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.
Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net http://www.velocity.net/~trebor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Edmiston" <edmiston@BLUFFTON.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: Is photon a wave packet ?
| By asking for some type of description of what is happening in the space
| that "e&m radiation is going through" I am trying to find some sort of
| description for myself and for students. It is a common question for
which
| I don't have a good answer. I think the original question of whether a
| photon is a wave packet was really asking this same question.
|
| Several reponses have seemed to center on the "answer" that it is
| inappropriate to ask this type of question. I don't find that an
| appropriate response. I think that reponse is just a sneaky way of
saying
| "we don't know." If an event occurs in one spot and because of that
| something is detected in another spot, it seems quite appropriate to ask
how
| did that happen, and to ask if something transpired in the space between
the
| two spots. If we don't know how to answer this then let's just come
clean
| and say "we don't know."
|
|
| Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail:
419-358-3270
| Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX:
419-358-3323
| Chairman, Science Department E-Mail
edmiston@bluffton.edu
| Bluffton College
| 280 West College Avenue
| Bluffton, OH 45817
|
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