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a reply to: dashen

Well, in essence this is what string theory kind of postulates at least some of the fluffier easier to explain string theories. Matter is an oscillation of energy folded in on itself within 11 dimensions inside a plank length, this manifestation has properties as defined by the oscillation.

BUT

There are many different families of these theories and they are unfortunately difficult to experiment with as they have no observables, or, at least almost no observables that are different to the current standard model.

The models have room for fundamental improvements, or at least self consistency. While elegance is really nice, the theories don't need to be elegant, it can and often is ugly as sin.

a reply to: ErosA433

Hopefully in the next few years they will invest in "photon accelerators/colliders" in addition to particle accelerators and then the real magic will start to happen

a reply to: dashen

Scientists are building some very nice light sources for experiments there are lots of interesting discoveries to be made yet. We do not know it all this is quite clear, we must always strive for knowledge and understanding.

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: ErosA433

Hopefully in the next few years they will invest in "photon accelerators/colliders" in addition to particle accelerators and then the real magic will start to happen

You can't accelerate a photon.

a reply to: ImaFungi
You promised you would not be wasting any more time among us.

a reply to: Bedlam

Aye this is true, have to produce high energy gammas at synchrotron facilities, think the highest energy thus far is around 7-8 GeV, pretty good

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: ErosA433

Hopefully in the next few years they will invest in "photon accelerators/colliders" in addition to particle accelerators and then the real magic will start to happen

You can't accelerate a photon.

In a linear way.
But when you're energized of photon to extreme levels the dips and peaks in the wave take up space too no?
And apparently it traverses the distance of its own wavelength while also traveling at 186,000 miles per second
.
Do you add on the distance of the wavelength to its velocity?

originally posted by: dashen
Do you add on the distance of the wavelength to its velocity?

You don't add anything to c, not even the speed of your car to the speed of the light from your headlights. Whoever made this was trolling, Feynman never said it, but it does highlight the somewhat non-intuitive nature of relativity since without relativity, it sounds fairly logical:

a reply to: Arbitrageur

you dont add of course, you lose your cosmological constant.
but a super powerful gamma ray for instance would have a high "amplitude"(although that seems to be ignored in quantum physics).
Isnt the "amplitude"(height) of the wave/photon also a measurement of distance?
meaning if it was a sine wave it could strike something at any position along its forward yet winding path.
and since a sine wave stretched out is longer than a straight line, isnt the photon of a higher energy traversing more space (because of the "amplitude" of its wave) than the low energy one (not in a linear way, but in a wavy way i guess?)

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Arbitrageur

you dont add of course, you lose your cosmological constant.
but a super powerful gamma ray for instance would have a high "amplitude"(although that seems to be ignored in quantum physics).
Isnt the "amplitude"(height) of the wave/photon also a measurement of distance?
meaning if it was a sine wave it could strike something at any position along its forward yet winding path.
and since a sine wave stretched out is longer than a straight line, isnt the photon of a higher energy traversing more space (because of the "amplitude" of its wave) than the low energy one (not in a linear way, but in a wavy way i guess?)

I think there is some misunderstanding to what photons are. The maxwell equations describe a wave travelling, where the amplitude is basically like the power of a signal. In quantum mechanics, A single photon doesn't have an intensity as such, the amplitude doesn't represent intensity in the classical sense.

Energy in the quantum sense is simply that of the word... quanta... which is simply a block of energy. In photons, this energy is defined by the wavelength. One doesn't simply take a photon and change the wavelength somehow, to do so you will have to absorb the photon and use a chemical or optical process in order to change the wavelength. What sets the energy of the photon is really the production process. What sets the power is simply how many photons you are able to produce of energy x in time t.

High energy photons are typically produced in Synchrotons. The production process is basically similar to Bremsstrahlung radiation, in which a charged particle that is decelerated in an electric field will loose energy by production of photons. In this case, particles are accelerated using magnetic fields, typically grammas being extracted at turns in the beamline.

The energy is basically set by a complex series of parameters such as the bend radius, magnetic field strength, electron beam strength etc.

