SciContest! Why can't matter be made of photons?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by BenTheMan, Aug 11, 2008.

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  1. Vern Registered Senior Member

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    More speculation and maybe it could be so; but I need something I can put into a computer program and it convolutes a photon and spits out a neutrino. So far I can't do that. I can do it with all the other elementary particles.
     
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  3. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Other than that postulation, i honestly don't know then

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  5. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    Yes there is: a photon is a wave - light propagates as spherical wavefronts in the EM field.
    Drop a pebble in a largish puddle sometime - you should see waves spreading out from where the pebble splashes down, in a circle.

    So both are waves, that's the logical connection; it does work.

    Mentioning Kant or Popper does zero to provide a logical counterargument; perhaps I should mention Einstein, or Wheeler?
    All I'm saying is, your refutation is as solid as a surfboard made out of ocean waves.
     
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  7. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Listen to what is being said friend.

    Quantum waves are not actual water waves. In fact, other than being a handy analogy, it is no more than that i am afraid.
     
  8. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    Reiku: where have I said ocean waves are quantum waves? Or that quantum waves are actual water waves?

    What I actually said, is quantum particles, and travelling momentum on the surface of the ocean, are both examples of waves.
    That's w-a-v-e-s - waves.
     
  9. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Yes, but these waves are not real, as in the sense of being made of matter. They are statistical waves for us to calculate the probability of finding a particle in any place.
     
  10. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    A matter-wave is what something (like an electron) is. So these waves are real.
    Where did you get that idea?
     
  11. Reiku Banned Banned

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    The waves have real effects in the world. But the wave function is very ethereal. It isn't actually made up of anything physical or tangeable.
     
  12. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    How do you get from: "real effects", to "ethereal wavefunctions", and "isn't anything physical or tangible"?

    Massive particles have (actually they are) a matter-wave; a mass wavefunction. Charged particles need to have mass, and they have a charge wavefunction too; or rather charge is another field that the cosmos is made of, that massive particles with charge move along (as waves with mass, or matter-waves).

    These matter-waves can interact, because they have mass, by making other massless waves (photons), that affect, or modulate other matter-waves. [The massless waves get 'made' anytime a charged real physical particle has momentum relative to another charged real physical particle, photons are like water waves in that respect].

    This has been known about for some time - like about 70 years.
     
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  13. Reiku Banned Banned

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    I can't simplify this any more.

    The wave function of two particles can interfere, and therefore, alter the statistical averages for finding that [[particle]] at any given point in spacetime. Because of this, we can state that two waves interfere so that the final state has a real effect in the world. The wave function itself is not a physical wave. It's very much ethereal, for it has no initial tangeable properties. That's why in the double slit experiment, a particle can travel through both slits simultaneously, because it is really niether here nor there, until the particle hit's the screen. We can even make the single particle interfere with its own statistical wave function, so that is why when both slits are open, we observe less point particles on the screen upon interaction, where the wave is reduced into a single real quantity. This is the collapse of the wave function.
     
  14. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    Nope, that isn't the goods, sorry.

    The wavefunction of particles is not ethereal - it's real; real particles with real mass have real physical wavefunctions - that's why particles (like electrons) travel through spacetime as real, physical tangible matter-waves.

    Like I said, check out the work of a certain deBroglie character - should be in any undergrad text.
     
  15. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Then what can i say? The wave is considered virtual, and the collapse yields a real physical event? Any better?
     
  16. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    Still not what most QM physicists believe, I'd say.

    What's a "virtual wave" supposed to be?
     
  17. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Virtual means, you can have 50 percent of one thing, and 50 percent of another thing. Take an electron, and turn it into a quantum coin. It will exhibit both spins simultaneously, because its wave function allows it to have two virtual 50.50 spins at the same time. It is only when a strong electromagnetic field, or by simple observation can the electron be pulled out of its superpositioned state, and a single, real spin direction is the result. We call this value simply 1. Therfore, this value of 1 is considered a real value.
     
  18. Reiku Banned Banned

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    So an electron can have a heads and a tails at the same time, but niether are considered a value of 1 each. Instead, they both yield two superpositioned states physicists often call virtual, whilst upon a determination, one of the ''sides'' are the result.
     
  19. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    No, my understanding is a real electron can only have one spin state, and there are only two available.

    What you might mean is: an electron's spin state is indeterminate until you measure the spin states of some electrons, to see what the polarisation is - you can't just measure a quantum state like looking at which way a string pendulum is spinning (such a physical system also has only two ways it can spin, right?).

    Until you decide which way is up, you can't see which way electrons (or a single one of them) are spinning - using the right-hand-rule.

    Superposition is a measurement phenomenon; a single electron can have an indeterminate (i.e. unmeasured) spin with a 50/50 probability of it being one or the other. In a real atom, electrons have to 'choose' one or the other spin state if two electrons pair up or couple at the same level to a nucleus via the EM field.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2008
  20. Reiku Banned Banned

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    No, vkothii. I meant what i said. An electron has both spin states simultaneously before any resolution is made.
     
  21. Reiku Banned Banned

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    These are known quantum facts. I am very sincere about quantum mechanics, and would not make this sort of stuff up.
     
  22. Vkothii Banned Banned

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    Yes, they are.
    But superposition of spin states is only available to "unaligned" electrons; as soon as you measure spin, or as soon as two electrons pair up somehow (not necessarily in an atomic orbital), the spins are determined.

    And at no time does any electron have a virtual wavefunction - wavefunctions are real and physical, and measurable; spin is a wavefunction.
     
  23. Steve100 O͓͍̯̬̯̙͈̟̥̳̩͒̆̿ͬ̑̀̓̿͋ͬ ̙̳ͅ ̫̪̳͔O Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. Although I doubt my proof is anything of the sort as I just made up this bit hoping it to be true.

     
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