Merged Relativity+ / Farsight

[DeiRenDopa]

Now, is there anybody who still thinks photon-photon pair production occurs because one of the photons mysteriously turns itself into an electron and a positron with which the other photon interacts? Only if it misses, the electron and that positron magically morph back into a single photon that mystically managed to keep on going at the speed of light?

Anybody?

Do you think this short piece of prose of yours is fully consistent with QED? If so, then - by what you wrote earlier - one such person must be you.

Huh?

Because it is quite secondary what nice piece of prose you write, to provide a gloss for a highly successful physics theory; what is primary is your ability to use the theory to make predictions (and post-dictions) which are consistent with observations and experimental results, objectively and in an independently verifiable way.

If you have a better piece of prose, to describe how QED 'works' in this situation, by all means let's see it. If not, then what's all the fuss about?

(you may, of course, have a physics theory that is better than QED; however, so far in this thread you have failed to present any such. So this consideration is moot).

 

[ben m]

Yeah, whatever.

OK, we're done. I declare the thread over.

No more explaining things to Farsight, folks. His answer is "Yeah, whatever".

For example, I'm not going to bother citing to the people designing the photon collider and the papers where they show the ordinary QED virtual-particle-based processes (the ones that Farsight says are contradicted by the words "photon collider") that they expect to run in their collider. That would convince a normal person, but ... "yeah, whatever". Never mind then.

 

[steenkh]

Now, is there anybody who still thinks photon-photon pair production occurs because one of the photons mysteriously turns itself into an electron and a positron with which the other photon interacts? Only if it misses, the electron and that positron magically morph back into a single photon that mystically managed to keep on going at the speed of light?

Anybody?

Why not? We have a proper scientific theory fully worked that makes predictions that are consistent with experiments. Or we could take your vague ideas that make no predictions of their own, and where the best you can say about it is that it is not contradicted by experiments. Until we find something better, I will go with the theory that can make the most precise predictions.

 

[Farsight]

OK, we're done. I declare the thread over.

What you really mean, is that you give in. I've won this one hands down, and you know it. Photons interact with photons. End of story. Only it isn't, is it? It opens up a whole can of worms. Which is why you fight tooth and nail to cling to the fatuous fairytale. Tough. Because I'm going to keep on winning.

Why not?

Because it's in breach of conservation of momentum and the speed of light and it's a patent tautology. It's nonsense, and you don't need to be a genius to work that one out.

If you have a better piece of prose, to describe how QED 'works' in this situation, by all means let's see it.

I gave it to you on page 44, search on displacement current. Each photon displaces the other into itself and it ends up displacing itself into a closed chiral path. This was of course totally dismissed in favour of the nonsense by our resident crawl-out-the wallpaper naysayers. By JREF's very own custodians of ignorance. Now, can I reiterate the $64,000 question?

Is there anybody who still thinks photon-photon pair production occurs because one of the photons mysteriously turns itself into an electron and a positron with which the other photon interacts? Only if it misses, the electron and that positron magically morph back into a single photon that mystically managed to keep on going at the speed of light? Anybody?

Didn't think so.

 

[lpetrich]

Now, is there anybody who still thinks photon-photon pair production occurs because one of the photons mysteriously turns itself into an electron and a positron with which the other photon interacts? Only if it misses, the electron and that positron magically morph back into a single photon that mystically managed to keep on going at the speed of light?

Anybody?

I fail to see why that is supposed to be so absurd. As I'd posted earlier, I'm reminded of CHURCH FATHERS: Divine Institutes, Book III (Lactantius)

Chapter 24. Of the Antipodes, the Heaven, and the Stars.

How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes opposite to our footsteps? Do they say anything to the purpose? Or is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? Or that the things which with us are in a recumbent position, with them hang in an inverted direction? That the crops and trees grow downwards? That the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? And does any one wonder that hanging gardens are mentioned among the seven wonders of the world, when philosophers make hanging fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains?

 

[phunk]

Is there anybody who still thinks photon-photon pair production occurs because one of the photons mysteriously turns itself into an electron and a positron with which the other photon interacts? Only if it misses, the electron and that positron magically morph back into a single photon that mystically managed to keep on going at the speed of light? Anybody?

Well I certainly wouldn't use the words you do, but yes.

 

[ben m]

Well I certainly wouldn't use the words you do, but yes.

(Well said; I've previously agreed with something along the same lines. But this didn't stop Farsight from repeating "I'll ask again. No takers! Bah! Didn't think so!" in completely delusional confidence.)

Can we make it stop now?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

If you have a better piece of prose, to describe how QED 'works' in this situation, by all means let's see it.

