• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

JEROME - Black holes do not exist

MattusMaximus said:
Again, more physics which Jerome will likely ignore, but something lurkers can benefit from learning...

Actually, photons do have mass - in a manner of speaking. Due to mass-energy equivalence (expressed through the famous E = mc2 equation), a photon with a certain energy can be thought to have an equivalent or invariant mass of m = E/c2
When we say that a "photon is massless", what physicists really mean is that a photon has a rest mass of zero. A photon is either moving at c = 3x108 m/sec or it doesn't exist - there is no in between.

We know this works due to the fact that photon-photon collisions can create massive particles. It also goes the other way, with (for example) electron-positron interactions creating photons.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't photons have to have mass for a light sail to work?

aggle-rithm said:
Perhaps, instead of the Big Bang, he believes in the Big Fabric Cycle.
Click to expand...

You know, this would explain so much. Those socks that get lost in the dryer? Spirited away by the Great Lint Filter. That half-slip that crackles like a lightning strike? Exorcise it with the Sacrament of the Fabric Softener.
 
Third Eye Open said:
I remember hearing something about light being slowed down or even stopped in a laboratory. How is this explained?
Click to expand...

To stop the photon, its quantum state is captured and subsequently released. There could be an argument as to wether what gets released is the same photon but it is indistinguishable from the original.
 
Practicing ignorance is no difference then being ignorant many times JEROME.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
Is that so?

Do you have a scientific study which represents the movement of electrons in relation to the atom?
Click to expand...

Um, why? It all QM and shells of probability. So i am not usre that 'motion' in the macro sense applies.

You can start here:
http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/PY106/PeriodicTable.html
A very important difference between the Bohr model and the full quantum mechanical treatment of the atom is that Bohr proposed that the electrons were found in very well-defined circular orbits around the nucleus, while the quantum mechanical picture of the atom has the electron essentially spread out into a cloud. We call this a probability density cloud, because the density of the cloud tells us what the probability is of finding the electron at a particular distance from the nucleus.

In quantum mechanics, something called a wave function is associated with each electron state in an atom. The probability of finding an electron at a particular distance from the nucleus is related to the square of the wave function, so these electron probability density clouds are basically three-dimensional pictures of the square of the wave function.
Click to expand...


or here:
http://www4.nau.edu/microanalysis/microprobe/Xray-ElectronShells.html


here is a letter:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=3f8be0825f638c0ad72aaa165fa2c565

some research:
http://www.cpfs.mpg.de/ELF/index.php?content=01quant/01def.txt

Then maybe this is more what you want:
http://jp4.journaldephysique.org/in...=/articles/jp4/pdf/2001/02/jp4200111PR291.pdf
http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110000012201/en/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=e75b4554e16134172223670e0e90e585
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/102531142/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0


This one is cool:
http://www.daugerresearch.com/orbitals/index.shtml

Sorry jerome, it is all very beyond me, I am not sure of the evidence for the probability distribution at a level upon which to offer a critque, but i do know that cetain effects are dependant upon the probability distribution, like 'quantum tunneling'.

If there is a competing theory, i would be thrilled to not really understand it either.

So my understanding of why the 'orbitals' are called orbitals when the electron just doesn't orbit like the moon orbits the earth, I don't know. Contingent history of language usage?
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
Is that correct?

Is a photon a wave or a particle?

Is an electron a wave or a particle?
Click to expand...

I would say that it is always a wave, all the time. A 'particle' it isn't except at very high momentum interactions when the wave intersections get constrained.

But hey, that is just my thought. That and $1.75 can but you a coffee.
 
Last edited:
JEROME DA GNOME said:
Nope, when I explain why the evidence presented is not in fact evidence of the assertion the thread receives a deluge of posts such as yours.
Click to expand...

Now that i can understnad, but then i am a nihilist as well.

All thoughts are equally true and equally false. All theories are approximations of the behavior of observed reality. So while a theory can only approximate the behavior of reality, some are better at it than others.

However, there is no real correlate to a theory, it is only a thought model that explains a possible solution to the quandry of what is reality. However 'germ' theory and antibiotics work rather well. A-bombs go boom all based upon the aproximate interaction and people went to the moon on approximate mechanics of orbital motion.

So while a black hole might not exist, it might be a very accurate approximation of whatever it is that does happen, and if not, well then another thoery will rise.
 
Last edited:
Elizabeth I said:
Wouldn't they have to have mass to have momentum?
Click to expand...

In non-relativistic physics momentum is mass times velocity. So imagine making the mass smaller and smaller while making the velocity larger and larger, keeping the momentum fixed. In the limit of zero mass you'd still have some momentum.

