On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 9:31:43 AM UTC-8, det...@outlook.com wrote:
> > So, with that clarification, have you ever seen a simple radar gun read anything
> other than the rate of change of the distance?
>
> No.

That's great, we're in agreement on how radar speed guns behave... but this presents a problem, because it means we can't use the behavior of radar speed guns to distinguish between our different ideas about the physics. We both make the same prediction for every experiment.

But this wasn't always the case. You previously had some very different beliefs about what a simple speed gun would read in various circumstances, based on your ideas about physics. So it was worthwhile for you to actually get a speed gun and find out that it doesn't behave the way you thought. Based on the standard scientific ideas, everyone else correctly predicted how your speed gun would behave, and based on your ideas you incorrectly predicted how it would behave. Once the experiment was performed, and the prediction based on the standard ideas was confirmed, and the prediction based on your ideas was falsified, it's interesting that this didn't lead you to suspect that perhaps the standard ideas are correct and yours are wrong.

In any case, since we all now agree on how radar speed guns behave, it just comes down to deciding whose ideas about the underlying physics are logical and rational, and whose are not. We can't use experiments with radar guns to give us any more guidance (now that it has falsified your original predictions). The strange thing is that you changed your predictions without changing your theory. I think you can do that only because there is no solid logical connection between your abstract theory and your predictions.

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 12:32:57 PM UTC-6, tjrob137 wrote:
> On 11/12/21 11:31 AM, Ed Lake wrote:
> > On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 11:03:50 AM UTC-6, Townes Olson
> > wrote:
> >> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 8:49:50 AM UTC-8, wrote:
> >>>>> I bought a radar gun and experimented with it.
> >>>> Have you ever seen a simple (so called "stationary") radar gun
> >>>> read anything other than the rate of change of the distance
> >>>> between gun and target?
> >>> A radar gun does not display any "rate of change." It displays a
> >>> SPEED.
> >> But the rate of change of distance is a speed, and this is the
> >> speed that a simple (so called "stationary") radar gun reads.[...]
> >> So, with that clarification, have you ever seen a simple radar gun
> >> read anything other than the rate of change of the distance?
> >
> > No.
> Finally! A correct statement about radar guns from Ed Lake.
>
> So what do you think about your original claim (many moons ago) that
> such a radar gun inside a closed truck, aimed from the front at the
> inside of its back, would indicate the road speed of the truck, rather
> than zero? Have you tried this with your radar gun?
>
> So what do you think of your original claim (many moons ago) that such a
> radar gun in a moving vehicle, pointed at a tree straight ahead, would
> read zero, rather than the road speed of the vehicle? Have you tried
> this with your radar gun?

Yes to both. The gun didn't work the way I thought it would. So, I did
some INVESTIGATIVE SCIENCE to find out why. It turns out that when
a radar gun is used in a moving vehicle, the photons returning from the
target hit the gun at c+v. I didn't expect that. I thought the gun would
compensate in some way and eliminate that factor.

>
> Have you made any progress in understanding what the word "always" means
> in the introduction to Einstein's 1905 paper? In particular, for the
> propagation of light [#] does "the definite velocity c" apply to the
> inertial frame in which the radar gun is at rest, as well as that of the
> roadway and that of the target of the radar gun?

Actually, neither. "Light is always propagated in empty space with a definite
velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body,"
WHETHER THE EMITTING BODY IS INERTIAL OR PROPELLED. And the light
will hit the roadway or a target at c+v or c-v.

>
> Hint: "always" does include all three frames I just mentioned.
> And, of course, it includes both the initial emitted beam and
> the reflected beam, independent of the radar gun's speed and
> the target's speed (both relative to the roadway or anything
> else).
>
> [#] Unstated, but implicitly in vacuum.

No, "always" means it doesn't matter if the emitter is inertial or propelled.

Ed

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 12:49:00 PM UTC-6, tjrob137 wrote:
> On 11/12/21 10:43 AM, Ed Lake wrote:
> > There are DOZENS of different definitions [of the word "photon"]. Generally,
> > the BEST definitions are something like: "A photon is the smallest discrete
> > amount or quantum of electromagnetic radiation. It is the basic unit of all light."
> You are confusing popularizations of physics with physics. In different
> popularizations, different meanings of words are used. In physics, the
> word "photon" has a single meaning, and it is what Townes Olson said:
> "an excitation of the quantum field of electromagnetism".
>
> [This inherently includes the fact that photons do not
> oscillate, and that individual photons do not "have"
> a speed; but coherent beams of myriad photons do
> oscillate (under the right conditions), and do have a
> definite speed (which is c in vacuum, relative to any
> locally inertial frame). I am speaking loosely here.]
>
> Tom Roberts

I've found DOZENS of different versions of Einstein's Second Postulate
in college physics textbooks. I've never researched definitions of "photon."
I suspect there will be dozens of different definitions of that, too.
But, as I recall, it was difficult to find the word photon in some college
physics textbooks.

Picking a text book at random, I looked through "Physics for Scientists &
Engineers with Modern Physics" by Douglas C. Giancoli. It doesn't use
the word photon until page 989, where it says, "Since all light ultimately comes from a radiating
source, this suggests that perhaps light is transmitted as tiny particles, or photons, as
they are now called, as well as via waves predicted by Maxwell’s electromagnetic
theory. The photon theory of light was a radical departure from classical ideas.
Einstein proposed a test of the quantum theory of light: quantitative measurements
on the photoelectric effect."

So, it says photons are particles "as well as waves." But, of course,
it doesn't explain how a light can be both a particle and a wave. That
would involve SCIENCE, not just mathematical physics.

The answer is: Photons have oscillating electric and magnetic fields
which cause them to have SOME wave-like properties.

Ed

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 1:43:06 PM UTC-6, Michael Moroney wrote:
> On 11/12/2021 12:20 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
> > On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:20:58 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Ed Lake wrote:
>
> >>> No, my response was that you need TWO radar guns that operate at
> >>> the EXACT SAME FREQUENCY, or you need an emitter that emits
> >>> photons at the EXACT SAME FREQUENCY as your radar gun.
> >>> That way, when the photons hit the MEASURING GUN they will hit
> >>> at c+v or c-v depending upon whether the MEASURING GUN is at the rear
> >>> of the truck or at the front.
> >> And there’s no good argument for needing that. The receiver in the one gun
> >> is a different device than the emitter in the same gun. Does the reflection
> >> off the surface of the trailer have no effect, according to you? If not,
> >> then your explanation of how the gun works doesn’t apply.
> >
> > I explain all that on page 9 in my paper about "Relativity and Radar Guns."
> >
> > BOTH guns will measure the speed of the walls as zero as if they were the
> > ground, and they will measure the speed of the truck by comparing the
> > photons from the SECOND GUN to the photons emitted by the FIRST GUN.
> > The raw photons from the SECOND GUN will be processed as if they came
> > from a target, and the speed will be shown as the target speed.
> If the transmitter and receiver of radar guns are logically separate,
> why can't you use the transmitter from just one gun?

Because when you are inside a moving truck and point a
radar gun at the front wall, photons from the gun will hit that
wall at c-v. Atoms in the wall will then emit photons back to
the radar gun with the lower oscillation rate that corresponds
to c-v.

When those photons hit the gun, they hit at c+v. That means
the gun will, in effect, compute c-v+v=c and will produce a
reading of zero.

By having a second gun, the first gun emits photons at c
and those photons hit the second gun at c+v or c-v. The
second gun assumes the photons are from a target and
computes the speed of the truck carrying the guns.

Simple. BUT you need two guns that transmit at the
exact same frequency. Otherwise the difference in
frequencies will be computed as the target speed. And
if the computed speed is over 200 mph or less than 10 mph,
the gun won't display it. It is assumed to be an error.

