. Or maybe those other readers were counting on me to answer a question that had already been asked. Whatever the case, we only want the facts, Mam. (dum da dum dum)

I have warned you a few lines above that wave mechanics like to complicate things. You will see that I am right. As I have written before, a photon is not a wave. After you read my explanation I hope you will agree with me. What we do know is that a particle, whether a photon, an electron, or an atom, can display particle behavior or wave behavior. Which aspect it displays depends on which aspect we choose to view. The aspect we choose to view is determined by the experiment that we choose to perform. Light interference experiments demonstrate the wavelike nature of photons. Photo electic experiments demonstrate the particle nature of photons.

Some of you have admitted difficulty in accepting an object as being both a particle and a wave. Some, on the other hand, seem to have swallowed the idea hook, line, and sinker without any indigestion. Can both of you be missing the forest for the trees? With very little further investigation we will find the forest to be deep and dark.

Our task is to determine if any particle, massless or massive, can possibly be a wave. In this thread we have been discussing the nature of light. Your ordinary, everyday flashlight can illuminate our task.

Suppose you had a voltmeter connected across the light bulb of your flashlight. When the light is off the meter reads 0.0 volts. Next you turn on the light for 1 second. During that second the voltmeter reads 3.0 volts. At the end of that second you turn off the flashlight and the meter again reads 0.0 volts. If you graph the voltage across the bulb as a function of time you will have a rectangular pulse 3.0 volts high and one second wide. That pulse does not look like a wave. Maybe if it repeated regularly it might look like a wave, but not that single pulse.

However, using Fourier analysis that pulse can be represented by waves. The basic idea behind Fourier analysis is that any waveform, no matter how complex, can be represented as the superposition of a number of simple periodic sine or cosine waves. Fourier analysis gives an infinite number of waves to represent that rectangular pulse. As you add more and more of those waves together the result looks more and more like the pulse. It essentially begins to show the long 0.0 volts before the light was turned on, the 3.0 volts when the light was on, and the 0.0 volts going on forever after the light was turned off. The more of the waves you add the fewer the extraneous wiggles in the result. Now it would be a gross misrepresentation to call that pulse a wave when it is actually made up of many different waves.

The photon is analogous to that rectangular pulse. To be a particle a photon must have finite spatial extension, just as the pulse had finite time duration. In order to have that finiteness, the photon's waves must constructively reinforce in the photon's region of space and destructively interfere everywhere else, similar to the case of the pulse. As with the pulse, a photon is not a wave; it is many different waves.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the wave nature of particles is this: description of the waves requires mathematical representation. In that kind of representation it is very easy to drift away from reality. Take that flashlight pulse for example. The Fourier analysis yields waves that exist before the light was turned on, even an infinite time before. It also yields waves that continue an infinite time after the light is turned off. Turning on a flashlight now cannot create waves yesterday! A pulse of finite duration is represented in terms of waves of infinite duration. Something real is described in terms of something that cannot be real.

Analogously, photons of finite spatial extension are represented by waves having infinite spatial extension. What is even worse, a photon has to have those infinitely extended waves the instant it is born, and they have to vanish instantly when the photon dies. But that is not the end of the photon's problems. As with the pulse, the photon's waves, being functions of time, require existence before the photon is born and after it dies. But how can changing the quantum state of an electron today cause the existence of photon waves last week? Thus, the localization of the photon in space and time is achieved at the cost of postulating waves that are completely spread out in space and time. Again, something real is described in terms of something that cannot be real. The extent of the divergence from reality is indicated by the photon being characterized by a single frequency, while its wave representation is characterized by many frequencies.

So where does that leave us? We are left in the deep, dark forest of the unknown. Though we will learn more and more about light as time goes on, we will never know what light really is. We might as well get used to it. Don't be afraid of the dark!

At this point you may ask, "If that's the case, why bother?" The only justification is that those mathematical representations give us methods to explain real phenomena and solve real-world problems. By the way, can't anyone explain how expanding space could interact with an intrinsic property of a photon?

Man your a hoot and a half!!. Do you do birthday parties?

I'm dissapointed with you readers. Even Einstein could come up with a clock mechanism for the decrease of the frequency of light in a gravitational field. Why can't you produce a similar mechanism for the effect of expanding space on the frequency of a photon?

