Re: Is photon a wave packet ?

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

On Fri, 17 May 2002, Bob Sciamanda wrote:
        Hardly abandoned.  In the context of classical E&M the notion is
alive and well.  In the context of QM the work survives in the form of the
"Feynmam propagator"
        Also, as I understand it, the (under Wheeler) gives the wrong
flavor.  It was Feynman's idea and Wheeler, newly arrived at Princeton,
went along for the ride.
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack

> One's conceptual model might indeed attempt to adhere to a strict
> "actio-in-distans" mechanism, whereby a cause might produce a distant
> effect (perhaps with a time delay) without any thing travelling between
> the two locations.  Note that this is conceptual modeling, where one man's
> weirdity might be another's loverly.
>
> On the road to considering dissertation topics, Feynman (under Wheeler)
> tried to construct an electrodynamics based solely on this
> actio-in-distans mechanism.  I don't have details, but they finally
> abandoned the idea.  I think (?) one of the difficulties appeared to be
> that the advanced solutions to the wave equation had to be taken
> seriously, with undesirable conceptual consequences.  Perhaps someone
> knows more - it is an interesting question.


--
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you, because that is what I must do.  Tonight it is only you and me, fish.
It is your strength against my intelligence.  It is a veritable potpourri
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                     <The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>