Ed

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 2:01:33 PM UTC-6, Michael Moroney wrote:
> On 11/12/2021 12:05 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
> > On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:20:57 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Ed Lake wrote:
>
> >>> Yes, waves are JUST A MODEL of how electromagnetic radiation works.
> >>> But it seems to be a MODEL that misleads and causes confusion for
> >>> people who think the model represents reality.
>
> >> Ed, this is where you lose your grip. Photons and waves are both models.
> >> They both describe real things in the world.
> >>
> >> This exemplifies your lack of understanding of physics (and of science in
> >> general), where you select one model for favor and denigrate others.
> >> Physicists don’t do that. They recognize that there are different ways to
> >> describe the same phenomena in nature, and their suitability often depends
> >> on context. You are telling physicists, no, no, no, there should be one and
> >> only one correct way to describe things and how they work. Physicists will
> >> tell you, no, no, no, there are multiple ways to describe the same things
> >> in nature. This happens over and over in physics.
> >
> > It happens when mathematicians use
> Nothing to do with mathematicians. We're discussing physics here, not
> mathematics. (*)
> > If you conclude that a photon is BOTH a particle and a wave, then YOU
> > HAVE A PROBLEM.
> No, the conclusion is that light acts like a particle (photon) in some
> cases and like a wave in other cases.
>
> Your mistake here is that you've already latched onto the photon model
> as if it applies for ALL cases of light/EM radiation. The photon model
> doesn't work for diffraction, for example.
> > You need to perform experiments to define EXACTLY
> > how a photon works.
> No, you need to perform experiments to define exactly how LIGHT works.
> > That has been done many times. A photon is a
> > discrete quantity of energy in the form of a particle that always travels
> > at the speed of light.
>
> > It's energy is in the form of oscillations of its
> > electric and magnetic fields.
> That's your ASSUMPTION, and is not based on facts or any experiment.
>
> When scientists perform experiments on light, they find that SOMETIMES
> the [correct, not your] photon model works correctly, and other times
> (Diffraction, Doppler effect, etc) the wave model works correctly.

If they are competent scientists, that would be insufficient. They would
NEED to find out WHY you need two models for a photon. Every photon
emitted by a radar gun is IDENTICAL to every other photon the gun emits.
If you use one mathematical model and it says the photon acts like a
particle and then you use another mathematical model that says a photon
acts like a wave, YOU NEED TO FIND AN EXPLANATION THAT INCLUDES
BOTH PROPERTIES -- even if you don't know who to turn that explanation
into a single mathematical model.,
Ed

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 2:11:42 PM UTC-6, Townes Olson wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 9:31:43 AM UTC-8, wrote:
> > > So, with that clarification, have you ever seen a simple radar gun read anything
> > other than the rate of change of the distance?
> >
> > No.
> That's great, we're in agreement on how radar speed guns behave... but this presents a problem, because it means we can't use the behavior of radar speed guns to distinguish between our different ideas about the physics. We both make the same prediction for every experiment.
>
> But this wasn't always the case. You previously had some very different beliefs about what a simple speed gun would read in various circumstances, based on your ideas about physics. So it was worthwhile for you to actually get a speed gun and find out that it doesn't behave the way you thought. Based on the standard scientific ideas, everyone else correctly predicted how your speed gun would behave, and based on your ideas you incorrectly predicted how it would behave. Once the experiment was performed, and the prediction based on the standard ideas was confirmed, and the prediction based on your ideas was falsified, it's interesting that this didn't lead you to suspect that perhaps the standard ideas are correct and yours are wrong.
>
> In any case, since we all now agree on how radar speed guns behave, it just comes down to deciding whose ideas about the underlying physics are logical and rational, and whose are not. We can't use experiments with radar guns to give us any more guidance (now that it has falsified your original predictions). The strange thing is that you changed your predictions without changing your theory. I think you can do that only because there is no solid logical connection between your abstract theory and your predictions.

As I explained in a response to someone else:
"The gun didn't work the way I thought it would. So, I did
some INVESTIGATIVE SCIENCE to find out why. It turns out that when
a radar gun is used in a moving vehicle, the photons returning from the
target hit the gun at c+v. I didn't expect that. I thought the gun would
compensate in some way and eliminate that factor."

In science, when things do not work the way you expect, you INVESTIGATE
to find out why. That's what I did. What it meant was that I could not use
a SINGLE radar gun to measure the speed of a truck from inside the truck,
I would have to use TWO radar guns which emit photons that oscillate at
the exact same frequency.

All other factors remain the same.

Ed

One final comment before I sign off for today:

This has been a VERY interesting discussion. It CONFIRMS that
mathematicians simply DO NOT CARE how light works. If they
need one mathematical model for certain situations and another
mathematical model for other situations, that is FINE with them.

A SCIENTIST would find that TOTALLY unacceptable.
A physicist should also find that unacceptable.

Scientists and physicists should DEMAND to find out WHY
light has wave properties AND particle properties.

The answer, of course, is that a photon has oscillating electric
and magnetic fields. The photon is a PARTICLE. The oscillating
fields give it some wave like properties.

I'll be back tomorrow.

Ed

Ed Lake <detect@outlook.com> wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:20:57 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Ed Lake wrote:
>>> On Thursday, November 11, 2021 at 10:12:28 AM UTC-6, Michael Moroney wrote:
>>>> On 11/11/2021 10:17 AM, Ed Lake wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> The use of photons for describing the "light" is irrelevant, since the
>>>>>> only relevant factors are the frequency transmitted and the frequency
>>>>>> received by the radar gun.
>>>>>
>>>>> The FACT that PHOTONS are emitted and received is KEY to understanding
>>>>> how radar guns work.
>>>> Photons are a model of how electromagnetic radiation works.
>>>
>>> Photons exist. So, they're not just a "model." Richard Feynman
>>> stated how you can adjust an emitter so that it emits fewer and
>>> fewer photons, and you can have a photomultiplier device that
>>> counts the photons as they arrive and where each one hits.
>>>
>>>>> If you just talk about frequencies, people will think about waves.
>>>> Waves are another model of how electromagnetic radiation works.
>>>
>>> Yes, waves are JUST A MODEL of how electromagnetic radiation works.
>>> But it seems to be a MODEL that misleads and causes confusion for
>>> people who think the model represents reality.
>> Ed, this is where you lose your grip. Photons and waves are both models.
>> They both describe real things in the world.
>>
>> This exemplifies your lack of understanding of physics (and of science in
>> general), where you select one model for favor and denigrate others.
>> Physicists don’t do that. They recognize that there are different ways to
>> describe the same phenomena in nature, and their suitability often depends
>> on context. You are telling physicists, no, no, no, there should be one and
>> only one correct way to describe things and how they work. Physicists will
>> tell you, no, no, no, there are multiple ways to describe the same things
>> in nature. This happens over and over in physics.
>
> It happens when mathematicians use different equations instead of finding
> out EXACTLY how something works. Science is about defining problems
> and solutions.

No, sorry that description applies to engineering as well, and that is not
science.

As I’ve mentioned to you, science is not what you think it is. That’s to be
expected, as you’ve never formally studied what physics is.

> I use the scientific method.
>
> The basic steps of the scientific method are: 1) make an observation that
> describes a problem, 2) create a hypothesis, 3) test the hypothesis,
> and 4) draw conclusions and refine the hypothesis until all tests produce
> the same result.
> Critical thinking is a key component of the scientific method. Without it,
> you cannot use logic to come to conclusions.
>
> If you conclude that a photon is BOTH a particle and a wave, then YOU
> HAVE A PROBLEM.

No, you don’t. The hidden assumption is that there are two mutually
exclusive AND exhaustive categories: particles and waves. You have mentally
excluded the possibility that there is a third category. That is, that
particles and waves are not exhaustive at all.

As it turns out, there is a third category that has a jargon name: quantum
field. I know you don’t know what that means. It also turns out that
photons are neither particles nor waves, but are instead quantum fields
(or, more precisely, the quanta of a quantum field). So it’s not true that
a photon is both a particle and a wave; it is in fact true that it is
NEITHER, but that a quantum field has some behaviors that are like
particles and some behaviors that are like waves (which is fine without
them being particles or waves).

As it also turns out, electrons are also quantum fields.

> You need to perform experiments to define EXACTLY
> how a photon works. That has been done many times. A photon is a
> discrete quantity of energy in the form of a particle that always travels
> at the speed of light.

Nope. That’s incorrect. (Quoting Feynman won’t help you here. He had a
different understanding of “particle” than you do.)

