They still can't decide if light travels in quanta or in waves. Look at a helix from the face axis ...a rotating circle. Look at it from the side...a wave.. Light is energy emited from an atom right? So wouldn't it be safe to say that by the rules of inertia, light particles would wizz off of an atom in a rotating three dimentional path rather than instantly converting to 2D space? Why do we assume it to be so? Just an idea...
I never imagined light as a 2-dimensional wave, always 3-dimensional. Light "jiggles" around in all directions as it travels. This is why we can do polarisation. It travels in waves. Quanta is a measurement term. Waves are measured in quanta just as distance is measured in metres, for example. At least I think that's how it is. I've only done introductory wave mechanics.
Active8, There is no debate among physicists as to whether light is a wave or a particle. Physicists recognise that it is neither. Light is made up of quantum "thingies" called photons. Sometimes photons act like waves; sometimes they act like particles. It depends on what properties you choose to look at. Your helical picture is probably closest to the wave picture of light. The classical description is that a light wave consists of electric and magnetic fields oscillating at right angles to each other. It is possible for the directions of the fields to rotate as the light travels along, which gives what is called circular polarisation.
Pine_net, that link was to a site of somebodies theory of light as a dual particle system. I think it's bunk. Light travels in a straight line. There are other ways photons can have properties of waves and be a particle. A bell or tuning fork rings at a specific frequency. This frequency is a property of these objects. Whether or not they are making a sound, this frequency remains the same. So maybe a photon's has a frequency property. It doesn't mean it is a wave traveling through a medium as sound does, but has a property of frequency that comes into play when the photon interacts with atoms. That's my theory anyways.
That webpage is not showing light as "dual particle". Those balls moving around in the pictures represent charge, or just oscillation of the signal.
Light is wave not spiral. I always think of light as photons travel like waves. Yes. TEM field model is what everyone uses. Although the 90 degree thing is not true when you are close to the source. Yes. Polarization can be linear, circular or elliptical. Therefore light travel like wave not spiral. I like this type of discussion. It refreshes my memory Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Not true sir. Light does not travel in straight line. If light travels in straight line there wouldn't be any diffraction. Light diffraction is a problem for photolithography. huh ???? What does the resonant frequency of a bell has anything to do with frequencies of light? Well sorry sir but your theory is wrong. Light has a frequency property WITHOUT any atomic interaction. You can see light under vacuum. If light has no frequency property, you would be blind. Your eye is sensitive only to certain frequencies.
It is Physics 101 that light travels in a straight line. Diffraction is a product of interaction. The rainbow effect you see of diffraction off of a CD is the effect that light of different frequencies reflect off the surface at different angles based on the lights frequency. The light is still traveling in a straight line from it's source of reflection. The only time light travels paths other than a straight line is under the influence of extreme gravitational fields. Yes, light has a frequency property. I was describing a system that has properties of frequency without a transfer medium. ( Such as the archaic theory of ether or sound through air. ) I see light because it interacts with the atoms that make up the rods and cones in my eye. The atomic interaction is when the photos come in contact with my retina.
If I recall correctly, the Poynting vector travels in straight line but the photon itself actually travel like waves. It has been many years since I had quantum physics but I am fairly confident that is what I was taught. Physics 101 or classical physics doesn't apply to photon. When things become really small you are in a whole new ball game.
Light is a wave composed of coupled electric and magnetic fields oscillating in synchrony at very high frequencies. The electric and magnetic fields oscillate perpendicular to each other and perpendicular to the direction the light is traveling.
For what it's worth, frequency is not just an internal property of photons. Light waves interfere with each other, just like any other waves (e.g. sound, waves on water surface). The patterns of interference are governed by light frequencies, and interference occurs in vacuum without any matter present. And yes, the very fact of interference means there is, in fact, a medium of propagation (a.k.a. "the electromagnetic field".)
Light travels in a helical trajectory I proved that light consists of ponderable light particles (photons) that travel in helical trajectories and the diameter of the helix of any radiant energy wave is its wavelength divided by pi. You can read the paper that was published in Physics Essays at www.omsriram.com.
