Re: Just what is a particle?

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Cliff Parker wrote:

> Well said.  I was wondering exactly the same thing.  Can an eye "feel"
> anything but particles?  An interaction with one molecule in the retina
> sure seems particle like to me.  I guess if we just stopped detecting
> (touching) these light quanta we could simplify things and just call
> light a wave.  I suggest a moratorium on photon detection.  Just to see
> how things work out.


Here's my own personal (i.e. crackpot) theory:

  Photon dies screaming
  http://www.amasci.com/freenrg/sukdynam.html

There IS a way that broad ripples of EM waves can trigger transient
absorbtion events, as if a particle had struck an absorber.  I suspect
that portable AM radios employ similar physics, but I've not yet tried any
experiments.

If the oscillating fields in the nearfield region of an electrically-small
resonating dipole circuit can "suck energy" from longwave radiation, and
if the dipole oscillations are themselves created by interactions with
that radiation, then a runaway reaction becomes possible.  The more energy
absorbed, the stronger the dipole oscillation, which leads to stronger
absorbtion.  If an inert dipole has a sharp resonance, then when it's
illuminated with EM, maybe it can suddenly wake up and "grab" a finite
nonlinear clump of energy from a long EM wavetrain.  Once "full", it stops
absorbing.  Very photonlike, but with no photons needed.  This doesn't
explain Planck's constant though.

  more musings on "energy-sucking antennas"
  http://www.amasci.com/tesla/tescv2.html



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William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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