> It's energy is in the form of oscillations of its
> electric and magnetic fields. The faster the oscillation rate, the more
> energy the photon contains.
>
> (snip repetitious stuff)
>
> Ed
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

Ed Lake <detect@outlook.com> wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:20:58 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Ed Lake wrote:
>>> On Thursday, November 11, 2021 at 10:36:51 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Ed Lake wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 3:32:08 PM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>> Ed Lake <> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at 12:33:20 PM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>>> Ed Lake wrote:
>>>>>>>>> I just uploaded a new version of my paper "An Analysis of Einstein’s
>>>>>>>>> Second Postulate to his Theory of Special Relativity." It is at this link:
>>>>>>>>> https://vixra.org/pdf/1704.0256v5.pdf
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> We've been arguing about this paper since May of 2017, but the arguments
>>>>>>>>> always get way off track. The key conflict is whether or not the speed
>>>>>>>>> of light is the same from ALL OBSERVERS. Obviously it is NOT. Radar
>>>>>>>>> guns demonstrate that FACT every day.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> A radar gun emits photons that travel at the speed of light, c. Those
>>>>>>>>> photons oscillate at a specific frequency. They hit an oncoming vehicle
>>>>>>>>> at c+v. That gives the photons an APPARENT higher oscillation frequency.
>>>>>>>>> Atoms in the vehicle send photons with that higher oscillation frequency
>>>>>>>>> back to the radar gun. Those photons also travel at c. The radar gun
>>>>>>>>> compares the oscillation frequency of the photons it emitted to the
>>>>>>>>> oscillation frequency of the photons it got back and is thus able to
>>>>>>>>> compute the speed of the oncoming vehicle.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The only way this is possible is if the photons hit the target at c+v,
>>>>>>>>> which is something the mathematicians in this forum usually claim is impossible.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Discussion?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The only discussion needed here is that your opinion about how radar guns
>>>>>>>> work, though fascinating, is irrelevant. Not to mention completely wrong,
>>>>>>>> clause by clause, mostly because you are using words you don’t know the
>>>>>>>> meaning of, and so you just guessed at what you think they mean.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nope. I bought a radar gun and experimented with it.
>>>>>> And you ignore the experimental results that disagreed with your
>>>>>> predictions. This is a symptom of you not doing “actual science”.
>>>>>
>>>>> NEVER. What "experimental results are you lying about????
>>>> Oh, like the claim that a radar gun pointed at the front of a trailer being
>>>> towed by a truck, while the radar gun is held by a rider in the truck, will
>>>> read the trailer’s road speed rather than zero. Your response was, oh, this
>>>> radar gun must be secretly DESIGNED to subtract the road speed of the gun.
>>>
>>> No, my response was that you need TWO radar guns that operate at
>>> the EXACT SAME FREQUENCY, or you need an emitter that emits
>>> photons at the EXACT SAME FREQUENCY as your radar gun.
>>> That way, when the photons hit the MEASURING GUN they will hit
>>> at c+v or c-v depending upon whether the MEASURING GUN is at the rear
>>> of the truck or at the front.
>> And there’s no good argument for needing that. The receiver in the one gun
>> is a different device than the emitter in the same gun. Does the reflection
>> off the surface of the trailer have no effect, according to you? If not,
>> then your explanation of how the gun works doesn’t apply.
>
> I explain all that on page 9 in my paper about "Relativity and Radar Guns."
>
> BOTH guns will measure the speed of the walls as zero as if they were the
> ground, and they will measure the speed of the truck by comparing the
> photons from the SECOND GUN to the photons emitted by the FIRST GUN.
> The raw photons from the SECOND GUN will be processed as if they came
> from a target, and the speed will be shown as the target speed.

And so you are now ADJUSTING your prediction that a radar gun aimed from
the cab of a truck to the wall of the trailer would read the ground speed
of the truck. This did not happen, and so you have tried to find an
explanation for why your idea’s prediction did not match experiment — and
then you adjusted the prediction to match the actual observation.

This, in case you didn’t know, is a scientific no-no.

A real scientist would say, “My idea gave a prediction that was not
confirmed by experiment. This means my idea is wrong. I have to start
over.”

>
>>>
>>> I describe that proposed experiment in detail starting on page 8 of my
>>> paper "Relativity and Radar Guns" at this link: https://vixra.org/pdf/2010.0141v3.pdf
>>>
>>> (snip repetitious stuff)
>
> Ed
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 3:42:56 PM UTC-6, det...@outlook.com wrote:

> Scientists and physicists should DEMAND to find out WHY
> light has wave properties AND particle properties.
>
> The answer, of course, is that a photon has oscillating electric
> and magnetic fields. The photon is a PARTICLE. The oscillating
> fields give it some wave like properties.

No, that's wrong. Many people better versed than me in the subject
have tried to explain to you why your concepts are screwed up, so
I won't bother. Suffice to say that your vixra paper was very painful
to read. The "strong" version of the second postulate found in most
college textbooks is a simple lemma resulting from applying the
first postulate to Einstein's original "weak" statement of the second
postulate. Your paper got stupider and stupider the further along I
read through it.

Ed Lake <detect@outlook.com> wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 12:49:00 PM UTC-6, tjrob137 wrote:
>> On 11/12/21 10:43 AM, Ed Lake wrote:
>>> There are DOZENS of different definitions [of the word "photon"]. Generally,
>>> the BEST definitions are something like: "A photon is the smallest discrete
>>> amount or quantum of electromagnetic radiation. It is the basic unit of all light."
>> You are confusing popularizations of physics with physics. In different
>> popularizations, different meanings of words are used. In physics, the
>> word "photon" has a single meaning, and it is what Townes Olson said:
>> "an excitation of the quantum field of electromagnetism".
>>
>> [This inherently includes the fact that photons do not
>> oscillate, and that individual photons do not "have"
>> a speed; but coherent beams of myriad photons do
>> oscillate (under the right conditions), and do have a
>> definite speed (which is c in vacuum, relative to any
>> locally inertial frame). I am speaking loosely here.]
>>
>> Tom Roberts
>
> I've found DOZENS of different versions of Einstein's Second Postulate
> in college physics textbooks. I've never researched definitions of "photon."
> I suspect there will be dozens of different definitions of that, too.
> But, as I recall, it was difficult to find the word photon in some college
> physics textbooks.

Well, that’s because freshmen physics textbooks don’t touch on that subject
much. What a photon is, exactly, is an subtle thing that cannot be defined
simply for laypeople, unless they read a lot of non-photon content FIRST.
You have to learn what “field” means. You have to learn what “particle”
means. You have to learn what “quantum” means. You have to learn what
“quantum spin” means. You can’t learn a topic in physics by looking up an
encyclopedia article or by searching for the word in a PDF file or a web
page.

>
> Picking a text book at random, I looked through "Physics for Scientists &
> Engineers with Modern Physics" by Douglas C. Giancoli.

That is a first-year book. Photons aren’t really covered well until a third
year book.

> It doesn't use
> the word photon until page 989, where it says, "Since all light
> ultimately comes from a radiating
> source, this suggests that perhaps light is transmitted as tiny particles, or photons, as
> they are now called, as well as via waves predicted by Maxwell’s electromagnetic
> theory. The photon theory of light was a radical departure from classical ideas.
> Einstein proposed a test of the quantum theory of light: quantitative measurements
> on the photoelectric effect."
>
> So, it says photons are particles "as well as waves."

No, it says that light is transmitted as particles (photons) as well as
being transmitted as waves.

> But, of course,
> it doesn't explain how a light can be both a particle and a wave.

That’s right, it doesn’t. It’s a first year book. It’s not going to answer
such questions. Such questions don’t get answered until a more advanced
book.

> That
> would involve SCIENCE, not just mathematical physics.

Nonsense. All the books in physics use mathematics.

>
> The answer is: Photons have oscillating electric and magnetic fields
> which cause them to have SOME wave-like properties.

No, that’s wrong. That’s you making a guess to try to fill in a void where
you haven’t found a reference to answer it for you. So you made up an
answer for yourself.