I gave it to you on page 44, search on displacement current. Each photon displaces the other into itself and it ends up displacing itself into a closed chiral path.

You mean this? "Displacement current is a feature of light. It's a time-varying electric field. And it does what it says on the can. It isn't called displacement current for nothing. "
"Because that displacement current is alternating. That's why we have vacuum impedance, impedance being resistance to alternating current. The two waves "ride over one another", like two ocean waves ride over one another. There's a displacement up, then down. Then each continues on its way. So it looks like there was no interaction. But when you increase the energy the displacement is so drastic that each wave is displaced into itself. And ends up displacing itself into a closed path. Simples. "

Sorry, doesn't work for me. At all.

Perhaps it would help if you could show how this prose can lead to specific, quantitative predictions, like the rate of production of electron-positron pairs in the kind of experiment that has been mentioned so many times here recently?

This was of course totally dismissed in favour of the nonsense by our resident crawl-out-the wallpaper naysayers. By JREF's very own custodians of ignorance.

Actually, as I read p44 (etc), it was rather expertly shown to be, at best, a serious misunderstanding of 'displacement current' (or, alternatively, an idiosyncratic redefinition, one that renders the prose meaningless). True, you did not like what other JREF members wrote; but you're the one trying to convince others of the effectiveness of your prose, so the burden is on you. Try harder, perhaps?

Now, can I reiterate the $64,000 question?

Is there anybody who still thinks photon-photon pair production occurs because one of the photons mysteriously turns itself into an electron and a positron with which the other photon interacts? Only if it misses, the electron and that positron magically morph back into a single photon that mystically managed to keep on going at the speed of light? Anybody?

Didn't think so.

Maybe you need new glasses? I can't think of why else you missed the posts by ...

 

[Reality Check]

Is there anybody who still thinks photon-photon pair production occurs because one of the photons mysteriously turns itself into an electron and a positron with which the other photon interacts?

The answer is obviously yes, Farsight. That is what the science states !

Photon-photon interactions occur because one of the photons (through the well understood Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) turns into oppositely charged virtual particles (e.g. a virtual electron and a virtual positron) for a very short time with which the other photon interacts.
Add enough energy and the interaction can produce real particles, i.e. photon-photon pair production.

 

[Reality Check]

I know far more physics than you and ben and zig put together.
...snipped usual insults...

Who cares about the amount of physics you claim to know, Farsight?
What is important is the knowledge and understanding of physics that your statements display in this forum. And after 6 years of posting that display shows little knowledge or understanding of physics .!
There is the claim of knowing and understanding relativity but the display of not being able to get past the third equation in one of Einstein's papers.
There is the claim of knowing and understanding relativity QED but you do not know or understand that QED states that photons do not interact directly and that the only way they can interact indirectly is through the formation of virtual particles. No virtual particles (as you claim) means photons never interact!

The "reality" that underlies QED is not understood and is irrelevant in science. QED works.
That the "reality" that underlies QED is not understood does not give people the freedom to make up fantasies.

ETA: Let us compare a couple of guys and estimate what their knowledge and understanding of physics is, Farsight:
John Duffield of Poole, England is an IT professional with a computer science degree and "well read on physics, but maths relatively weak".
Me: an IT professional with a postgraduate physics degree, well read on physics and with a good knowledge (if rusty!) of maths.

How would you rank these people as far as knowing physics, Farsight?

ETA2: So someone claims to have a great deal of knowledge of physics. But they do not answer a simple question, like:
Farsight: What is the charge of a photon? What does this mean for Maxwell's equations? (27 May 2014)
immediately or even after 3 days of thinking about the answer.
What does this tell you about their knowledge of physics, Farsight?
Just in case Farsight has me on ignore (thus explaining the inability to answer the question) could someone quote this?

P.S. Have you read and understood Two photon physics: photons cannot couple directly to each other yet?

 

[ctamblyn]

It would take me too long to give you that, but I'd be referring to TQFT and electromagnetic geometry, and saying the electron field is a particular "configuration" of the photon field, that they are two aspects of the selfsame thing, and that virtual photons and virtual electrons are but "chunks" of field rather than actual particles.

It would take too long? So far, you have spent at least seven years on internet forums making these claims about charged particles, and failing to provide any sort of justification for them. If it really is possible to describe the electron as a state of the electromagnetic field in a way which is compatible (in some sense) with QED, why can't you show anyone how to write a proper theory of interacting charged particles (which reduces to QED in the appropriate limit) in terms of the electromagnetic field alone, or at least direct us to someone else who has done it? And if (as is obviously the case) you can't construct an electrodynamics theory in terms of the electromagnetic field alone, or show us anyone else who has successfully done so, why do you pronounce with such groundless certainty that it can be done?

