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Originally posted by ImaFungi
Originally posted by mbkennel
Electric and magnetic fields exist everywhere without requiring a charge in the specific location, but they interact with charges. Light does travel far and long and hit and interact with particles if the particles are charged. If it is a 'vacuum' there are no (real) particles to hit.
How do electric and magnetic fields exist everywhere without requiring a charge in the specific location? Literally every point in space is electromagnetic field lines from one side of the universe to the other?
this question might be relevant here;how long on average does an electron stay excited after recieving photon? (depend on photon energy?)
if there were 100 atoms in a row and the first one got hit with a photon, can it theoretically pass on that original photon without losing any of the original energy to each subsequent atom, if they were in a vacuum would it be like a perfect newton's cradle?
Does this mean the vacuum is a superconductor since it can carry em radiation without resistance?
Originally posted by mbkennel
Yes. That's what a classical field theory means. Everywhere in space there is a vector which has a magnitude in the x, y,z directions for the electric field and another one for the magnetic field.
It gets conceptually pretty complicated with quantum mechanics (you have a wave function of functions).
Well, usually this is in the context of an electron & proton system (an atom). Under normal circumstances the electrons squish in as close as they can to the nucleus (because the nucleus is positive and the electrons are negative) limited only by laws of quantum mechanics (which explains why they don't crash into the nucleus: there is no allowed quantum state where that happens.
If you had 100 atoms in a row, and their electrons were in the same excited state (higher energy) and you hit the first one the right way, then subsequent atoms can emit photons which 'add up' in the same energy & momentum state perfectly evenly. If you add some feedback to make it self-sustaining, this is called a 'laser'.
Originally posted by mbkennel
Conductivity refers to motion of physical charges (almost always electrons), not electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves propagate on their own, and electric & magnetic fields also push around charged particles, and moving particles also make electromagnetic waves. (this is known as an 'antenna')
Yes, I guess you could say the vacuum is a 'superconductor' for electromagnetic waves, but people don't really talk that way since it was always pretty obvious this was the normal state of things. Whereas for a superconductor, it is something exotic and rare, because in most cases electric current in a physical medium will have some losses as the electrons bounce off of other matter. Superconductivity is a phenomenon whereby quantum mechanics magically makes electrons which should be bouncing off stuff not bounce.
Originally posted by DenyObfuscation
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No it's not moot. It's finite existence, among other things, prevents it from being infinitely old. The rate of time is irrelevant.
Did this point mass create itself at some point in time?
You will never be able to take God out of the equation, try hard as you may.
Originally posted by DenyObfuscation
reply to post by Angelic Resurrection
You will never be able to take God out of the equation, try hard as you may.
Show me one post, just one, where I have done so. My bottom line is that I don't believe matter or energy can be self-existent. I can't buy into any theory that requires the Universe to have created itself out of nothing.