>
> Ed
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

Ed Lake <detect@outlook.com> wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 2:01:33 PM UTC-6, Michael Moroney wrote:
>> On 11/12/2021 12:05 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
>>> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:20:57 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Ed Lake wrote:
>>
>>>>> Yes, waves are JUST A MODEL of how electromagnetic radiation works.
>>>>> But it seems to be a MODEL that misleads and causes confusion for
>>>>> people who think the model represents reality.
>>
>>>> Ed, this is where you lose your grip. Photons and waves are both models.
>>>> They both describe real things in the world.
>>>>
>>>> This exemplifies your lack of understanding of physics (and of science in
>>>> general), where you select one model for favor and denigrate others.
>>>> Physicists don’t do that. They recognize that there are different ways to
>>>> describe the same phenomena in nature, and their suitability often depends
>>>> on context. You are telling physicists, no, no, no, there should be one and
>>>> only one correct way to describe things and how they work. Physicists will
>>>> tell you, no, no, no, there are multiple ways to describe the same things
>>>> in nature. This happens over and over in physics.
>>>
>>> It happens when mathematicians use
>> Nothing to do with mathematicians. We're discussing physics here, not
>> mathematics. (*)
>>> If you conclude that a photon is BOTH a particle and a wave, then YOU
>>> HAVE A PROBLEM.
>> No, the conclusion is that light acts like a particle (photon) in some
>> cases and like a wave in other cases.
>>
>> Your mistake here is that you've already latched onto the photon model
>> as if it applies for ALL cases of light/EM radiation. The photon model
>> doesn't work for diffraction, for example.
>>> You need to perform experiments to define EXACTLY
>>> how a photon works.
>> No, you need to perform experiments to define exactly how LIGHT works.
>>> That has been done many times. A photon is a
>>> discrete quantity of energy in the form of a particle that always travels
>>> at the speed of light.
>>
>>> It's energy is in the form of oscillations of its
>>> electric and magnetic fields.
>> That's your ASSUMPTION, and is not based on facts or any experiment.
>>
>> When scientists perform experiments on light, they find that SOMETIMES
>> the [correct, not your] photon model works correctly, and other times
>> (Diffraction, Doppler effect, etc) the wave model works correctly.
>
> If they are competent scientists, that would be insufficient.

No, sorry, Ed, but you have this preconception about what you think science
SHOULD be, irrespective of what it actually IS. Science does not match your
expectations of it, that’s plain. But that’s because you don’t know what
science actually is or does.

> They would
> NEED to find out WHY you need two models for a photon. Every photon
> emitted by a radar gun is IDENTICAL to every other photon the gun emits.
> If you use one mathematical model and it says the photon acts like a
> particle and then you use another mathematical model that says a photon
> acts like a wave, YOU NEED TO FIND AN EXPLANATION THAT INCLUDES
> BOTH PROPERTIES -- even if you don't know who to turn that explanation
> into a single mathematical model.,

There is one, by the way. It’s the one that represents electromagnetism as
a quantum field, neither as a wave or as a particle. I’m aware you know
nothing of this, let alone what “quantum” or “field” or “quantum field”
mean.

>
> Ed
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

Ed Lake <detect@outlook.com> wrote:
> One final comment before I sign off for today:
>
> This has been a VERY interesting discussion. It CONFIRMS that
> mathematicians simply DO NOT CARE how light works. If they
> need one mathematical model for certain situations and another
> mathematical model for other situations, that is FINE with them.
>
> A SCIENTIST would find that TOTALLY unacceptable.
> A physicist should also find that unacceptable.

Sorry, Ed, but you have completely silly ideas of what should and should
not be acceptable to scientists.

>
> Scientists and physicists should DEMAND to find out WHY
> light has wave properties AND particle properties.

As I said, you have a pretty silly idea of what science should be about. I
get that YOU PERSONALLY want there to be ONE, single, clear explanation of
how something works.

You’ve obviously never taken a course in first year physics, where students
are DELIBERATELY given multiple examples of systems where there are
multiple explanations. Two unequal weights joined by a string over a
pulley, for example. The motion of the weights and the pulley is explained
first using forces and accelerations and Newton’s laws. Then it is again
explained using conservation of momentum and impulse. Then it is again
explained using conservation of energy. Then it is again explained using
the principle of least action. And so on and so on.

You as a student would be COMPLETELY frustrated and splutter, “But what
then is the RIGHT explanation??” And you would be incensed to hear the
physicist say that they’re all right. They all explain the behavior.

YOU would find that unacceptable, perhaps. And so you would lose the point
completely that the physicist is making, about how the same phenomenon can
be explained CORRECTLY using different models for what’s going on. That
would have been the whole point of that exercise, and you would have missed
it.

>
> The answer, of course, is that a photon has oscillating electric
> and magnetic fields. The photon is a PARTICLE. The oscillating
> fields give it some wave like properties.
>
> I'll be back tomorrow.
>
> Ed
>

--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 8:43:18 AM UTC-8, det...@outlook.com wrote:
> Photons travel at the speed c, which is relative to the atom that
> emitted the photon.... regardless any motion of the emitter...

To be clear about this, if an emitter is moving at speed v along the road and it emits a pulse of light straight ahead, how fast do you think the pulse is moving in the road's system of reference? You say it moves at c relative to the emitter, so are you claiming it moves at c+v relative to the road?

> ...when a radar gun is used in a moving vehicle, the photons returning from the
> target hit the gun at c+v. I didn't expect that.

Hold on... are you saying that the returning light pulse is moving at speed c+v relative to the gun that is stationary on the ground? And that it is moving at c relative to the target? In other words, are you saying that the original pulse goes from the gun at speed c relative to the gun, and it hits the on-coming target at speed c+v relative to the target, and then the return pulse travels at c relative to the target and hits the gun at c+v?

> To measure the speed of a truck from inside the truck, I would have to use
> TWO radar guns which emit photons that oscillate at the exact same frequency.

That is just as wrong as your previous belief. The Doppler shift works in each direction individually, and the round trip Doppler is just the square of the one-way Doppler. In every case the Doppler shift in frequency is proportional to the rate of change of the distance. The Doppler effect is demonstrated countless times in countless ways every day.

> Light emitted by an atom in a comet will travel at a different c than
> light emitted by an atom on Earth. That is because a second is shorter
> on the comet than it is on Earth.

Again, relativistic time dilation is orders of magnitude too small to account for the fact that the speed of light is c in terms of both the inertial reference system of the comet and of the earth. The explanation for why light propagates at c in terms of both of those reference systems is given clearly in Einstein's 1905 paper (not to mention thousands of other places).

> So, we agree. The moving target adds KINETIC energy to the photon.

Indeed, the energy of a photon striking the target is greater than the energy of that photon emitted from the gun, in terms of their respective systems of reference. And when the reflected photon arrives back at the gun, the energy is increased by the square of that factor. To make a speed gun that works with individual photons (super low intensity source) you would need to work with the energy, but actual speed guns do not measure the energy of individual photons, they measure the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation comprised of a huge number of photons.

> The photon is a PARTICLE. The oscillating fields give it some wave like properties.

It is a particle, but not a classical particle (i.e., it does not have a single trajectory like what you have in mind), it is a quantum particle. I think you are forgetting the interference effects in the two-slit experiment for an individual photon, or electron. I think you were misled by a careless reading of Feynman, who says light is composed of particles, but goes on to say that it isn't really particles, and it isn't really waves, so we should perhaps call it wavicles, but for convenience he decided to call it particles, with the caveat that it is not what you (Ed) imagine as particles..

> The speed of light is Nature's reference system.

A speed isn't a reference system.

> All motion by other objects can be valued as a percentage of the speed of light.

That's just choosing a unit for speed, which is trivial, that isn't what is needed to determine the speed of an object relative to the sun or the earth or a car on the road, etc. Again, a speed is not a reference system, and a choice of units is not a reference system. Before you can talk about speeds, you have to be able to explain what you mean by the word. What scientists mean is the rate of change of position with time, and to quantify position and time involves a system of reference.

> There is no contradiction.

There actually is a contradiction, because internal oscillations of the particle you imagine are independent of the relative speed of a particle. If an object is oscillating at 100 Hz, it is oscillating at that frequency regardless of how it is moving relative to you. It does not subject to the Doppler effect, whereas the energy of light is subject to the Doppler effect, because it is extrinsic energy, not intrinsic.

On 11/12/2021 4:18 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 1:43:06 PM UTC-6, Michael Moroney wrote:
>> On 11/12/2021 12:20 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
>>> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:20:58 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Ed Lake wrote:
>>
>>>>> No, my response was that you need TWO radar guns that operate at
>>>>> the EXACT SAME FREQUENCY, or you need an emitter that emits
>>>>> photons at the EXACT SAME FREQUENCY as your radar gun.
>>>>> That way, when the photons hit the MEASURING GUN they will hit
>>>>> at c+v or c-v depending upon whether the MEASURING GUN is at the rear
>>>>> of the truck or at the front.
>>>> And there’s no good argument for needing that. The receiver in the one gun
>>>> is a different device than the emitter in the same gun. Does the reflection
>>>> off the surface of the trailer have no effect, according to you? If not,
>>>> then your explanation of how the gun works doesn’t apply.
>>>
>>> I explain all that on page 9 in my paper about "Relativity and Radar Guns."
>>>
>>> BOTH guns will measure the speed of the walls as zero as if they were the
>>> ground, and they will measure the speed of the truck by comparing the
>>> photons from the SECOND GUN to the photons emitted by the FIRST GUN.
>>> The raw photons from the SECOND GUN will be processed as if they came
>>> from a target, and the speed will be shown as the target speed.
>> If the transmitter and receiver of radar guns are logically separate,
>> why can't you use the transmitter from just one gun?

