My belief, not apparently shared by many other scientists, is that light is either wave or particle, not both at the same time. Mostly its wave, a quantum wave, and in that state is in some sense not physical. It becomes a particle when it interacts with something, like a detector, and the amount of energy that goes into each particle is quantized. But the wave itself is continious being classical e&m fields.

Take your example of a 180* reflecting surface.
The wave impinges on the surface, collapses into photons that interact with free electrons in the surface, accelerating them. Their acceleration then reradiates waves coherently. So light was only particulate for an instant of time compared to its time of existence as a wave.

I think that is what reality is. Mostly waves of all kinds and mere instants of particles when the waves collapse. However, we can only see particles. And information can only be extracted from waves by making particles out of them. Therefore we sample only the minutest piece of reality. In eastern thought the minute part that we sample is called Maya.

Read "The Autobiography of a Yoga". It is the only book I know that gives us some data on what it is to see the waves. I forget what pages, but twice in that book the teacher or Guru of the Yoga placed his hand on the chest on the Yoga, when the Yoga was fairly young. One of these times the Yoga saw everything as wavy and jittery, and he was able to see a cow as it walked behind a wall, and he continued seeing it after it was behind the wall.

Now light even in wave form cannot pass through the wall. So there must be some other medium that can support quantum waves, in which the waves can interpenetrate without too much interaction. I say this is the axion medium that I`ve talked about much earlier in this forum. Such a medium also provides for out-of-body experience and most likely supports afterlife, and I think consciousness. I wonder if you have to learn to see quantum waves without collapsing them into particles in order to completely enjoy the afterlife.

yanniru

• RE: RE: photon puzzle - A Louis - July 9, 2000 - 03:38 UTC
  • RE: RE: RE: photon puzzle - Kev - July 9, 2000 - 06:04 UTC
  • RE: RE: RE: photon puzzle - thywyn - July 12, 2000 - 03:05 UTC
    • RE: RE: RE: RE: photon puzzle - Kev - July 15, 2000 - 04:18 UTC