I think they're beat here. If they say light is a wave in a medium, then expanding the medium would redden the wave. But that would return us to the much abhorred ether, a preferred reference frame, etc. On the other hand, if they say light is a particle, then they escape the ether, but can't explain why expansion should cause photons to weaken but not other particles or masses. Checkmate!

Experdman, it is far from chechmate. Tim Thompson gave you a excellent description of what happens. I gave you the way I look at it, hoping it would help you understand.
I realize that my way of looking at it differs from Tim's explanation, but it's the way I can visualize it. If I were you, I would use Tim's explanation, he's far, far ahead of me in working this out and explaining it.
Tim is just trying to explain, in words, by an analogy, how the math works out. If you choose to reject it, it does not mean the math is wrong, it simply means you don't accept how the math is explained.
I fully realize that this sound like an argument from authority, but unless you are ready to give the equations that either refute or explain the expansion red-shift as currently observed and calculated, I don't see how you can claim the explanation dosen't match the math. Even if you can't see a mechanisim for the redshift.

__________________
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

Of course I didn't suppose it was checkmate Tensor! Just wanted to keep the game going.

You have a good point that analogies can't always do justice to the math. But in the end the math is there to describe a physical reality. I don't think it's the other way around, ie, physics must suit the math. It's no good to say at the end that the basis of the BB lies in math. I would say it lies in a physical theory, GR. I still don't think there's anything in GR that can help us understand why the universal expansion is causing the photon redshifts.

I have read this thread over again, and this is what I see. Maxwell did away with the ether by showing that light consists of waves in EM fields. But what those EM fields really are is anyone's guess. I think Tim must be saying that these EM fields are expanding because of universal expansion, and consequently the redshift appears. But there is no physics to justify that view that I'm aware of.

I think snowflakes's post could be relevant. If the EM fields and embedded light waves were causing expansion, then the loss of energy in these waves might make sense. In my own static model, I say something similar. During the redshift the energy of EM waves is lost to a subset of EM waves which induce gravitation. That keeps the universe in a steady equilibrium state.

To Tensor:

cyreks reply:

Math only explains things.
What is the 'cause' of the expansion of the light waves?

I still insist it is an 'intrinsic' expansion. Not caused by space expansion or tired light.

__________________
aka Michael Cyrek

Ahhhh, isn't that the idea? To explain things.


The expainsion of spacetime.

Insist away, but it doesn't make it so. Care to show where your intrinsic expainsion fits into GR.

__________________
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

To Tensor:

Albert Einstein had a problem with quantum theory. He did not exactly accept it.

His GR did not predict the expansion of space. On the contrary, he predicted a steady state universe and because of it, he introduced the cosmological constant to prevent its collapse. Are you not familiar with his statement about commiting 'his greatest blunder'?

I have posted articles on the 'expansion of the light waves'.
Use search to check those articles out using both names or just my full name.

__________________
aka Michael Cyrek

He did not accept the probability aspect of it. Are you aware of his contributions to the development of Quantum Theory?

You need to read up a bit more. His original equations showed the universe was either expanding or contracting. There was no evidence for either, and as a result, he added a ad hoc term to his equations to provide for a static universe.

Yes, I am. But, it doesn't appear you are familiar with the backround surrounding that phrase. He made it after the evidence for an expanding universe was discovered and regretted adding that ad hoc term.

I have read them and again I ask you: Care to show where your intrinsic expainsion fits into the GR equations?

__________________
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

Tensor wrote:

He did not accept the probability aspect of it. Are you aware of his contributions to the development of Quantum Theory?


cyreks reply:

You are probably referring to his Nobel award with his experiments that showed that photons act as particles. Yes, but that does not establish a link between QT and GR.
Quantum theory deals with microscopic atoms while GR deals with macroscopic space. The big bangers say that GR breaks down at quantum levels, so there can be no further probe beyond that point.

Tensor wrote:

You need to read up a bit more. His original equations showed the universe was either expanding or contracting. There was no evidence for either, and as a result, he added a ad hoc term to his equations to provide for a static universe.

cyrek reply:

You are referring to the Freidman equations? That was not Einsteins work but it did pertain to it.

Tensor wrote:

The expainsion of spacetime.

Cyreks reply:

The above statement is in reference to the expansion of light waves.

Tensor, you believe then that light waves are intertwined with space to tranmit light?
I tought that electromagnetic fields transmitted the photons (EMF).

__________________
aka Michael Cyrek