Well you are really making up excuses why a radar gun in a moving truck
reads 0, but I'll play along...

> Because when you are inside a moving truck and point a
> radar gun

The radar gun is stationary in what frame?

> at the front wall,

The front wall is in what frame?

> photons from the gun will hit that
> wall at c-v.

And v is the velocity of what, relative to which frame?

> Atoms in the wall will then emit photons back to
> the radar gun

The gun is still in the same frame, I assume? You need to be clear on
what frames you are using.

> with the lower oscillation rate

Are you talking about your Laketons now? How do Laketons oscillate?
Science knows that a quantum disturbance in the electromagnetic field
(best model of photon) doesn't (can't) oscillate.

> that corresponds
> to c-v.

Again v is the velocity of what, and in which frame?
>
> When those photons hit the gun,

Is the gun still in the same frame?

> they hit at c+v.

v is a speed of what, and in what frame?

> That means
> the gun will, in effect, compute c-v+v=c

Actually no. Because of the fixed distance, something moving at a speed
c+v in one direction and c-v in the opposite direction moves at a
measured speed of sqrt(c^2-v^2) over the round trip. Or would, if
speeds added like that to the speed of light (c), which they don't, of
course.

> and will produce a
> reading of zero.

Incorrect conclusion due to misunderstanding of the physics involved.
>
> By having a second gun, the first gun emits photons at c
> and those photons hit the second gun at c+v or c-v.

What reference frame is the first gun in? What reference frame is the
second gun in? This speed v is the speed of what, and in what frame?

> The
> second gun assumes the photons are from a target and
> computes the speed of the truck carrying the guns.
>
> Simple.

But wrong.

> BUT you need two guns that transmit at the
> exact same frequency.

Why not one gun split into transmitter and receiver portions?

p.s. You don't explain the violation of the second postulate that c+v
and c-v would represent. And especially 'nothing moves faster than c'
yet you have c+v!

On 11/12/2021 4:27 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 2:01:33 PM UTC-6, Michael Moroney wrote:
>> On 11/12/2021 12:05 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
>>> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:20:57 AM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Ed Lake wrote:
>>
>>>>> Yes, waves are JUST A MODEL of how electromagnetic radiation works.
>>>>> But it seems to be a MODEL that misleads and causes confusion for
>>>>> people who think the model represents reality.
>>
>>>> Ed, this is where you lose your grip. Photons and waves are both models.
>>>> They both describe real things in the world.
>>>>
>>>> This exemplifies your lack of understanding of physics (and of science in
>>>> general), where you select one model for favor and denigrate others.
>>>> Physicists don’t do that. They recognize that there are different ways to
>>>> describe the same phenomena in nature, and their suitability often depends
>>>> on context. You are telling physicists, no, no, no, there should be one and
>>>> only one correct way to describe things and how they work. Physicists will
>>>> tell you, no, no, no, there are multiple ways to describe the same things
>>>> in nature. This happens over and over in physics.
>>>
>>> It happens when mathematicians use
>> Nothing to do with mathematicians. We're discussing physics here, not
>> mathematics. (*)
>>> If you conclude that a photon is BOTH a particle and a wave, then YOU
>>> HAVE A PROBLEM.
>> No, the conclusion is that light acts like a particle (photon) in some
>> cases and like a wave in other cases.
>>
>> Your mistake here is that you've already latched onto the photon model
>> as if it applies for ALL cases of light/EM radiation. The photon model
>> doesn't work for diffraction, for example.
>>> You need to perform experiments to define EXACTLY
>>> how a photon works.
>> No, you need to perform experiments to define exactly how LIGHT works.
>>> That has been done many times. A photon is a
>>> discrete quantity of energy in the form of a particle that always travels
>>> at the speed of light.
>>
>>> It's energy is in the form of oscillations of its
>>> electric and magnetic fields.
>> That's your ASSUMPTION, and is not based on facts or any experiment.
>>
>> When scientists perform experiments on light, they find that SOMETIMES
>> the [correct, not your] photon model works correctly, and other times
>> (Diffraction, Doppler effect, etc) the wave model works correctly.
>
> If they are competent scientists, that would be insufficient. They would
> NEED to find out WHY you need two models for a photon. Every photon
> emitted by a radar gun is IDENTICAL to every other photon the gun emits.

Your mistake here is assuming that the only possibilities are that of a
particle and that of a wave, and one model must be correct and the other
incorrect. A good scientist wouldn't assume that and would see that
there must be another possibility, what either Dirac or Eddington called
a "wavicle". Something that has some properties of particle and some
properties of waves.

> If you use one mathematical model and it says the photon acts like a
> particle and then you use another mathematical model that says a photon
> acts like a wave, YOU NEED TO FIND AN EXPLANATION THAT INCLUDES
> BOTH PROPERTIES -- even if you don't know who to turn that explanation
> into a single mathematical model.,

"Wavicle". Something which has properties of each.

On 11/12/2021 4:42 PM, Ed Lake wrote:
> One final comment before I sign off for today:
>
> This has been a VERY interesting discussion. It CONFIRMS that
> mathematicians simply DO NOT CARE how light works. If they
> need one mathematical model for certain situations and another
> mathematical model for other situations, that is FINE with them.

You're right, mathematicians don't care, they don't deal with physics.
>
> A SCIENTIST would find that TOTALLY unacceptable. > A physicist should also find that unacceptable.

A physicist wouldn't care about the lack of caring of a mathematician.
A physicist would want an explanation which properly explains the
PHYSICS that matches waves sometimes and particles at other times.
>
> Scientists and physicists should DEMAND to find out WHY
> light has wave properties AND particle properties.

Mostly solved almost 100 years ago.
>
> The answer, of course, is that a photon has oscillating electric
> and magnetic fields. The photon is a PARTICLE.

Nope. You cannot explain diffraction, the Doppler effect etc. with
particles.

> The oscillating
> fields give it some wave like properties.

Meaningless handwaving. Explain the two slit experiment using
"oscillating particles".

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 4:17:27 PM UTC-6, bodk...@gmail.com wrote:
> Ed Lake wrote:
> > On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 12:49:00 PM UTC-6, tjrob137 wrote:
> >> On 11/12/21 10:43 AM, Ed Lake wrote:
> >>> There are DOZENS of different definitions [of the word "photon"]. Generally,
> >>> the BEST definitions are something like: "A photon is the smallest discrete
> >>> amount or quantum of electromagnetic radiation. It is the basic unit of all light."
> >> You are confusing popularizations of physics with physics. In different
> >> popularizations, different meanings of words are used. In physics, the
> >> word "photon" has a single meaning, and it is what Townes Olson said:
> >> "an excitation of the quantum field of electromagnetism".
> >>
> >> [This inherently includes the fact that photons do not
> >> oscillate, and that individual photons do not "have"
> >> a speed; but coherent beams of myriad photons do
> >> oscillate (under the right conditions), and do have a
> >> definite speed (which is c in vacuum, relative to any
> >> locally inertial frame). I am speaking loosely here.]
> >>
> >> Tom Roberts
> >
> > I've found DOZENS of different versions of Einstein's Second Postulate
> > in college physics textbooks. I've never researched definitions of "photon."
> > I suspect there will be dozens of different definitions of that, too.
> > But, as I recall, it was difficult to find the word photon in some college
> > physics textbooks.
> Well, that’s because freshmen physics textbooks don’t touch on that subject
> much. What a photon is, exactly, is an subtle thing that cannot be defined
> simply for laypeople, unless they read a lot of non-photon content FIRST.
> You have to learn what “field” means. You have to learn what “particle”
> means. You have to learn what “quantum” means. You have to learn what
> “quantum spin” means. You can’t learn a topic in physics by looking up an
> encyclopedia article or by searching for the word in a PDF file or a web
> page.

But you can learn what different textbooks say about a subject. I just browsed
through five more textbooks (choosing the ones with the most editions), and
this is what I found:

----- start quotes --------

From “College Physics” 9th edition, by Hugh D. Young
Page 772
The picture
of light as an electromagnetic wave isn’t the whole story, however. Several
effects associated with the emission and absorption of light reveal that it also has
a particle aspect, in that the energy carried by light waves is packaged in discrete
bundles called photons or quanta. These apparently contradictory wave and particle
properties have been reconciled since 1930 with the development of quantum
electrodynamics, a comprehensive theory that includes both wave and particle
properties. The propagation of light is best described by a wave model, but
understanding emission and absorption by atoms and nuclei requires a particle
approach.

