Light
Sir Isaac Newton thought the basic building block of Light was a corpuscle (particle). It is written, he thought the ether of space waving, might account for experimental observation. In the present, it is generally thought Light exhibits, and has both properties... particles and waves. To start, let me state, whatever__ Light is not Energy! However, Light, in motion, has directional mass, can exert pressure, and as thus has the ability to do work... i.e. Energy. Light photons can also have spin.
As I did in the page on matter; I'll tell you right up front__ It appears that the conversion of Light, will turn it back into Matter. It isn't quite as clear cut, but experiments do bear this out. This however does not necessarily mean that light photons that are absorbed when hitting atoms, becomes matter. However, if photons are actually free idle quarks... this might make sense. If light is electromagnetic, and matter is electromagnetic... maybe they have the same fundamental particle or particles, as I have mentioned?
About 1900 Max Planck brought things together and theorized and showed that light must be radiated in chunks or blobs of basic photons, and not as just one steady stream or flow like water from a hose. These blobs of photons were called a quanta (Latin: for how much). Planck was able to calculate quanta (blobs) of light propagated as waves. The energy, (ability to do work), of a quanta of photons is proportional to the frequency and inversely proportional to the wavelength of light. This means there is an optimum crossover point of these proportions where the quantum of light exhibits the most energy, efficiently. This amount of light quanta is now called the Photon. This photon quanta has a standard value of such that it can be interfaced into the scientific scheme of things, and can convert to watts, ergs, BTUs, hp, or joules... (6.626196x10-34 joule/second). We can now measure and detect, one quanta photon, but, we still cannot tell you (and will probably never will) how many tiny basic original corpuscles are, or might be within this quanta (blob) of Light. It might seem odd that I am writing this much technical stuff in this paragraph? It is one of those "yes, but" scenarios. You need to know that Light exhibits measurable energy, (ability to do work). How much... I'm not counting. But, the door is still open... I am wondering what all those imaginary, but possible individual corpuscles of the quanta might be doing in various situations?
I just read a book that predominantly based the whole proof of parallel universes on the lack of a good explanation of patterns of light that emerge through slit or hole experiments. (This is like basing a theory of white swans, based on the lack of black swans.) I am aware of these experiments. I will give my explanation of the results, or not expected results. This same experiment is probably the main heavy-weight vote getter for gaining acceptance of quantum mechanics theories. ""The basic element of quantum theory, says Feynman on page 1 of the volume of his lectures, devoted to quantum mechanics, is the double-slit experiment." Why? Because this is "a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the only mystery... the basic peculiarities of all quantum mechanics."" (from: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, by John Gribbin). But, even if I am incorrect... I think there better be a lot more substance to a theory of parallel universes than not being able to explain an experiment.
The experiments go something like this: First a light is shined through a small hole in a wall, and beyond to a second parallel wall plane with two holes, and finally to a third wall twice the distance as the second wall. If the second wall holes are covered, the result will be an illuminated circle on the second wall. Light is thought to be wave like, with quanta of particles spread in a single region (I suspect in the leading 1/2) of each frequency cycle. Light travels so fast there is not much spreading at this close range, but it is there. If we open the two holes in the second wall so that the light beams will overlap a bit... The light shines through the two holes and on to the third wall. When the two overlapping light beams come out and overlaps each other to go on the third wall it does not act additive, as one oval illumination__ (depending upon sizing... etc) the results can come out with five circle illuminations and four dark areas between. The regions between that are dark, are caused by what is called interference. The light spreading out crosses over the other spreading light and interferes with light trying to go through these regions. If we cover one hole in the second wall, the light on the third wall will spread out as one circle, as if it had just come from one source. Note, I hope I related it correctly, but this is just historic reference data for you to this point that can be easily referenced.
The problem arises when we repeat this whole experiment with electrons instead of light. The electron is thought to be a particle. In the very front of Particles In Nature, by John H. Mauldin... "If something has the behavior and qualities of a particle, then it must be a particle." Hum... Anyway, if we shoot a beam of electrons through wall one, and on, to only one hole in the second wall (one hole covered) and on to the third wall... there is a circle of electrons sensed at the last third wall as expected of particle trajectories. If we do exactly the same as before, in that we uncover the second wall's second hole___ the results upon the third wall will exhibit illuminated circles with interference gaps between the circles, just as light waves do when going through two holes. However, with the electrons, the beam was aimed, and supposedly only going through one hole. Reverse the holes and it gets the same result. And the final kicker is: if only one electron at a time is fired through the hole (eliminating any stray electrons) and we wait... the interference and illuminated circle pattern will still emerge! Some people have concluded that the electron knows that the other hole is open. I personally, am a little leery about giving electrons intelligence, but it may just naturally sense a second reduced pressure area hole ahead of itself, when the second hole is uncovered. (Go to my Section IV, RAD Unification.)
