Re: Is photon a wave packet ?

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Tue, 14 May 2002, Jack Uretsky wrote:
> Note also that a single photon cannot create an interference pattern.
> Only a coherent assembly of photons can do that. It's like the legal
> principle that a person, acting alone, can never be guilty of a
> conspiracy.

Not a perfect analogy, since it implies that photons have to conspire with
each other in order to form interference patterns.

A single photon won't be found in the zero-light regions of a double-slit
interference pattern.  This is true whether or not there are other photons
involved, or whether or not those other photons are incoherent.  However I
admit that we cannot know the locations of the nodes unless we know the
photon's frequency and direction of travel.



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