Page 932
What is light? The work of Maxwell, Hertz, and others established
firmly that light is an electromagnetic wave. Interference, diffraction,
and polarization phenomena show convincingly the wave
nature of light and other electromagnetic radiation.
But there are also many phenomena, particularly those involving the emission
and absorption of electromagnetic radiation, that show a completely different
aspect of the nature of light, in which it seems to behave as a stream of particles. In
such phenomena, the energy of light is emitted and absorbed in packages with a
definite size, called photons or quanta. The energy of a single photon is proportional
to the frequency of the radiation, and we say that the energy is quantized.

From “College Physics” 9th Edition, by Raymond A. Serway & Chris Vuille

Page 762
In 1905, Einstein published a paper that formulated the theory of light quanta
(“particles”) and explained the photoelectric effect. He reached the conclusion
that light was composed of corpuscles, or discontinuous quanta of energy. These
corpuscles or quanta are now called photons to emphasize their particle-like nature.
According to Einstein’s theory, the energy of a photon is proportional to the frequency
of the electromagnetic wave associated with it,

same page:
So in the final analysis, is light a wave or a particle? The answer is neither and
both: light has a number of physical properties, some associated with waves and
others with particles.

From “Fundamentals of Physics” 10th Edition, by Jearl Walker:
Page 1154

In 1905, Einstein proposed that electromagnetic radiation (or simply light) is
quantized and exists in elementary amounts (quanta) that we now call photons.
This proposal should seem strange to you because we have just spent several
chapters discussing the classical idea that light is a sinusoidal wave, with a
wavelength x, a frequency f, and a speed c such that f=c/x.

Furthermore, in Chapter 33 we discussed the classical light wave as being an
interdependent combination of electric and magnetic fields, each oscillating at
frequency f. How can this wave of oscillating fields consist of an elementary
amount of something—the light quantum? What is a photon?
The concept of a light quantum, or a photon, turns out to be far more subtle
and mysterious than Einstein imagined. Indeed, it is still very poorly understood.
In this book, we shall discuss only some of the basic aspects of the photon
concept, somewhat along the lines of Einstein’s proposal

From “Physics for Scientists and Engineers – With Modern Physics” - 6th edition, by Paul M Fishbane; Stephen Gasiorowicz; Stephen T Thornton

Page 1079
The propagation of light is governed by its wave properties, whereas the exchange
of energy between light and matter is governed by its particle properties.
This wave–particle duality is a general property of nature. For example, the propagation
of electrons (and other so-called particles) is also governed by wave properties,
whereas the exchange of energy between the electrons and other particles is
governed by particle properties.

From “Physics for Scientists and Engineers – With Modern Physics” - 6th edition, by Paul A. Tipler & Gene Mosca. (This textbook has a whole section on “Wave-Particle duality.”)

Page 1187:
We have seen that light, which we ordinarily think of as a wave, exhibits particle properties when it interacts with matter, as in the photoelectric effect or in Compton scattering. Electrons, which we usually think of as particles, exhibit the wave properties of interference and diffraction when they pass near the edges of obstacles. All carriers of momentum and energy (for example, electrons, atoms, or photons) exhibit both wave and particle characteristics. It might be tempting to say that an electron, for example, is both a wave and a particle, but what does this mean? In classical physics, the concepts of waves and particles are mutually exclusive. A classical particle behaves like a piece of shot; it can be localized and scattered, it exchanges energy suddenly at a point in space, and it obeys the laws of conservation of energy and momentum in collisions. It does not exhibit interference or diffraction. A classical wave, on the other hand, behaves like a sound or light wave; it exhibits diffraction and interference, and its energy is spread out continuously in space and time. A classical wave and a classical particle are mutually exclusive. Nothing can be both a classical particle and a classical wave at the same time.

After Thomas Young observed the two-slit interference pattern by using light in 1801, light was thought to be a classical wave. On the other hand, the electrons discovered by J. J. Thomson were thought to be classical particles. We now know that these classical concepts of waves and particles do not adequately describe the complete behavior of any phenomenon.

Everything propagates like a wave and exchanges energy like a particle.

---------- end quotes --------

Best quotes: "The concept of a light quantum, or a photon, turns out to be far more subtle and mysterious than Einstein imagined. Indeed, it is still very poorly understood.

and

"We now know that these classical concepts of waves and particles do not adequately describe the complete behavior of any phenomenon."

Oscillating photons appear to adequately describe how photons
can seem to be both particles and waves. The only question is:
Why do authors of physics textbooks refuse to view things that way?
It appears they are waiting for someone to make a declaration that
almost everyone else immediately accepts as the correct solution
to the "problem" of particle-wave duality.

No one wants to write a textbook that is immediately attacked and
thrown in the trash by people who are content and INSIST on leaving
the issue as "poorly understood."

Ed

On Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 8:45:36 AM UTC-8, det...@outlook.com wrote:
> Oscillating photons appear to adequately describe how photons
> can seem to be both particles and waves. The only question is:
> Why do authors of physics textbooks refuse to view things that way?

You already know the answer to that question: Your "oscillating photons" can't account for the quantum interference effects as illustrated by the two-slit experiment. Remember? In fact, they can't rationally account for any of the phenomena of electrodynamics. On the other hand, the scientific concept of a photon (and electric charges) in quantum electrodynamics correctly accounts for all the quantum phenomena of electromagnetism. It's ironic that you scold scientists for not being interested in your "oscillating photons", which are logically self-contradictory and fail to account for the phenomena, whereas *you* are not interested in quantum electrodynamics, which is logically sound and *does* account for the phenomena. So, it appears that you are the one (not scientists) who lacks interest in rationally understanding things as they really are.

Please note that when experts in a field say there are subtle aspects of the subject that are still not fully understood (which is true of every subject), you should not interpret this as meaning that they don't understand the subject any better than you do.

I think it would be better for you to address the illogical and self-contradictory aspects of your own beliefs that have been pointed out. Rather than confront those, you seem to prefer to engage in scriptural analysis, which is just journalism, not scientific reasoning. For example, on one hand you've agreed that relativistic time dilation is much too small to account for the Doppler shift in frequencies between relatively moving objects, but on the other hand you invoke the "different size of a second" when trying to account for the difference in frequencies and speeds. That is self-contradictory. How do you reconcile this?

On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 7:12:45 PM UTC-6, Townes Olson wrote:
> On Friday, November 12, 2021 at 8:43:18 AM UTC-8, wrote:
> > Photons travel at the speed c, which is relative to the atom that
> > emitted the photon.... regardless any motion of the emitter...
>
> To be clear about this, if an emitter is moving at speed v along the road and it emits a pulse of light straight ahead, how fast do you think the pulse is moving in the road's system of reference? You say it moves at c relative to the emitter, so are you claiming it moves at c+v relative to the road?

No. Neither one. When you have a moving object and a stationary object
you get into the subject of time dilation. A second is shorter for the moving
object, so c is not the same in the two "systems of reference," even though
both are 299,292,458 meters PER SECOND.

You can take any radar gun in a car traveling at 50 mph and point it at the
road ahead. It will read the TARGET as moving at 50 mph. Does that mean
that the light is moving at c+v? NO! Light moves at c. AND when that light
hits atoms in the ground, those atoms will emit return photons that travel
at c. BUT when those return photons hit the radar gun, they will hit at c+v
where v is the speed of the car. So, the gun shows 50 mph.

>
> > ...when a radar gun is used in a moving vehicle, the photons returning from the
> > target hit the gun at c+v. I didn't expect that.
> Hold on... are you saying that the returning light pulse is moving at speed c+v relative to the gun that is stationary on the ground?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Light pulses always move at c!

> And that it is moving at c relative to the target? In other words, are you saying that the original pulse goes from the gun at speed c relative to the gun, and it hits the on-coming target at speed c+v relative to the target, and then the return pulse travels at c relative to the target and hits the gun at c+v?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Light pulses always move at c!!!!! When those pulses hit
an ONCOMING MOVING TARGET they hit at the COMBINED SPEEDS, i.e., c+v.

