Serious question about light (particle/wave)

I have a question about light and/or maybe quantum physics in general. I am no newbie in quantum physics and read many books about it (some from Richard Feynman) but while falling asleep I thought about light and can't solve the problem.

As far as we know a star (and our sun of cause) has some fusion going on releasing photons we see as light. Thats not hard to understand but what I thought about is: This photon has to fly in my direction (if it is a particle) and hit a cell in my eye so I can see the light from this star. If you take into account the distance of a star ( several light years) is it really possible that this star genertes photons that reach every part of the virtual sphere around it in my distance to it so that every millisecond there is a photon that can hit my eye? I haven't calculated this but a sphere with a radius of several lightyears should have a huge surface. Than dividing this surface into small pieces (to the size of my eye or better ever the cells in my eye). Of cause there would be billions of photons generated but really enough for each part and every millisecond in each area of this surface?

So as stars don't blink (they do but I asume this is just a visual effect through our atmosphere as I have learned) is this a prove for the wave nature of light. So each photon that is generted in that fusion expands into space like an expanding ball until it gets into contact something like my eye to be perceived like a photon/light?
And if this is the case just when do this wave deceide to collapse? I bet that my eye is not the first thing in range so if each of these photon waves expands into space why don't they all collapse in the same place while 'hitting' the first object with the outer surface? And if this wave just expands into a single direction we have the same problem as with a particle.

Is there a possibility that at a given time there is no photon send into my exact direction and the star is not visible for a moment. What if the star is millions of light years away? Would it be possible to see that such a star is blinking as there aren't enough photons for each part of the universe at such a distance?

I hope you understand what I mean as english is not my native langueage and there are probably many mistakes in the text.

reply to post by UnixFE


From what I am reading you are asking how do the photons keep generating light if there already sent from the light source. Is it some form of a photon light wave that generates light in 1 direction and the photon stops generating light when its been in contact with another matter form? I think I understand but am no physics master.

I feel these photons when generated they are carrying a OMNI REFLECTING radiation signature that is still in contact with the SOURCE so when the light source it interrupted these photons that are seen in the normal light spectrum are as well are interrupted BUT THE UNSEEN POTENTIAL PHOTONS MAY STILL BE PRESENT. I also feel the photons carry neutrino attributes meaning they can travel thru matter but once encountering the matter they are to travel thru they switch frequency and assist the photons connected to them by still carrying the light or by guiding the light that is still un interrupted area. ex of what I mean is if you place a light source in front of a box this light source will go around or seem to go around the box why photons in direct path of the box or matter seem to be nonexistent since they are not reflecting THEY SEEM TO BE ABSORBED BY THE FACE OF THE BOX IN DIRECT PATH OF LIGHT SOURCE. But since these photons that have encountered the matter or box are still radioactive OMNI charged they are assisting the photons uninterrupted like guides as if they are all the photons still in contact in some collective way.... This allows the photons to continue generating light in areas like on the sides of the box as well as regaining each others support further down in front of the box where they will appear to re connect after the shadow of the box is passed. I also would view the wave as an OMNI REFLECTING BEHAVIOR OF THE SEEN / UNSEEN PHOTONS..

My 3 cents sorry if not to informative but again not a super brain... But I like to learn

Light travels in both particle and wave....Light is made up of particles which travel in a wave formation...So, yes, light is in a wave formation but it's still composed of particles.

reply to post by SpeakerofTruth


It sounds as if he's referring to Olber's Paradox

Linky here: Olber's Paradox

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13

No, I want to know why there is always and anytime a photon ready to hit my eye. You can look to any star and it always is visible thus a photon from this star just hit you. I wonder why there is always light from this star. You can just make a step to the side and even there a photon is ready for you. So if there is always light at any place in the universe millions of light years away how many photons ( if they are particles) are neccessary for this. I mean think about the huge surface of a sphere with a radius of 1 million lightyears. And every millimeter is hit with a photon every millisecond? Is this really possible or would this star loose all the mass in just minutes if it sends out so many particles.
Thats why I personally believe that only a wave is expanding through the universe that only converts into a particle if it reach some other object but that raises another question. Why won't this expanding wave-sphere collapse if it hit the first object in space, why can it expand for million years passing through several other objects just to collapse into a particle if it reach my eye?