Iv never personally used such a source, but studied them in a history of particle physics course.

a reply to: ErosA433

I will clarify what I mean.
Let's pretend a photon in the gamma ray energy levels is a bullet hitting something solid . The photon Moving as a wave would hit the target at one spot along its wave. If I would shoot a photon from the same source but keep moving the target back after each time I shot a photon would the collection of targets represent the different points along its wavelike travel.?

originally posted by: dashen

In a linear way.
But when you're energized of photon to extreme levels the dips and peaks in the wave take up space too no?
And apparently it traverses the distance of its own wavelength while also traveling at 186,000 miles per second
.
Do you add on the distance of the wavelength to its velocity?

I really hate to do this to you primary visualizers, but there are no dips and peaks.

And as a photon gains energy, it shrinks, if you want to look at it that way.

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Arbitrageur

you dont add of course, you lose your cosmological constant.
but a super powerful gamma ray for instance would have a high "amplitude"(although that seems to be ignored in quantum physics).

Another problem with visualizing. Ok. Let's look at this. Each individual photon has an amount of energy. The frequency/wavelength/size of the photon is inversely related to that energy. The 'amplitude' doesn't exist. You can't have a 300nm photon of BIG amplitude and another 300nm photon of tiny amplitude. Because the energy is the same for every 300nm photon. And the speed.

What most people relate to "amplitude" to a photon is the number of photons in a stream of them. Not their frequency.

The whole amplitude/frequency of streams of photons was part of how Einstein got the Nobel for the photoelectric effect, btw.

Isnt the "amplitude"(height) of the wave/photon also a measurement of distance?

No. Not at all. It doesn't HAVE a height/amplitude/wavy motion. I know it's popular to describe it that way and a lot of people end up with that stuck in their heads, sort of the way you have to "unlearn" what happens when you amplitude modulate a carrier.

a reply to: Bedlam

Why does the photon Shrink? This actually works well with my crazy theory about the photon. But I'll save that lunacy for later.

The more juice the smaller the caboose with a photon? How come?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Also why does the photon have no charge?

a reply to: Bedlam

I always thought of the Amplitude of a photon to be similar visualization wise like the amperage in a electrical circuit. The frequency to be more like pulses per second or whatever the more energy and in return the shorter the wavelength and smaller a photon. The slower the pulses the longer the wavelength and less frequency.

Any help with this would be great.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Bedlam

Why does the photon Shrink? This actually works well with my crazy theory about the photon. But I'll save that lunacy for later.

The more juice the smaller the caboose with a photon? How come?

To be more mbkennel/eros compliant, from an engineer's pov, I would say the photon shrinks as the energy increases. That's because I see it as the volume where the wave energy is non-negligable.

The actual photon is somewhere in a volume that also sort of corresponds with that volume. So, for higher energy photons, the volume where the wave energy at any instant for a photon is non-negligable shrinks. The photon is also more likely to be in a more tightly bounded area. The actual photon has no extent, but has a radius of about half a Fermi where it interacts, so it's got SORT of a radius. And for whatever reason, it's more likely to hit another photon as the energy goes up, so that's backwards.

eta: As a radio engineer, I view it as the wave aspect 99% of the time. So for me, a radio photon is big and mushy, but a UV photon is tight and local. What eros would call a photon doesn't actually change, and doesn't have a literal radius.

a reply to: Bedlam

Took me a second but makes sense now.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Bedlam

I always thought of the Amplitude of a photon to be similar visualization wise like the amperage in a electrical circuit. The frequency to be more like pulses per second or whatever the more energy and in return the shorter the wavelength and smaller a photon. The slower the pulses the longer the wavelength and less frequency.

Any help with this would be great.

They teach this badly. Photons don't have amplitudes. They're not waving up and down.

They DO have energy, and that energy is inversely related to the frequency. So when you put more butt into a photon, it gets bluer, but not 'brighter'.

I'm trying to think of a way to explain what IS going on in a way you can visualize. In my head it comes out as a sort of shorthand symbology or diagram that's not going to be really useful to you.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

So a photons intrinsic energy is always the same? A photon is a photon is a photon, but the space it takes up makes the frequency. The more energized the more condensed? The number of photons in a stream of photons (not sure stream is the right word) is the amplitude?