>
> > To measure the speed of a truck from inside the truck, I would have to use
> > TWO radar guns which emit photons that oscillate at the exact same frequency.
> That is just as wrong as your previous belief. The Doppler shift works in each direction individually, and the round trip Doppler is just the square of the one-way Doppler.

NOT SO! The Doppler shift works in each direction individually, THEREFORE
the Doppler shift in one direction can negate the Doppler shift in the other direction.

> In every case the Doppler shift in frequency is proportional to the rate of change of the distance. The Doppler effect is demonstrated countless times in countless ways every day.

The point is: If you have TWO guns emitting photons at the exact same
frequency, the photons emitted from Gun-A will be interpreted by GUN-B
as coming from a TARGET. In the truck, the gun at the front of the truck
will hit the gun at the back of the truck at c+v, where v is the speed of the
truck. This is in accordance with Einstein's Second Postulate which says
"light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which
is independent of the state of motion of the EMITTING body."

In plain English, this means that the gun that is pointing toward the rear
of the truck will NOT emit photons that travel at c-v. The photons will be
emitted at c. The gun that is pointed toward the front of the truck will
NOT emit photons that travel at c+v. The photons will travel at c.

Because the truck is moving, the traveling photons from the gun in the
rear will hit the gun in the front at c-v where v is the speed of the truck..
Likewise, the photons from the gun at the front of the truck will hit the
gun at the rear at c+v, where v is the speed of the truck.

> > So, we agree. The moving target adds KINETIC energy to the photon.
> Indeed, the energy of a photon striking the target is greater than the energy of that photon emitted from the gun, in terms of their respective systems of reference. And when the reflected photon arrives back at the gun, the energy is increased by the square of that factor. To make a speed gun that works with individual photons (super low intensity source) you would need to work with the energy, but actual speed guns do not measure the energy of individual photons, they measure the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation comprised of a huge number of photons.

WRONG!! A radar gun can theoretically work with a single emitted photon
and getting back a single return photon. NASA describes that process in
their web page here: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/how_do_police_radars.htm

> > The photon is a PARTICLE. The oscillating fields give it some wave like properties.
> It is a particle, but not a classical particle (i.e., it does not have a single trajectory like what you have in mind), it is a quantum particle. I think you are forgetting the interference effects in the two-slit experiment for an individual photon, or electron. I think you were misled by a careless reading of Feynman, who says light is composed of particles, but goes on to say that it isn't really particles, and it isn't really waves, so we should perhaps call it wavicles, but for convenience he decided to call it particles, with the caveat that it is not what you (Ed) imagine as particles..

A photon is a particle, but it NOT A SOLID OBJECT It is a quantum of energy
that moves like a particle, but unlike a solid object it can be deflected by
energy fields around other objects.

> > The speed of light is Nature's reference system.
> A speed isn't a reference system.
> > All motion by other objects can be valued as a percentage of the speed of light.
> That's just choosing a unit for speed, which is trivial, that isn't what is needed to determine the speed of an object relative to the sun or the earth or a car on the road, etc. Again, a speed is not a reference system, and a choice of units is not a reference system. Before you can talk about speeds, you have to be able to explain what you mean by the word. What scientists mean is the rate of change of position with time, and to quantify position and time involves a system of reference.

Speed is rate of change of position with time. But when you COMPARE
speeds of different objects moving at different rates IN SPACE, then the only
VALID measurement is to compare the speeds as FRACTIONS of the
speed of light. The faster moving object is the one moving at the
greater percentage of the speed of light.

>
> > There is no contradiction.
>
> There actually is a contradiction, because internal oscillations of the particle you imagine are independent of the relative speed of a particle. If an object is oscillating at 100 Hz, it is oscillating at that frequency regardless of how it is moving relative to you. It does not subject to the Doppler effect, whereas the energy of light is subject to the Doppler effect, because it is extrinsic energy, not intrinsic.

If a photon is oscillating at 35,000,000,000 Hertz as it travels, its frequency
has nothing to do with me. BUT, if I am moving toward that oncoming photon
at 70 mph and the photon HITS me, it will hit with energy equivalent to
35,000,002,792 Hertz. Kinetic energy of my motion will add to the energy
of the original photon.

Ed

On Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 11:44:50 AM UTC-6, Townes Olson wrote:
> On Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 8:45:36 AM UTC-8, wrote:
> > Oscillating photons appear to adequately describe how photons
> > can seem to be both particles and waves. The only question is:
> > Why do authors of physics textbooks refuse to view things that way?
> You already know the answer to that question: Your "oscillating photons" can't account for the quantum interference effects as illustrated by the two-slit experiment. Remember? In fact, they can't rationally account for any of the phenomena of electrodynamics.

That's because no one has bothered to figure out how the oscillating
electric and magnetic fields of a photon interact with nearby objects -
such as the slits in the Double Slit experiment, or a card when the
photons appear to move into the shadow of the card.

The Double Slit "mystery" is like the particle-wave "mystery." People
seem content to leave them as "mysteries," rather than solve the
mysteries and encounter the wrath of people who do not like the
solution.

> On the other hand, the scientific concept of a photon (and electric charges) in quantum electrodynamics correctly accounts for all the quantum phenomena of electromagnetism. It's ironic that you scold scientists for not being interested in your "oscillating photons", which are logically self-contradictory and fail to account for the phenomena, whereas *you* are not interested in quantum electrodynamics, which is logically sound and *does* account for the phenomena. So, it appears that you are the one (not scientists) who lacks interest in rationally understanding things as they really are.
>
> Please note that when experts in a field say there are subtle aspects of the subject that are still not fully understood (which is true of every subject), you should not interpret this as meaning that they don't understand the subject any better than you do.

What it SEEMS to mean is that it is not fully understood and they do not
want to understand it, because they are busy writing textbooks.

>
> I think it would be better for you to address the illogical and self-contradictory aspects of your own beliefs that have been pointed out. Rather than confront those, you seem to prefer to engage in scriptural analysis, which is just journalism, not scientific reasoning. For example, on one hand you've agreed that relativistic time dilation is much too small to account for the Doppler shift in frequencies between relatively moving objects, but on the other hand you invoke the "different size of a second" when trying to account for the difference in frequencies and speeds. That is self-contradictory. How do you reconcile this?

I don't recall "invoking the 'different size of a second'" when discussing
differences between frequencies and speeds. The difference between
frequencies and speeds when talking about radar guns is about
combining photon energy with the kinetic energy of the moving target.

Ed

On Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 9:54:45 AM UTC-8, det...@outlook.com wrote:
> > > Photons travel at the speed c, which is relative to the atom that
> > > emitted the photon.... regardless any motion of the emitter...
> >
> > To be clear about this, if an emitter is moving at speed v along the road and it
> > emits a pulse of light straight ahead, how fast do you think the pulse is moving
> > in the road's system of reference? You say it moves at c relative to the emitter,
> > so are you claiming it moves at c+v relative to the road?
>
> No. Neither one.

Neither one? Up above you said photons travel at the speed c relative to the emitter. So I'm asking you to tell me, if the emitter is moving at speed v on the road, and emits a photon straight ahead, what is the speed of the photon relative to the road?

> When you have a moving object and a stationary object
> you get into the subject of time dilation.

Relativistic time dilation is far too small to account for the differences between c and c+v, and it even has the wrong sign for one direction versus the other, so you cannot logically invoke time dilation to answer the question. Please tell me the speed of the photon relative to the road.

> Light pulses always move at c!

Relative to what system of reference? You said above that they move at speed c relative to the emitter, so if the emitter is moving at speed c on the road, what is the speed of the light relative to the road?

> The Doppler shift in one direction can negate the Doppler shift in the other direction.

No, the Doppler shift depends only on the rate of change of the distance between source and receiver, so you can't have red shift from A to B while you have blue shift from B to A. The rate of change of distance is the same. This is demonstrated in countless ways.

> In the truck, the gun at the front of the truck will hit the gun at the back of
> the truck at c+v, where v is the speed of the truck.

But that doesn't make sense, because the truck is moving at 67000 mph in orbit around the sun, and it's moving at 1000 mph rotating on the earth's equator, and it's moving at various other speeds relative to various other reference systems, but the Doppler effect doesn't care about any of those because it depends only on the rate of change of distance between them, which is zero.