Photons travel at speed c, which (in relativity) is kind of like infinite velocity (at least for the purposes of computing momentum). So they have zero mass, but finite energy and momentum.
 
Last edited:
And also there's the point about photons having zero rest mass - as pointed out in one of the other threads - the plasma cosmology one I think (they're all kind of blurring together at this point).

Energy can be considered to be another form of mass via Einstein's E=MC2. So the photon's energy can contribute to its momentum.
 
Third Eye Open said:
I remember hearing something about light being slowed down or even stopped in a laboratory. How is this explained?
Click to expand...


This is a common misunderstanding of how light is transmitted through materials. It ends up that light slows down in all transparent materials, such as water, glass, air, etc as compared to a vacuum (this process is known as refraction). When we say that light travels at c = 3x108 m/sec we are speaking of its speed in a vacuum.

One way to think of light slowing down in a material (glass, for instance) is to realize that the photon (a "particle" of light) is absorbed and re-emitted from one atom to the next within the material. Since the photon energy is absorbed, re-emitted and then absorbed, re-emitted again and again, this tends to slow down the average speed at which the light passes through the glass. That's what we mean when we say that light is "slowing down", but it should be noted that in the space between the atoms the light is moving at c.

Here's another analogy: think about baseball. You have a pitcher and catcher on the field alone, and the pitcher throws a fastball to home plate. It travels quickly and directly since there is no intervening material (i.e., a vacuum) in that space.

Now, place a line of players in between the pitcher and catcher (the extra players represent the glass atoms). The pitcher then throws the ball to the first player, who holds onto it for a moment and then throws it to the second player, who repeats the process... all the way to the catcher. The ball moves very quickly between players, but the overall time from pitcher to catcher is now greater.

Make sense now?
 
Last edited:
MattusMaximus said:
ETA: And just in case Jerome pops in with his "suppositions are not evidence" blather, it should be noted that I have personally performed all of the experiments which I mentioned in my post, plus a whole bunch more that confirm wave-particle duality. I even had my high school students conduct the photoelectric effect experiment just within the last few days. Just so ya know, Jerome...
Click to expand...

Ah, but did you actually SEE the wave-particles ? No ? SUPPOSITION!!!!!11
 
Belz... said:
Ah, but did you actually SEE the wave-particles ? No ? SUPPOSITION!!!!!11
Click to expand...


Nice sarcasm :)

My response to this would be the same as for discussing dark matter, for instance. Since our senses are fundamentally limited, at some point we must rely upon indirect measurements.

Slightly OT: I actually have "seen" individual atoms before - a claim I think few on this Forum can make. When I was a graduate student I worked with an atomic force microscope to resolve individual graphite atoms (very difficult at the time given the constraints).

One can "see" the wind by noticing blowing leaves and trees. We infer the existence of the wind by its effects, even though it is invisible.

I wonder if Jerome believes in the wind?
 
MattusMaximus said:
Both photons and matter (protons, neutrons, electrons, etc) exhibit particle-like and wave-like properties.
Click to expand...

But aren't protons and neutrons made up of smaller particles, ie quarks? How do you add quarks together if they exhibit two vastly different types of properties?

Bl**dy QM!
 
MattusMaximus said:
ETA: And just in case Jerome pops in with his "suppositions are not evidence" blather, it should be noted that I have personally performed all of the experiments which I mentioned in my post, plus a whole bunch more that confirm wave-particle duality.
Click to expand...
If it helps, I have also performed these experiments when I was physics undergrad and have verified the results. Just to cover the bases, I also performed and confirmed the Michelson-Morley experiment, so I can vouch there is no luminiferous aether out there propagating the light waves through space.

(It's a real shame too, because there are few scientific terms out there as fun to say as "luminiferous aether". Maybe "endoplasmic reticulum".)
 
Aitch said:
But aren't protons and neutrons made up of smaller particles, ie quarks? How do you add quarks together if they exhibit two vastly different types of properties?

Bl**dy QM!
Click to expand...
Quarks are not added together. They merely exist inside hadrons as described by Quantum chromodynamics.
Wave-particle duality does not mean that objects act as either as waves or particles all the time. It means that they have wave and particle properties all of the time.
High energy physics experiments usually see quarks exibiting particle behaviour during high energy collisions. We do not usually see quarks behaving as waves since experiments such as the 2-slit experiment cannot be done with them (they cannot be extracted from the hadron).

This is getting really OT though.
 
Um, maybe Jerome's point if there is one, is that science is about making approximate models of reality.

So this is a philosophy point in some ways.

Of course the only clue is that he does not present counter theories, so maybe the statement is about theories and that they are just approximations of reality.

Or something.

Stillo looks really weird.

:gnome:- OOOOK?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom