Merged Relativity+ / Farsight

[Farsight]

Nope---it was both an electron and a positron, and now it's two photons. (Or three photons, or a neutrino-antineutrino pair, or mu mubar, or q qbar, etc., depending on the initial state.) You can't chop the initial state in half and expect it to make sense---it doesn't.

One electron plus one positron typically yields two photons. What is the problem?

Yep. So why are you perfectly happy for photons to be created and destroyed in Compton scattering (having nothing to do with photons zipping into the internal structures of particles)---and at the same time insist that photon creation/destruction in e+e- pair processes must tell you something about the internal structure of the electron?

Compton scattering doesn't destroy photons, it robs them of energy. An inverse Compton gives it back. Electron properties tell us about the structure of the electron. Mass, charge, spin, magnetic dipole moment, zitterbewegung. There's something moving in there, and it's going round. How anybody can dismiss pair production and accept the mysticism that parcels all this up as "instrinsic" and "elementary" and still consider themselves a rational scientist beats me.

How pair production works? A quantum-mechanical photon wavefunction comes along and overlaps with another quantum-mechanical photon wavefunction. The two wavefunctions have some nonzero overlap with the quantum-mechanical wavefunction of an e+ e- pair so there is some probability that they collapse into that pair. (All of the Feynman diagram stuff you've ever seen---if indeed you've gotten that far---is in fact a shorthand way of organizing the algebra in otherwise-fairly-ordinary quantum mechanics.)

That's no explanation at all. It's sleight-of-hand. You don't really know.

Sorry, Farsight, if you think that is gibberish than you also must think that Compton scattering is gibberish---it's the exact same process in every possible respect. (Calculate the QM wavefunction of an incoming photon and an incoming electron; if that overlaps with the wavefunction of an electron moving in a different direction, then the electron can collapse into that new wavefunction.) And everything else.

There's an underlying reality to those wavefunctions. You know when Einstein was debating with Bohr about the Copenhagen Interpretation? Einstein was right.

(This is the Nmpteenth time I've seen a mainstream-physics-is-wrong claim which reinvents the word "how" as a vague philosophical dunce-hat which placed on any physics claims whatsoever except the ones the crackpot himself is making.)

Here comes the ad-hominem abuse. People usually start dishing it when they can't defend their stance.

 

[Cuddles]

I'd be grateful if people could chip in to point out where I'm correct

I have no doubt people will do that just as soon as you get something correct.

 

[sol invictus]

One electron plus one positron typically yields two photons. What is the problem?

Sun+seed typical yields a tree. Does that mean trees are made of sun and seeds?

That's no explanation at all. It's sleight-of-hand. You don't really know.

What a ridiculous farce. Your explanation is a bunch of meaningless words (words that don't even rise to the level of sleight-of-hand). Ben's is a verbal description of a mathematical calculation one can do using the most precise and precisely tested theory in the history of human thought.

What's oddly fascinating is that you, like most of your ilk, can't see this elephant in the room. You can't see the complete hypocrisy of your stance, or recognize the irony in accusing others of ignoring evidence. It's an interesting lesson in human nature.

 

[Farsight]

Unfortunately there does not seem to be much that you have posted that is correct. The only posts containing correct points are the ones where you mention standard physics. But you generally spoil this by misinterpreting it, e.g. the electromagnetic field is defined as a field consisting of electric and magnetic components...

Come off it. Your first post on this thread was an accusation of "quoting from authority". Dismissing Maxwell! Then a little later you said: "A magnetic field is always produced whenever a charged particle like an electron is moving with respect to the observer" along with "There is a magnetic field generated".

You seem to redefine this as a "dual" field consisting of just electric components sometimes, just magnetic components at other times but never both..

It is both, that was a simplification.

Thus we are forced to just point out your errors. For example, you just stated "It's related to displacement current, but not as it's commonly understood. In a photon we see a positive then negative "flux" and no charged particle. We perform pair production, then in the electron we see a magnetic dipole moment." That is not right. There is no negative or positive "flux" in a photon. Thus the only person who can see one is you.

The word flux is in quotes because that was ctamblyn's term, not mine.

A photon has no electric charge to make a current or a flux. A photon is an electromagnetic wave considered as a particle. An electromagnetic wave has no charges. All it has is electromagnetic fields. An electromagnetic wave is generated by charges, e.g. the moving electrons in a radio antenna, but it does not carry any charge with it.

I know a photon has no electric charge. But look at what pair production is telling you: charge is created from an electromagnetic wave.

There is the displacement current but in an electromagnetic wave it is the rate of change of the flux density of the electric field (not an actual electrical current). The displacement current can be used with Ampere's Law assuming there is no bound or free current density contributing to current to derive the electromagnetic wave equation.

Like I said, it's related to displacement current, but not as it's commonly understood. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_current. It's not a current of moving electrons, but it really is a current. And since a photon always passes you at c, it really is alternating.

 

[Farsight]

You are astoundingly arrogant. You have not presented a single shred of qualitative evidence and yet we're apparently the ones that act like YECs and your argument is rational and scientific?

Look at my second post and the right hand rule: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5700835&postcount=2
Look at my other posts. There's evidence galore, but you refuse to admit it as evidence because you've got Morton's Demon sitting on your shoulder. Read this:

http://www.answersincreation.org/mortond.htm

Make sure you read it. Then think about it. The difference between you and me Tubby, is that three years back I realised that there were things that I thought I understood, but I didn't. And then I really understood the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Those YECs aren't so special. Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry. Even though they don't understand the electron.

 

[Farsight]

I have no idea what you are talking about. Why don't you do what my sophomores just did on their midterms: give the electromagnetic field equation for a photon propagating in the z-direction, linearly polarized in x. Then show us what aspect of the displacement current is not "commonly understood".

Because giving the equations doesn't get to the heart of it. You cannot understand what the mathematics means using mathematics.

I was just pointing out that you incorrectly called Tubby wrong on the very specific point of the threshhold behavior.

I can't see that: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5722143&postcount=96

Which part of it? Quantum mechanics? Yes, there are indeed things in quantum mechanics that seem difficult to understand. If you write a theory which is "easy to understand" (in the standard way that nonexperts want quantum mechanics to be easy, i.e. to make it determinate and/or local), in a very very general sense these alternate theories are inconsistent with experiment in Bell's Inequality tests.

See http://arxiv.org/find/grp_physics/1/au:+christian_joy/0/1/0/all/0/1 and http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/in...nt&task=view&id=30&Itemid=72&pi=Joy_Christian. Rotations do not commute. And it is easy to understand. The quantum of quantum mechanics is a common displacement. And it's a real displacement, because action h is momentum x distance. Then all the mystic woo of the Copenhagen Interpretation and the Many Worlds Interpretation is totally blown away.

Or---vertices? The fact that Schrodinger's Equation + relativity can be rearranged into Feynman diagrams? No, these things do not surpass understanding, they're really pretty straightforward. The fact that the Compton scattering diagram and the pair-production diagram are the same thing?

No, vortexes. Electron spin is two dimensional, it really is a rotation, it's a vorton.

I don't know what you mean by "forget about its lepton classification". The lepton classification is a consequence of its properties; we look at the list of neutrino properties and see that neutrinos look exactly like an electron minus the electric charge. Both fermions, both massive, both obey the same conservation laws, both couple to everything in exactly the same ways except that the electron also couples to charge.

You're forgetting something. The neutrino travels. Like a photon. It doesn't look exactly like an electron minus the electric charge.

Re neutrino mass, remember what I said about the symmetry between momentum and inertia. When you keep the photon going nowhere fast in one place it exhibits mass. When it's travelling at c it doesn't. There's a sliding scale in between. So if the speed of a neutrino varies...

 

[ben m]

I'm confident of this rotation and counter-rotation because it's essentially Newton's third law of motion. Action and reaction.

There's a long way between "Newton's third law is true" and "some sort of topological charge is a conserved quantity with a U(1) symmetry"

A long, long, long way.

 

[Farsight]

Yes, Google will know best.

Better still, get a German friend to translate it for you. It matches the google translation. There's Einstein saying a curvature of the rays of light can only occur when the speed of light varies with location. But people who have been brought up on the constancy of the speed of light will not accept it.

So, basically we're supposed to take your word for it, although you can't even verify the results for yourself?

No. You're supposed to look at the evidence and think for yourself. Evidence like the Shapiro delay and the GPS clock adjustment. GPS uses atomic clocks. They use microwaves. Light. Gravitational time dilation isn't direct evidence of "time going slower". It's direct evidence of light going slower. And as per the evidence of pair production, you're made of the stuff.

 

[ben m]

You're forgetting something. The neutrino travels. Like a photon. It doesn't look exactly like an electron minus the electric charge.

Re neutrino mass, remember what I said about the symmetry between momentum and inertia. When you keep the photon going nowhere fast in one place it exhibits mass. When it's travelling at c it doesn't. There's a sliding scale in between. So if the speed of a neutrino varies...

It sounds like you've misunderstood basic kinematics on this point.

A neutrino has exactly the same kinematics as an electron. You can fly alongside an at-rest neutrino and measure its rest mass if you like. Also, if a neutrino (or an electron, or anything else) is bouncing back and forth in a box, its kinetic energy contributes to the rest mass of the box just like a photon's does.

 

[Farsight]

No! How many times do you have to be told this: charge cannot be created or destroyed...

Here I have an electron, a charged particle. It's got charge. And here I have a positron, another charged particle. It's got charge too. Put them together, and voila, the charge is gone. Annihilated. Destroyed. Yes, net charge is always conserved, but so is angular momentum, and you can create it. Just spin a wheel. Out in space with nothing to brace against you need a counter-rotation to make it happen. But there's nothing fundamental about it. Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.

 

[ben m]

Because giving the equations doesn't get to the heart of it. You cannot understand what the mathematics means using mathematics.

Give the equations first. Then use them to describe what you're getting to the heart of.

 

[The Man]

Sorry, I meant to write "shuttling" to indicate an electron moving back and forth.

Ok, but where was I referring to or requiring there to be an “electron moving back and forth”?

Yes. Do you understand that gravity does not add energy to a falling body?

You do understand that a change in energy does not always infer adding energy, don’t you?

Noted.

Again noted. Let's come back to alpha after we've all understood the geometry of the electromagnetic field and have some understanding of pair production.

Ok, but since your assert you can not actually calculate your “geometry of the electromagnetic field” you can’t even show that you understand it as actually the “geometry of the electromagnetic field”. So you are simply at an impasse.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Look at my second post and the right hand rule: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5700835&postcount=2
Look at my other posts. There's evidence galore, but you refuse to admit it as evidence because you've got Morton's Demon sitting on your shoulder.

You have been asked many times to demonstrate how the diagrams in that post relate to the actual measurements that people make of electromagnetism. You have refused to offer a single equation that relates your pictures to measurements of electromagnetic phenomena. This is what is required for evidence in physics.

As you seem to have admitted, you lack the skills to evaluate your theory. Is this correct, or can you actually show us the relationship between your pictures and experiments?

Read this:

http://www.answersincreation.org/mortond.htm

This sounds exactly like you. You often claim that things are simple, but when you are asked to demonstrate the simplicity, you claim that things are too complicated. You have done this more than once in this very thread.

Indeed, you jump from forum to forum when the questions get too difficult. (The only exceptions are where you are thrown out for not answering questions.) Is this not the same behaviour that you are chastising?

Make sure you read it. Then think about it. The difference between you and me Tubby, is that three years back I realised that there were things that I thought I understood, but I didn't. And then I really understood the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Those YECs aren't so special. Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds, and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry. Even though they don't understand the electron.

But can you demonstrate that the equations that govern the motion of an electron have anything to do with your pictures? If you can't how do you know that you are not fooling yourself with those pictures? This is not a question of understanding the mathematics, this is a question of whether or not what you are saying has anything at all to do with the mathematics.

 

[Farsight]

It sounds like you've misunderstood basic kinematics on this point. A neutrino has exactly the same kinematics as an electron.

I haven't. An electron features two rotations. Ever wondered why there's a similarity between gravitomagnetism and electromagnetism? Here, look at this. I didn't write it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitomagnetism#Higher-order_effects

"Consider a toroidal mass with two degrees of rotation (both major axis and minor-axis spin, both turning inside out and revolving). This represents a "special case" in which gravitomagnetic effects generate a chiral corkscrew-like gravitational field around the object."

You can fly alongside an at-rest neutrino and measure its rest mass if you like.

Yes, because the stress energy takes the form of a running loop. The Weyl spinor depicts it. It's going round the loop at c, so it can't be moving laterally at c.

Also, if a neutrino (or an electron, or anything else) is bouncing back and forth in a box, its kinetic energy contributes to the rest mass of the box just like a photon's does.

No problem. But remember that kinetic energy is measuring the effect of how fast the "rest energy" is going. It's like asking how fast the energy that's going nowhere fast is going somewhere. It all comes down to motion in the end.

Sorry, I must go. Who wants to know how gravity works and how to unify it with the other forces?

 

[ctamblyn]

The word flux is in quotes because that was ctamblyn's term, not mine.

Just to be clear, I was referring to a flux of charged particles (I was describing electric current at the time). I was not referring to a flux of electric (or magnetic) field, which would be an entirely different thing.

 

[ben m]

I haven't. An electron features two rotations.

You can't offer "in my hypothesis, e and nu are different because the e has two rotations" as a response to "what are the observed differences between e and nu". The only observed difference is the charge.

Ever wondered why there's a similarity between gravitomagnetism and electromagnetism? Here, look at this. I didn't write it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitomagnetism#Higher-order_effects

"Consider a toroidal mass with two degrees of rotation (both major axis and minor-axis spin, both turning inside out and revolving). This represents a "special case" in which gravitomagnetic effects generate a chiral corkscrew-like gravitational field around the object."

We dropped this point a while back, but let's get back to it. There is nothing corkscrew-like about the electromagnetic field of an electron. Nothing whatsoever.

 

[The Man]

I know a photon has no electric charge. But look at what pair production is telling you: charge is created from an electromagnetic wave.

As already noted the net charge of the produced pair is zero. So no net charge is “created from an electromagnetic wave” even in pair production. Now you could say that some charge separation resulted due to that pair production and the electromagnetic wave. However charge separation results in (and from) an electrical field and an electromagnetic wave is just a localized variation in an electromagnet field. So an electromagnetic wave producing some charge separation is just saying an electromagnetic wave involves an electrical field variation, simply trivial.

 

[ctamblyn]

Here I have an electron, a charged particle. It's got charge. And here I have a positron, another charged particle. It's got charge too. Put them together, and voila, the charge is gone. Annihilated. Destroyed. Yes, net charge is always conserved, but so is angular momentum, and you can create it. Just spin a wheel. Out in space with nothing to brace against you need a counter-rotation to make it happen. But there's nothing fundamental about it. Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.

You could help your case by demonstrating that a circulating photon appears to be a charged particle. Start simple - show that the total flux of electric field through a sphere surrounding your system is non-zero.

Everyone else posting here (I would guess) thinks that the answer is zero, due to the fact that the photon is electrically neutral. Convince us otherwise. One simple surface integral...

 

[Belz...]

Better still, get a German friend to translate it for you. It matches the google translation. There's Einstein saying a curvature of the rays of light can only occur when the speed of light varies with location. But people who have been brought up on the constancy of the speed of light will not accept it.

That's because it's been a hundred years since Einstein said that, and maybe we've learned a thing or two since then, namely that the speed of light is constant (always, in fact. It just takes detours in non-voids)

No. You're supposed to look at the evidence and think for yourself. Evidence like the Shapiro delay and the GPS clock adjustment. GPS uses atomic clocks. They use microwaves. Light. Gravitational time dilation isn't direct evidence of "time going slower". It's direct evidence of light going slower. And as per the evidence of pair production, you're made of the stuff.

The problem is, you haven't provided this evidence, so it's a little difficult to agree with you.

 

[sol invictus]

Here I have an electron, a charged particle. It's got charge. And here I have a positron, another charged particle. It's got charge too. Put them together, and voila, the charge is gone. Annihilated. Destroyed.

The net charge is unchanged by that process - it happens because positrons have the opposite charge as electrons, so that the net charge is zero both before and after. That means - if you didn't know anything else - that a photon could be composed of an electron plus a positron. It also means that an electron cannot be composed of photons, because photons do not have a net charge, and electrons do.

Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.

I don't need to do better than that. Of course there are tens of other obvious and fundamental reasons why this doesn't work (for example: electrons are spin 1/2 fermions, photons are spin 1 bosons, and it's impossible to make a fermion by any combination of bosons), but this one is more than adequate.