I suppose many of you know, that an electron has waves emanating from it? It also has spin. Motions in and about itself. And, it probably has achieved some directional mass since it moves quite rapidly. And, I remember reading about a "bow wave", Cerenkov Effect... when a particle exceeds the speed of light in a medium. I have read that the electron behaves as a wave. If the electron is a wave__ wouldn't there be some wave going through the unused hole even if we aim at the opposite hole. I realize this may be a vacuum experiment, but if Space is electromagnetic, and full of virtual or inactive corpuscle photons, what kind of affect might occur with Space, and a speeding electron? Throw in the electromagnetic field around the electron, and I see a lot of potential for solving this poser. I have never done this experiment so I have to come up with all these possibilities without being more definite. However, how many possibilities can, smarter than I, scientists come up with and test? Personally, I would think real hard, before I would jump in bed with a: so be it attitude, parallel universes, intelligence, faith, or magic, and heaven forbid, metaphysics!.
It just may be that a single electron fired at a single hole is faced with, and senses the resistance of Space directly ahead, as lower than any other forward direction, so it goes through the single hole. Remembering that all electrons have spin, I suspect that no-one knows just exactly where the position of the electron might be in its spin at any one instant... and it is doubtful if the position of spin can be recognized or predicted of a second, third, fourth and etc., electron coming might have... But, if one electron is fired at one hole and a second hole is open nearby, the Space resistance it is confronting head on would not be exactly the pattern as presented by one hole. A spinning baseball knows, senses, or is actually presented with pressure variation, without the ability to think, such that it goes in the path of least resistance__, and curves across home plate! To swallow this, or give it any credence, you have to believe that Space, or something of Space, is causing a resistance to a body traveling at an extremely high velocity. We know that a ball falling to Earth from an airplane will reach a limiting, speed falling through air called terminal air velocity. Light, for me, appears to have a terminal Space velocity as it travels through Space. We know the mass of a body increases in the forward direction when it goes through, earth, water, and air due to reverse resistance. It requires more and more work to make it go faster. We know that near light speed a body has an increase in direction mass__ but, alas science looks for some other unknown reason, for the increase in mass of high velocity particles as electrons and photons!? (A thought... I wonder if the speed of an electron is the same for going through a one inch hole__ as is would be going through an orifice hole with one micron diameter in a partial vacuum?)
~~~~~~~~
As mentioned, another very important thing to know about light. It has the ability or capacity to do work, which is Energy. This capacity or ability to do work is in the form of pressure. This pressure equates to the directional mass of light. If light impacts matter it exerts impulse pressures. (Impulse pressure is pressure that is brought to bear only for a short duration.) Light entering and interacting inside our eyes is a pressure phenomena. Light impact pressure when hitting some materials, causes electrons to break loose and flow__ This is the photo electric effect. When you stand in front of a fireplace and warm your backside...it is light as heat penetrating your body, and making your atom's electrons more active. It is also important to know that when you move away from the fireplace you don't experience as much radiant heat warmth. This is not because the fire is any less, or the radiated heat got weaker with distance__ it is very important to know, it is because the radiation has spread! Light as visible, heat, cosmic or whatever does not get weaker with distance, but only spreads. Light shining across Space also spreads to be less per some area of measurement. However, it is said that one photon moving through space does not spread, and unless it bumps into something, is just as strong when it arrives, as it was when it left the source. The amount of radiated heat concentrated on your posterior from a fireplace__ is many photons fanning out. When moving away, you present less area per quantity of radiated photons. (And, there is some loss of radiated heat coming at you because a small amount interacts with air.)
~~~~~~~~
Oh well, enough of speculation about light... If we think about the three billion years ago past, and ask the question was there light? Well the sun and other stars were most likely here and shining from their nuclear fires. Lightening was a high probability of the past, also giving flashes of light on Earth. And fire from volcanic eruption is a pretty good assumption as active in the past. These three sources definitely emanate visible light. They also give off other light... especial noticeable light in the heat frequencies. The Earth itself has warmth, which is light. Actually, the Universe has warmth, light, which is called background noise, and can cause static on radio equipment.. I say yes, definitely, light is a reality.
* * * *
Page Relevant Quotes
"With his physics of particles such a success, it is hardly surprising that when Newton tries to explain the behavior of light he did so in terms of particles. After all, light rays are observed to travel in straight lines, and the way light bounces off a mirror is very much like the way a ball bounces off a hard wall. Newton built the first reflecting telescope, explained white light as a superposition of all the colors of the rainbow, and did much more in optics, but always his theories rested upon the assumption that light consisted of a stream of tiny particles, called corpuscles." In Search of Schrodinger's Cat... Quantum Physics and Reality; by John Gribbin.
Until 1932, there was no experimental evidence that the rest energy of a particle could ever change, but since the discovery of the positron in 1932 the process of the 'annihilation' of material particles (electrons and positrons) with the complete conversion of their rest energy into energy of light quanta has become familiar, as the inverse process, that of the materialization of the energy of light quanta as the rest energy of electrons and positrons. (I obviously have a problem with the usage of the word energy, but this tells the story... RAD) Principles of College Physics; Shortley and Williams
"The Dutch Physicist Christiaan Huygens was a contemporary of Newton, although thirteen years older, having been born in 1629. He developed the idea that light is not a stream of particles but a wave..." In Search of Schrodinger's Cat... Quantum Physics and Reality; by John Gribbin.
"...electrons behave like waves under some circumstances. In an electron microscope such beams may have an effective wavelength as much as 105 times shorter than the wavelengths of visible light. They permit the detailed examination of tiny structures." Fundamentals of Physics: David Halliday, Robert Resnick, Jearl Walker.
"Heisenberg uncertainty principle; principle of indeterminism: The principle that it is not possible to know with unlimited accuracy both the position and momentum of a particle. An explanation of the uncertainty is that in order to locate a particle exactly, an observer must be able to bounce off it a photon of radiation; this act of location itself alters the position of the particle in an unpredictable way. To locate the position accurately, photons of short wavelength would have to be used. The high momenta of such photons would cause a large effect on the position. On the other hand, using photons of lower momenta would have less effect on the particle's position, but would be less accurate because of the long wavelength." A Concise Dictionary of Physics: Oxford
"We all know that electromagnetic waves transport energy. Perhaps you also know that such waves can transport linear momentum. That is, it is possible to exert pressure (a radiation pressure) on an object by shining a light on it." Fundamentals of Physics: David Halliday, Robert Resnick, Jearl Walker." (RAD... no on energy transport... but yes on exert pressure)
"Does light produce pressure in the way that a hail of small particles would? Yes, and the pressure can be explained with either model. (Wave or particle model, RAD) Photons bouncing from a surface cause pressure on it, which can be measured in the laboratory. It is due to the momentum of the photons being reversed. This pressure will move space vehicles propelled by the light from the sun. The force exerted by the electric and magnetic fields in the wave model of light can also be interpreted as pressure when the electromagnetic wave encounters a surface. Both of these explanations work whether the light reflects from a shiny surface or is absorbed by a dull surface." Particles In Nature, John H. Mauldin
" ...illustrated by considering the movement of a tennis ball.
Classical mechanics tells us that the movement of the ball can be represented by two parameters - the position and the velocity of the ball at any instant - and that a simple means of measurement would be to film the ball so as to note its position at equal intervals of time. Next, we must ask ourselves whether the movement of the ball is independent of our observation.
The answer is, emphatically, 'no'. We cannot film the ball in the darkness, but as soon as we illuminate it, the light exerts a pressure on its surface, and the velocity and motion of the ball will be disturbed. Admittedly, in this case the effect is negligible, but the principle is clear enough. we cannot measure the behavior of the ball without modifying it; in other words, to measure is to disturb." Quanta: J. Andrade e Silva & G. Lochak
"In 1900 Professor Max Planck upset classical physics by professing abandonment of the belief that energy was radiated as waves (that is continuously, rhythmically, in all directions) and offered instead the theory that energy was released intermittently in tiny 'packages', which he called quanta. Hence his hypothesis became known as the quantum theory." The Main Stream of Mathematics; Edna E. Kramer, Ph.D.
"From the point of view of the atomic theory, we can at once say that heat energy is nothing but the energy of motion (to which must be added in some cases the potential energy) of the molecules of which matter is composed. Let us consider a gas, for instance. It consists of molecules, more complex in some gases, less in others, but in all cases about a hundred-millionth of an inch across, with comparatively large spaces between, moving about in all directions with an average speed measured in hundreds of yards a second. The molecules collide with one another, and lose or gain in speed at collision, so that all velocities from very small to very great are represented. ...The hotter the gas the more lively is the motion of its molecules, or, more precisely put, the greater the average energy of the molecules. ...If the vessel be closed the more lively beating of the gas molecules against its sides produce the rise in pressure which we know takes place when a gas is heated in a sealed space. (heat is usually infrared wave length light, RAD)
In a liquid we likewise have energy of motion of the molecule... In a solid the molecules are anchored to definite spots... and vibrate about that spot like balls held by springs. In all cases, however, the heat energy is simply the energy involved in different modes of motion of the molecules." An Approach to Modern Physics; E. N. da C. Andrade (heat is usually infrared wave length light, RAD)
"How is it possible that a black hole appears to emit particles when we know that nothing can escape from within its event horizon? The answer, quantum theory tells us, is that the particles do not come from within the black hole, but from the 'empty' space just outside the black hole's event horizon! We can understand this in the following way: What we think of as 'empty' space cannot be completely empty because that would mean that all the fields, such as the gravitational and electromagnetic fields, would have to be exactly zero. ...These particles are virtual particles..." A Brief History of Time; Stephen W. Hawking (or maybe idle mass-less photons RAD)
"More generally, a 'redshift' is scientific shorthand for the reduction in frequency and energy in any form of light, including all the invisible forms; a 'blueshift' is an upward change in frequency." Einstein's Universe; Nigel Calder.