TEACHING SUCKS HEllo, :bugeye: Light is not exactly a wave or a spiral. The way light is taught is completly inaccurate and misleading. The way light is graphed on paper is a wave. This graph is like most graphs. Take the measurement of how many apples grows on a tree after a certain time. The apples grow so that more and more apples are on the tree, then the apples are picked or fall off and less apples are on the tree for winter. After winter the cycle continues. The graph of this is a very rough sinusoidal wave just like light. This does not mean that apples vibrate or move in wave or spiral patterns, it just shows a pattern. With Light the graph is time on the x axis and intensity on the y axis. The only fact is, people dont know much about light or anything closely related to electro-magnetic forces. The double slit expirements do not exactly make perfect sense in their hypothesis, because if it were a "wave" then the light would be all over the place with the detector detecting more light in the center and gradually less light as you move away from the center. But this is not the case, bands are created that are much more telling of bouncing and reflecting than wave interference. What is fact is that the "wave" part of light is the fluctuation in intensity and pole. What I (and probably everyone) do not understand is what the intensity is phisically. It could be just a generically stronger magnetic force, which would hold up the wave theory, since forces can interract much like waves, or that the intensity is made up of less or more particles. Probably it is a combination of both, not exactly surprising when dealing with light (im reffering to the "wave-particle duality" theory). This would mean that the particles that create the intensity actually transmit the force, which is the theory in quantum mechanics that include gluons (for gravity), but i don't exactly rember or know what the electro-magnetic counterpart of the glueon is. Although this may make sense it still leaves the question to be answered as to how the particles transmit a force that pulls or pushes things depending on the pole of the item. An interesting thing to note is that both particles vibrate mechanically and "waves" flux intensity. The brownian motion of a particle might create the property of intesity flux or the opposite, the intesity flux of light may actually create the brownian motion. A test should be done measuring brownian motion in a "wave"-less chamber. WELLL, I hope what I've said is understandable and endurable (sorry i write too frikkin long). Rember that WE DONT KNOW everything about phisics. The Famous Einstein theories are chalk full of discrepencies and contradicitions, not to mention einstein couldn't even touch gravity in any theory he put to thought. Quantum mechanics still has a very many theories and ideas that are accepted, but not exactly prooved. Many things scientists take to be truth are just theories that have not been contested. DAH, make me shut up. Ill be looking forward to replys.
ball game I would just like to say that things do not exactly change as things get smaller. Because we are made up of small things, the net effect is different, this is to say a computer acts differently than a hard drive.... Its kind of hard to compare a hard drive to a computer since a computer has a hard drive in its composition. As things get smaller, nothing changes, the mass and charge of the object are STILL all that matters, just as you get smaller those things change. Phisics 101 still works at the smallest of levels. Phisicis 101 says that "things" move in a straight line unless acted on blah blah blah. You SHOULD know that. It just so happens that as things get small, the forces that act on them become much much much more important. You cant say that humans only move in straght lines, well we are part of your definition of phisics 101, why cant light be? Remeber what you were taught defines peoples ideas on where the facts come from and is most likely very incorrect. What is needed is to further the facts, not rely on past or present theories. BiTe Frencheneesz
spiral i think it would be safe to say in our 3 dimensional world that it would travel in 3 dimensions, not to mention the fact that everything is revolving around something in our universe it would make sense that the light is a centralized particle with another particle orbiting it. also regarding intensity the intensity may be the outer particle not being there and then being there. then on the other hand maybe it is just a tiny particle that travels in a straight line and it emits light in all directions but is only seen where it accumulates in front of it.
I've always wondered if for every "particle" of light, there were reverse particles, if you want to call them that, and instead of light actually moving it simply transferred through those "reverse particle" like the ripples of waves through water. Being not the water itself but the energy moving across the water, and the water the reverse particles. In this way motion of light is simply an allusion, truly it would be billions of particles flickering on and off. This hypothesis could explain photon-wave duality and how light can appear to be simultaneously in two locations at the same time.