Could be. I really don't know how to answer that other than to state that a logical conclusion is that the light is not condensed into any one specific area of the universe. I would argue that the universe is so infinitely large that the light is dispersed in such a manner that it diffuses the light.

reply to post by tangonine

Thanks for the link to Olbs paradox. Can't remember that I read about this. It's not exactly what I mean but into the same direction. I would like to know kind of the opposite. Why is there light from distant stars at any given timeframe. Of cause a star produces billions photons a second but is thos really enough for any possible observer millions of lightyears away.

I did not get most of it but I got the end part about light traveling billions of miles and it got me thinking. Lets make a imaginary model. You have 2 balls suspended in space one represents the earth(ball 1) and the other has really long spikes sticking out of it like light ray, this one represents a star(ball 2). Imagine that the spikes on ball 2 are infinitely long. Ball 1 is placed in scale model 1billion miles away. Remember the spikes on ball 2 represent light rays. By the time those spikes reach ball 2 they will have been spread out among space so only one spike will reach ball 1 surface. So how can we see the stars in space from any where in the world. I would think that because they are so far away only a couple light rays would hit small spots on earth.


As the lines expand they move feather and feather away from each other.

reply to post by UnixFE

I see, well if its possible what I shared then the universe has many many many light sources/ Galaxies to Stars ext. So if these photons being generated from various stars are actually ALL connected supporting each other then each direction you look there is a effect from the main sources or galaxies. I think you asking why don't the particles fail after interaction with matter but again if they are all connected as PHOTONS like 1 then the photons interacting with matter are still supporting the non interacting photons. If there was only 1 source 1 star for the entire universe minus all the light sources galaxies then the theory you present may work due to there being no supporting seen photons and unseen guides or supporting photons. Keeping the photons ALL reflecting in OMNI direction as you see them coming and passing still reflecting even the ones that appear to be absorbed in matter.. So again the wave is never over all interrupted it is just observed to be but if the human or other eye can see they may see the photons going thru all matter like neutrinos somewhat.

Originally posted by UnixFE
@Why is there light from distant stars at any given timeframe. Of cause a star produces billions photons a second but is thos really enough for any possible observer millions of lightyears away.

if they are all radiation connected the light sources then yes MilkyWay galaxy assist in Andramadu galaxy light projection... 1 galaxy hits mass of dark matter its near by wil assist in keeping its light going to be seen. The observation may not be accurate meaning the location may be off but the light is seen..

Originally posted by UnixFE
reply to post by Ophiuchus 13

 

No, I want to know why there is always and anytime a photon ready to hit my eye. You can look to any star and it always is visible thus a photon from this star just hit you. I wonder why there is always light from this star. You can just make a step to the side and even there a photon is ready for you. So if there is always light at any place in the universe millions of light years away how many photons ( if they are particles) are neccessary for this. I mean think about the huge surface of a sphere with a radius of 1 million lightyears. And every millimeter is hit with a photon every millisecond? Is this really possible or would this star loose all the mass in just minutes if it sends out so many particles.
Thats why I personally believe that only a wave is expanding through the universe that only converts into a particle if it reach some other object but that raises another question. Why won't this expanding wave-sphere collapse if it hit the first object in space, why can it expand for million years passing through several other objects just to collapse into a particle if it reach my eye?

This would involve calculating the number of photons leaving the sun over time (dp/dt) and then examining whether there are enough of them to saturate a sphere (4 pi r^2) with a radius of the Earth's distance to the sun.

all materials emit em radiation, but in varying wavelengths. when we say "photon" we're referring, generally, to em emissions in the visible spectrum. Your question is arising from your way of thinking of a photon as a single particle. It's not. It can behave like one, but it's a continuous wave.

I'm unsure of what you are realy asking, but it seems you have not grasped just how much raw power the sun outputs. Our sun burns up 600 - 700 million tons of hydrogen every second. That in turn creates a whole lot of light and heat.

reply to post by 8ILlBILl8


That's exactly what I meant. If you move just one feet to the side you can still see the star. So there have to be more or less infinite light rays comming out of this star and thus (as light is energy) the star should loose mass quick.
If this is not the case light must travel as a wave only collapsing into real light if you observe it. So one feet away is no light as you don't look the. This particular particle just materialized in your eye only. But than I want to know why this expanding particle wont collapse earlier as this expanding virtual here passes other objects on its way. And these objects (like the moon for example) are also observed by other peoples out there. So why is there still a photon/wave left for my eye.

Originally posted by UnixFE
Of cause a star produces billions photons a second but is thos really enough for any possible observer millions of lightyears away.

Depending on the distance, the answer is "just barely enough".

The calculations have been done, various places on the net.

Example 1 at physicsforums, for a star 1200 light years away, only 12 photons per second hit your eye.