"If you take a census of what is present in a volume of high-grade space 'empty' space far away from any galaxy, and then discount all the expected things like a few atoms and plenty of particle of light passing through in all directions, something else remains. You cannot detect it in any ordinary way, but one of the strongest theories of modern physics insists that it is there__ a surreptitious hint of everything that energy is capable of creating. The existence of ghostly particles predicted by the quantum theory has been confirmed by small effects on the 'tuning' of atoms.
"There it is at last: Warmth is motion... Heat is the invisible random jiggling of invisible atoms and molecules that constitute material substances." Rainbows, Snowflakes, and Quarks; Hans C. von Baeyer. (a whole Universe of heat, is a whole Universe of light, RAD)
"It was only in the mid-nineteenth century that a new, revolutionary concept was introduced into the history of physics, and it had a profound effect upon Newtonian mechanics. This was the concept of the field, which altered the whole outlook about space. According to the new ideas, space was no longer something simple, empty and inert, containing bodies which simple happened to be in a state of movement; it became something with physical properties of its own. These properties could be modified by the presence of material bodies, and conversely, the behavior of the bodies could be modified by the sort of space in which they were contained. These physical fields, which are just as real as matter itself, have become more and more important. They have invaded optics, following Maxwell; gravitation, with Einstein; and the theory of the atom, with de Broglie. But they were originally born from studies of electricity and magnetism, thanks to the work of Michael Faraday." Quanta: J. Andrade e Silva & G. Lochak
"When, in 1905, Einstein proposed the new conception of space and time which is the basis of relativity, he gave the coup de grace to the ether theories of the nineteenth century, which were already in great difficulty. Yet it would be wrong to infer that relativity is completely opposed to theories of ether, thereby laying down that space around us can have no hidden properties responsible for certain phenomena.
It is in fact perfectly possible to conceive of ethers which are in agreement with relativity, so long as we avoid defining an absolute frame of reference. Even according to Einstein, the relativistic theory of gravitation introduces a new type of ether. Another ether, of a very different kind, is contained in the interpretation of Dirac's equations, and the quantum theory of fields gives important physical properties to a 'vacuum' containing virtual particles' and affected fluctuations." Quanta: J. Andrade e Silva & G. Lochak
"Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense." Sidelights on Relativity: Albert Einstein.
"We may sum up as follows: According to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, an ether exists. In accordance with the general theory of relativity space without an ether is inconceivable. For in such a space there would not only be no propagation of light, but no possibility of the existence of scales and clocks, and therefore no spatio-temporal distances in the physical sense. But this ether must not be thought of as endowed with the properties characteristic of ponderable media, as composed of particles the motion of which can be followed; nor may the concept of motion be applied to it." Einstein, Essays in Science; Albert Einstein
"According to this hypothesis, when a body is in motion it becomes shortened in the direction of motion by a certain proportion depending upon its velocity. ...Later on, when Einstein propounded his special theory of relativity (1905), it "... the arbitrary hypotheses. The most important of these was that of Fitzgerald developed by Lorentz, and known as the Fitzgerald contraction hypothesis. ...was found that the hypothesis was in a certain sense correct, but only in a certain sense. That is to say, the supposed contraction is not physical fact, but a result of certain conventions of measurement..." The ABC of Relativity, Bertrand Russell
"This is the Fitzgerald contraction, which was first invented to account for the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. But it now emerges naturally from the fact that the two observers do not make the same judgment simultaneity." The ABC of Relativity, Bertrand Russell
"... as one of the important practical consequences of the theory of relativity, states that when anything gives off energy it also loses weight or mass." Encyclopedic Dictionary of Electronics and Nuclear Engineering, by Robert I. Sarbacher, Sc.D. (It does not give off energy! (It gives off heat, which is light, which has directional mass, which reduced the mass of the radiating body, which is also a weight loss...RAD)