ETA: And are you ever going to answer these questions?

 

[Reality Check]

It would take me too long to give you that, but I'd be referring to TQFT and electromagnetic geometry, and saying the electron field is a particular "configuration" of the photon field, that they are two aspects of the selfsame thing, and that virtual photons and virtual electrons are but "chunks" of field rather than actual particles.

Let us see what you actually referred to, Farsight, in reply to

IAccepting - provisionally - that the prediction is correct, and that it will be experimentally verified, how would you describe the relevant parts of QED, qualitatively?

* TQFT which is a class of quantum field theories, not QED.
* an irrelevant to QED Google search
* a bit of ignorance about what the QED electron and photon fields are!
They are separate entities in QED.
Quantum field theory

For example, quantum electrodynamics (QED) has one electron field and one photon field; quantum chromodynamics (QCD) has one field for each type of quark; and, in condensed matter, there is an atomic displacement field that gives rise to phonon particles.

* the vague assertion that

the electron field is a particular "configuration" of the photon field

Just what does that mean, Farsight?
* virtual photons and virtual electrons are not "chunks" of the respective fields - they are short-term fluctuations of the respective fields .
* no one knowledgeable about physics thinks that virtual photons and virtual electrons/positrons are actual particles. That is why that word virtual is there !

 

[thedopefishlives]

You keep declaring your posts a "home run". Why, then, have you failed to prove that the theory you're presenting is superior in qualitativeness and quantitativeness to QED? That's not a home run to me, but I'm just a lurker, an outside observer you're supposed to be persuading with your arguments.

 

[Roboramma]

OK, so do photons interact with photons or not? Yes or no?

Yes.

Robo, spare me the lame analogy. We've been talking about a photon-photon collider. Not a photon-Robo collider.

It's not a "lame analogy", it's not even an analogy, it's a proof of concept: you claim that the fact that 2 things interact is a demonstration that they interact directly. I gave an example of 2 things interacting without interacting directly (Zig did the same, but better, upthread), which shows that your conclusion doesn't follow. If it's possible for interactions to be indirect then the fact that two things interact doesn't demonstrate that they interact directly.

This shows that we need to know more than the fact that it's a photon-photon collider to find out if it's interactions are direct or not.

Note that it doesn't show that the interactions are not direct. Only that the fact that there are interactions doesn't necessarily imply that they are direct.

Sigh. In the real world we'll have something called a photon-photon collider. A photon-photon collider. Not a photon-virtual particle collider. Those virtual particles are virtual. They aren't real particles. Geddit? Uhhnnnn, don't tell me, you think virtual particles are short-lived real particles that pop into existence. Like magic. Then pop, more magic. Uhhhnnnn, it's like that movie.

Why don't you try asking the guys who are designing it how it works, then.

 

[ferd burfle]

For those of you keeping score at home, here we have numbers 17 and 28, for a combined score of 30 points.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

ETA: Farsight, I am not calling you a crackpot but when your arguments can be found on this list you might want to consider a different approach.

Who are you? Everybody who knows anything about physics knows that Baez's crackpot index doesn't have a readout. So you don't know if you're Einstein, leading edge, maverick, slightly weird, or raving. And everybody also knows that the later questions get nasty, just like the people who refer to it instead of talking physics. Troll

Farsight, you may be right that Baez's list becomes tart toward the end, but if so I bet it's the result of him reading the same tired misunderstandings and not-even-wrong unevidenced claims ad nauseum.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "readout" but I'm guessing you think Baez intended his list as a litmus test for cranks. I see it as a continuous scale, where even the best and brightest scientist could score a few points on a bad day. But as someone racks up more and more points, it's a lead pipe cinch they're not heading in the direction of Einstein.

Let's take the two items I mentioned. The basis of #17 is a misunderstanding of the nature of science. A theory is not invalidated because it doesn't explain the underlying mechanism. A good theory predicts what will occur and how much. It's not required to say how or why. If a better theory replaces the first, there will still be "how" and "why" questions. It's like the creationist who demands to see the transitional fossil that fills the gap between two forms, and then when shown one proclaims "well now there are two gaps!".

Number 28 is more problematic. The person making that statement has no evidence that stands up to scrutiny. They're forced into what is fundamentally a conspiracy theory. "My wonderful ideas would flourish if they weren't being suppressed by those meanie scientists!". It's like Sarah Palin complaining that the "lame stream" media are out to get her, instead of considering that maybe her ideas aren't gaining acceptance because they're just not very good ideas.

