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Re: Cliff Parker's question (was: heat is a form of energy)



Leigh Palmer wrote:

Sorry, I got sick of that old Subject line.

At 07:02 -0700 9/11/99, Cliff Parker wrote:

[my statement]: I have high school teachers asking me
if photons are pure energy. How do I answer such a question?
Most of them don't know what a photon is (I'm not sure I could
tell them) and if I tell them there's no such thing as "pure
energy" they just don't seem to want to hear me.

Leigh,

You may chose not to get into this but I wish you would. I am one of those
high school teachers and I am a bit confused. Is the reason you would not
call
a photon pure energy because of the dual nature of light? If there is no such
thing as pure energy then what is a wave? I have thought that describing a
wave as pure energy was appropriate. If this is not the case I would like to
have you and or others help me to clarify my thinking.

Don't feel that this is something simple that you should, somehow,
understand much better than you do. The extended quote from Feynman
that Bob Sciamanda posted speaks directly to this point. The quantum
world is weird, indeed; it is now trite to say so. Feynman's point (and
mine) is that the macroscopic world with which we all feel so familiar
and comfortable, and to which our vocabulary and analogistic capability
seem to be so well matched, has attributes which are not exactly
describable in common language.

I have grown rather comfortable with my lack of familiarity with the quantum
world. It is fun to stretch one's own understanding but I have found a good deal
of that understanding can be found in relaxing and accepting that natures rules do
not always fit nicely into my own.


Photons are not "pure energy" any more than neutrinos are. The very
idea that "pure energy" exists is contrary to fact. Energy is an
abstract invention, the product of the mind of man, with absolutely no
corporeal existence. If Man had never existed energy would not exist in
even its present ephemeral form.

Can't the same be said for mass? We have no way of detecting it directly. Haven't
we simply invented it to allow our minds to hold on to observed phenomenon?

If this idea is pushed hard enough couldn't just about all of physics be looked as
a human construct?

Feynman says this most clearly in the
parable in Chapter four of his "Lectures". This is done so well and so
clearly in common English that any physics teacher who has not read it
and understood its message should go immediately to it and do so!

I have read some of Feynman's work but not this. I will look forward to doing so.

I am still wondering how you would describe the "stuff" of waves? Is it that you
simply would not attempt such a description because our language would not do it
justice?