Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: superposition



Leigh Palmer says:

It should be pointed out explicitly that superposition breaks down
for the electromagnetic field also at sufficiently extreme limits.
That field, too, exhibits nonlinearity, and a consequence of that
is that high energy gamma rays cannot be seen from great distances
in the universe because they collide with other radiation (the
microwave background) in otherwise free space.

Do tell! What are the other facets of this observation. I.e. how do we
know that there should be high energy gamma rays coming from great
distances, and how is it known that their absence is due to E&M
non-linearity?

--
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UCSD