> A radar gun can theoretically work with a single emitted photon and getting
> back a single return photon. NASA describes that process in their web page
> here: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/how_do_police_radars.htm

No, a radar gun does not work, even theoretically, with a single photon, and that web page (touting mathematical reasoning!) does not claim that it would. That public outreach web page, hosted on the NASA server (noting that NASA does not stand for National Aeronautics and Quantum Electrodynamics Administration), was written by a retired assistant in the meteorology department who is an amateur educator for K-12 children, and who has given a slightly garbled account of a radar gun in terms of energy, and then asserting by E = h nu that energy is proportional to frequency, and hey presto, we can assert that the frequencies will exhibit the noted ratios. Duh. He is not asserting that a single photon would exhibit that frequency.

> A photon ... moves like a particle...

No, the scientific concept of a photon in quantum electrodynamics does not "move like a particle". You see, you really don't have the slightest conception of what the word "photon" means in QED. Remember the interference in the quantum version of the two-slit experiment? That's cannot be explained by anything that "moves like a particle".

> Speed is rate of change of position with time.

Yes! And the quantification of positions and times is called a system of reference. So I ask again, if an emitter is moving at speed v relative to the road, and it emits light forward at speed c relative to the emitter, what is the speed of the light relative to the road?

> If a photon is oscillating at 35,000,000,000 Hertz as it travels, its frequency
> has nothing to do with me. BUT, if I am moving toward that oncoming photon
> at 70 mph and the photon HITS me, it will hit with energy equivalent to
> 35,000,002,792 Hertz. Kinetic energy of my motion will add to the energy
> of the original photon.

But you missed the point. We already agreed that the energy of the light pulse relative to the on-coming target is greater than the energy of the pulse relative to the emitter, but I'm pointing out that you have not connected this with the oscillation frequency. According to your conception, there is no rational basis for asserting that the frequency of oscillation of the particle relative to the on-coming target is different than the frequency of oscillation relative to the emitter.

Let me be clear: If the pulse of light consists of a sequence of phases propagating from emitter to target, then the frequency of those cycling phases would be greater relative to the target due to the Doppler effect, but there is no Doppler effect for an oscillating particle. So scientists can explain the frequency shift, based on their conception of light, but you cannot based on your conception of light. That's the criticism I'm trying to convey to you.

On Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 10:14:16 AM UTC-8, det...@outlook.com wrote:
> > Your "oscillating photons" can't account for the quantum interference effects
> > as illustrated by the two-slit experiment.
>
> That's because no one has bothered to figure out how...

Your reply doesn't change the fact that your "oscillating photons" can't account for the quantum interference effects as illustrated by the two-slit experiment. This, along with the illogical features, answers your question about why no one is interested in your concept of "oscillating photons". Remember, you momentarily thought you could explain the quantum effects, but quickly realized that you can't. In contrast, quantum electrodynamics explains things perfectly. That's why people are interested in QED and not in your "oscillating photons".

> I don't recall "invoking the 'different size of a second'" when discussing
> differences between frequencies and speeds.

You don't? Just 30 minutes ago, to excuse yourself from answering my simple question about the speed of the light relative to the road, you wrote:

> When you have a moving object and a stationary object you get into the subject
> of time dilation. A second is shorter for the moving object, so c is not the same
> in the two "systems of reference,"

That's what I'm pointing out doesn't make sense, because relativistic time dilation is far too small to account for the difference between c and c+v, and likewise to account for the corresponding differences in frequencies due to the Doppler effect.

Please just tell me: An emitter is moving at speed v relative to the road and emits light forward at speed c relative to the emitter. What do you think is the speed of light relative to the road?

On Saturday, November 13, 2021 at 9:54:45 AM UTC-8, det...@outlook.com wrote:
> > > Photons travel at the speed c, which is relative to the atom that
> > > emitted the photon.... regardless any motion of the emitter...
> >
> > To be clear about this, if an emitter is moving at speed v along the road and it
> > emits a pulse of light straight ahead, how fast do you think the pulse is moving
> > in the road's system of reference? You say it moves at c relative to the emitter,
> > so are you claiming it moves at c+v relative to the road?
>
> No. Neither one.

Neither one? Above you said photons travel at the speed c relative to the emitter. So I'm asking you to tell me, if the emitter is moving at speed v on the road, and emits a photon straight ahead, what is the speed of the photon relative to the road?

> When you have a moving object and a stationary object
> you get into the subject of time dilation.

Relativistic time dilation is much too small to account for the differences between c and c+v, and it even has the wrong sign for one direction versus the other, so you cannot logically invoke time dilation to answer the question. Please tell me the speed of the photon relative to the road.

> Light pulses always move at c!

Relative to what system of reference? You said above that they move at speed c relative to the emitter, so if the emitter is moving at speed v on the road, what is the speed of the light relative to the road?

> The Doppler shift in one direction can negate the Doppler shift in the other direction.

No, the Doppler shift depends only on the rate of change of the distance between source and receiver, so you can't have red shift from A to B while you have blue shift from B to A. The rate of change of distance between A and B is the same. This is demonstrated in countless ways. For example, the light from binary star components shows alternating red and blue shift as the orbiting star is moving toward and away from earth, and likewise we see annual red and blue shift of star frequencies as the earth is moving toward and away from distance single stars. In every case, the Doppler effect depends only on the rate of change of the distance.

> In the truck, the gun at the front of the truck will hit the gun at the back of
> the truck at c+v, where v is the speed of the truck.

But that makes no sense, because the truck is moving at 67000 mph in orbit around the sun, and it's moving at 1000 mph rotating on the earth's equator, and it's moving at various other speeds relative to various other reference systems, but the Doppler effect doesn't care about any of those because it depends only on the rate of change of distance between them, which is zero.

> A radar gun can theoretically work with a single emitted photon and getting
> back a single return photon. NASA describes that process in their web page
> here: https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_Thinking/how_do_police_radars.htm

No, a radar gun doesn't work, even theoretically, with a single photon, and that web page (touting mathematical reasoning!) does not claim that it would. That public outreach web page, hosted on the NASA server (which does not stand for National Aeronautics and Quantum Electrodynamics Administration), was written by a retired assistant in the meteorology department who is an amateur educator for K-12 children, and who has given a slightly garbled account of a radar gun in terms of energy, and then asserting by E = h nu that energy is proportional to frequency, and hey presto, we can assert that the frequencies will exhibit the noted ratios. Duh. He is not asserting that a single photon would exhibit that frequency (which is good, because if he asserted that, he would be misleading those kindergarten pupils).

> A photon ... moves like a particle...

No, the scientific concept of a photon in quantum electrodynamics does not "move like a particle". You see, you really don't have the slightest conception of what the word "photon" means in QED. Remember the interference in the quantum version of the two-slit experiment? That cannot be explained by anything that "moves like a particle".

> Speed is rate of change of position with time.

Yes! And the quantification of positions and times is called a system of reference. So I ask again, if an emitter is moving at speed v relative to the road, and it emits light forward at speed c relative to the emitter, what's the speed of the light relative to the road?

> If a photon is oscillating at 35,000,000,000 Hertz as it travels, its frequency
> has nothing to do with me. BUT, if I am moving toward that oncoming photon
> at 70 mph and the photon HITS me, it will hit with energy equivalent to
> 35,000,002,792 Hertz. Kinetic energy of my motion will add to the energy
> of the original photon.

But you missed the point. We already agreed that the energy of the light pulse relative to the on-coming target is greater than the energy of the pulse relative to the emitter (this would be true for a non-oscillating particle too), but I'm pointing out that you have not connected this with the oscillation frequency. According to your conception, there is no rational basis for asserting that the frequency of oscillation of the particle relative to the on-coming target is different than the frequency relative to the emitter.

Let me be clear: If the pulse of light consists of a sequence of phases propagating from emitter to target, then the frequency of those cycling phases would indeed be greater relative to the target due to the Doppler effect, but there is no Doppler effect for an oscillating particle. So scientists can explain the frequency shift, based on their conception of light, but you cannot based on your conception of light. That's the criticism I'm trying to convey to you.

Townes Olson wrote:

>> > To be clear about this, if an emitter is moving at speed v along the
>> > road and it emits a pulse of light straight ahead, how fast do you
>> > think the pulse is moving in the road's system of reference? You say
>> > it moves at c relative to the emitter,
>> > so are you claiming it moves at c+v relative to the road?
>>
>> No. Neither one.
>
> Neither one? Above you said photons travel at the speed c relative to
> the emitter. So I'm asking you to tell me, if the emitter is moving at
> speed v on the road, and emits a photon straight ahead, what is the
> speed of the photon relative to the road?

no, stupid. You add the speed read from the instrument panel.