Farsight, I'm another lurker who, whether you believe it or not, came to this thread with an open mind. If you'd presented evidence, even flawed evidence, I would still be on the fence. But taunts, dodges and endless repetition of the same prose instead of evidence from you has convinced me that I have better ways to spend my time.

respectfully,

ferd

 

[Reality Check]

Everybody who knows anything about physics knows that Baez's crackpot index doesn't have a readout.

Actually anyone who can read Baez's crackpot index can see that it is a (quite humorous) technique to judge how much of a crackpot someone is where presumably any positive value of the index indicates crankiness. Of course to be more accurate there needs to be a list of people and their crackpot index.
It looks like a score of 155 is quite crackpot: look at the answers on I score 155 on John Baez's Crackpot Index (he did not understand that rating 8 is about misspelling names!)

ferd burfle pointed out that in just one post you got a total of 30 points from the index. This is not good, Farsight!

 

[steenkh]

Because it's in breach of conservation of momentum and the speed of light and it's a patent tautology. It's nonsense, and you don't need to be a genius to work that one out.

If it is that simple, why can't you show it?

 

[edd]

Because it's in breach of conservation of momentum and the speed of light and it's a patent tautology. It's nonsense, and you don't need to be a genius to work that one out.

There's a FAQ on this. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/virtual_particles.html
The bit on energy conservation covers momentum just as well I think, and likewise it isn't a problem for the photon to just go at the speed of light. Not all the usual rules of real particles apply.

 

[Farsight]

Well I certainly wouldn't use the words you do, but yes.

So you believe pair production occurs because pair production occurs. Beam me up Scotty!

(Well said; I've previously agreed with something along the same lines. But this didn't stop Farsight from repeating "I'll ask again. No takers! Bah! Didn't think so!" in completely delusional confidence.) Can we make it stop now?

You lost the argument remember?

Sorry, doesn't work for me. At all... Actually, as I read p44 (etc), it was rather expertly shown to be, at best, a serious misunderstanding of 'displacement current'...

No it wasn't. Ben m got confused between maths and physics.

The answer is obviously yes, Farsight. That is what the science states

No it doesn't. Pair production does not occur because pair production occurs spontaneously like worms from mud.

...Why, then, have you failed to prove that the theory you're presenting is superior in qualitativeness and quantitativeness to QED?

I'm not presenting some alternative to QED, I'm saying photons interact with photons, and that people who tell you that QED says they don't, are wrong.

If it is that simple, why can't you show it?

Huh? Virtual particles break all the rules of physics. Conservation of energy? Don't worry about that. Conservation of momentum? A mere bagatelle. Faster than light? Aw don't sweat it. It's cargo cult junk, steen, not science. And it is excused with trite little phrases like this:

Not all the usual rules of real particles apply.

They break all the laws of physics. See this for example:

"In section 2, the virtual photon's plane wave is seemingly created everywhere in space at once, and destroyed all at once. Therefore, the interaction can happen no matter how far the interacting particles are from each other. Quantum field theory is supposed to properly apply special relativity to quantum mechanics. Yet here we have something that, at least at first glance, isn't supposed to be possible in special relativity: the virtual photon can go from one interacting particle to the other faster than light!"

Don't you get it yet? Virtual particles aren't particles. They're just an abstract way of divvying up a field. So when people say the photons interact via virtual particles, they are interacting via their own field.

 

[Farsight]

Yes.

Good. So photons interact with photons. We're getting somewhere.

It's not a "lame analogy"...

It was lame. Move on.

This shows that we need to know more than the fact that it's a photon-photon collider to find out if it's interactions are direct or not...

Wake up Robo. You put one photon through your photon-photon collider and nothing happens. You put two through, and lummee, you've got an electron and positron. So how did that happen? What interacted with what? Did a photon interact with a positron? No. You've already said photons interact with photons. So we're halfway there. But now you're getting all mealy-mouthed about whether the interaction was indirect? OK, let's examine that. If it was indirect, what could it have been? Hmmmn. Well we put one photon in there, and another photon. So I know! The thing that they both interacted indirectly with, was a chocolate teapot! No, it was a fairy! No, it was a fairy holding a chocolate teapot riding on a unicorn!

Why don't you try asking the guys who are designing it how it works, then.

We know enough about that already. Read the article. Do your own research. Think for yourself. Don't let the custodians of ignorance tell you what to think. Here's an excerpt:

"The next stage of the experiment involves a tiny gold can called a hohlraum (German for ‘empty room’). Scientists would fire a high-energy laser at the inner surface of this gold can, to create a thermal radiation field, generating light similar to the light emitted by stars.

They would then direct the photon beam from the first stage of the experiment through the centre of the can, causing the photons from the two sources to collide and form electrons and positrons".