Example 2 at answers.yahoo.com says for a barely detectable star, about 1709 photons per second.

More examples are out there.

Somewhere else on the net I read that your eye needs about 90 photons per second to be able to see something... so you're not going to get your hypothetical situations of a star blinking on and off because photons arent always hitting your eye, but it would be true of a sensitive detector.

reply to post by UnixFE


I'm not completely understanding you but...

If you look in a certain direction and don't see a star, it doesn't mean the star isn't there. It just means the light hasn't reached you yet.

Again, not completely understanding you but I'll try again...

Stars most certainly wouldn't run out of energy because of the release of billions of photons every waking moment.
Its a star.

reply to post by tangonine


That is what I thought. It can't be a particle as there won't be enough of it from really distant stars (not or sun although the problem would be the same). So if it is a wave like any other the source will loose energy if this wave is received by something capable of absorbing this frequency.
If there is another receiver between you and the sender you will get what is left over. That's why it is forbidden to power your device from radio waves as you would 'drain' the enery and people behind you can't listen to this radio station.

I just don't understand if the wave expands like a sphere or of this wave is still a directional wave similar to a particle. If it is directional we have the same problem just with billions of waves neccessary. If it expands like a sphere like for example the radio wave is it possible to drain this energy so some extraterestial a few planets behind me won't see any light just like it's possible with radio waves? Assuming that we can drain billions watt energy from a light source with a super solar cell

reply to post by alfa1


I just refered to my eyes as it was easier to describe than a detector in a lab. So this would mean stars do indeed blink if you just look close enough? Blinking as there is a short timeframe without light/photon reaching the detector.

Originally posted by UnixFE
Blinking as there is a short timeframe without light/photon reaching the detector.

Yes, as I understand it, if a star is faint enough, you could measure the average photon rate at less than one per second (as an example).

Originally posted by UnixFE
reply to post by tangonine

 

That is what I thought. It can't be a particle as there won't be enough of it from really distant stars (not or sun although the problem would be the same). So if it is a wave like any other the source will loose energy if this wave is received by something capable of absorbing this frequency.
If there is another receiver between you and the sender you will get what is left over. That's why it is forbidden to power your device from radio waves as you would 'drain' the enery and people behind you can't listen to this radio station.

I just don't understand if the wave expands like a sphere or of this wave is still a directional wave similar to a particle. If it is directional we have the same problem just with billions of waves neccessary. If it expands like a sphere like for example the radio wave is it possible to drain this energy so some extraterestial a few planets behind me won't see any light just like it's possible with radio waves? Assuming that we can drain billions watt energy from a light source with a super solar cell

Are you familiar with Young's Double Slit Experiment?

Right... you need to read up on the double slit experiment. A photon acts as a wave until it's actually observed, then it collapses to a particle form. Until a photon is observed it exists in a superposition state.

Here's a nice explanation of Photon Flux (photons generated per unit of time) and Photon Density.


Facts of Light

Originally posted by UnixFE
I just refered to my eyes as it was easier to describe than a detector in a lab. So this would mean stars do indeed blink if you just look close enough? Blinking as there is a short timeframe without light/photon reaching the detector.

I'm not sure how technical you want to get with the answer to your question.

When the star is very dim, there's another problem besides the number of photons being emitted, which is atmospheric distortion. This might actually cause the star to start blinking out visually even if a sufficient number of photons are headed in your direction. You can see this effect on brighter stars too, we call it "twinkling" which is a cute name but it's a big problem for astronomers viewing through the atmosphere, though they have fancy technology to compensate for it partially, it's something the Hubble doesn't have to deal with.

If you set twinkling aside though and just focus on the number of photons, this physicist has written more detail about the subject than you could ask for:

Ten photons per hour

the number of photons from the galaxy seen with the unaided eye is more like two hundred per hour, and in the telescope it is of about 350 per second

Now let's take the naked eye rate of two hundred photons per hour coming from the galaxy.

I am not sure how many stars are in that galaxy but we think ours has 400 billion or so, so let's say that's a smaller galaxy with 100 billion stars.

take 200 photons per hour, multiply that by 24 to get per day and by 365 to get per year = 1,752,000 photons per year.

divide that by 100 billion stars, and you get the photon rate coming from each star, which is 0.00000876 photons per year per star, or in other words, the typical time period between photons hitting your eye from each one of those stars is about 114,000 years.

Edit to add: I think that calculation, in addition to answering your question, also solves Olber's paradox, don't you? That doesn't seem like any paradox to me.