mathematics-

The Particle Wave

Introduction

In this paper I will be attempting to solve the mystery of the wave and particle nature of light. It seems that science has been willing to simply accept the fact that light acts as a wave one moment, and then a particle the next. This particle, called a photon, has been verified by Einstein with his experimentation on the photoelectric effect. In that experiment he concluded that packets of energy are given off, and it was this packet that is the photon. Experimentation has also verified the existence of photons. For example, in one experiment light was passed through razor thin slits and on the other side was a film. When a photon hits this film it will leave a picture at that spot. Every time a photon struck the film it would leave a mark on the film and this continued on and on until a very interesting patter began to emerge. The photons were hitting the same areas over and over again, while avoiding other areas of the film. The result was a series of light and dark lines on the film. This was a wave pattern, even though it was created by the photons hitting the film. The particle had formed a wave pattern. Other experimentation has verified the wave nature of light. Light can be passed through a prism and split into different wavelengths of color. Light also has been shown to diffract around objects. For these reasons we have come to accept the fact that light behaves as both a wave and a particle. Experimentation will show that it is a particle, and yet other experiments will show that it is a wave. This paper will attempt to resolve this issue by explaining how it may be possible for a particle wave to exist.

The Particle Wave

Light is very different from other waves that we are familiar with. Light is nothing more than energy composed of an electric and a magnetic wave. These two waves are traveling at right angles to one another and at right angles to the direction of its travel. For this reason light is referred to as an electromagnetic wave. The more common waves we are familiar with, such as a wave on a lake or in the ocean, is energy that is traveling through a mass. If you were to throw a pebble into a pond then you would witness a ripple move outward and way from the point the pebble entered the water. At this point the kinetic energy of the pebble has been absorbed by the pond when the pebble strikes its surface. This energy then proceeds to travel across the surface of the pond. It is important to not that it is not the water that is moving. What you are seeing is the wave move across the water while the water remains in the same location. If a wave moves from one side of a pool to another, it does not mean that the water on that side has now moved to the other side. Only the wave has made the journey. This is not just the case with liquid bodies. All forms of matter can absorb energy. Take a spoon and tap a glass with it lightly. You will not see a wave pass through the glass, but you will hear it and some of the energy from the impact does pass through the glass. Now strike the glass a bit harder and this time it breaks. The rigid glass could not handle the amplitude of the energy that you applied to it and it breaks. A better example would be to consider earthquakes. An earthquake is nothing more than an instant and sudden release of stored energy. Pressure builds over time on a fault line until the pressure is released. When it is released the energy from that build up is also released. The Quake that results is a wave passing through the crust of the earth. All of these events that I have describe is energy passing through a medium in the form of waves. With light, this is not so.

Light does not need a medium to pass through. Light would rather not pass through anything at all, because when it does so it slows a bit, is bent, loses energy to materials, is re-radiated out into space, etc. There is no matter in space for the most part. I say for the most part, because there are massive expanses of hydrogen, particles of dust, space debris from the size of a basketball all the way up to a asteroids. Then there are planets, stars, black holes, and so on and so forth. For all of this material that exists in the vacuum of space there is still a great deal of empty space out there, and light is able to traverse this space. This is an important concept, because there is no medium for light to travel through. Light is an electromagnetic wave. So, how does this wave behave and what is its structure? As I said before, light behaves as both a particle and a wave. This tells us a great deal about light, because we have the pieces and it is only a matter of completing the puzzle. If light acts as a particle, then we know a particle must be present. If light acts as a wave, then we know a wave must be present. It would be far fetched to believe that light decides to behave a certain way according to how we are observing it. Light doesn't say; "Well, since they are experimenting on me this way then I had better behave like a particle". If you don't believe me then you will have to trust me on this. Light does not decide anything. It is what it is, and we have to be able to read the clues and formulate the right conclusions from those clues.

I have two possibility that I have considered for how light would be able to exhibit both wave and particle natures. I have also outlined a few rules that are necessary for light to exist as we know it. They are;

1)The presence of both the electric and magnetic wave is necessary for the photon to exist

2)The speed of light must remain over a certain threshold or the wave nature of light will be destroyed

3)The photon cannot exist without the electromagnetic wave component.

4)Light will bend in the presence of a strong magnetic field

It is the presence of both the magnetic and electric wave component that creates the photon. As long as light is traveling at great speeds it will exhibit wave like properties. If light drops below the necessary rate for the wave to remain intact, then the light wave will break apart into a stream of free photons. This is because the magnetic and electric wave is what is responsible for the existence of the photon. Once below this velocity threshold the wave nature will be lost and the particle nature will be all that remains. The magnetic component of the light wave will feel the presence of magnetic fields and will react in the presence of this field. This relates to my hypothesis that gravity is a manifestation of magnetism on a macro scale. We view magnetism on a micro scale on a daily basis. The macro scale includes large bodies of mass such as moons, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies, etc. It is a quantity of space that contains a large number of particles that combine to create a strong gravitational field. This gravitational field is not a separate force. This also does not only include magnetic fields. The magnetic fields of a planet or other body do play a role, but it is not the whole picture. I also include particles such as protons and electrons. A planet is nothing more than a sea of these particles. The magnetic wave component of light will feel the presence of these large pockets of particles. Another possibility is that the combination of the two waves to give rise to the photon, and it is the photon that is effected by a Gravinetic force.

I will start out with the weaker of my two hypothesis for how light exists as a particle wave. I call it the "Node" Hypothesis and I make the claim that the photon of a beam of light exists at the node of the wave. The node is the point in which the magnetic component and the electric component intersect. This is the only point where these two waves will ever intersect in a light wave. It is this intersection between these two wave components that gives rise to the existence of photons. Since this electromagnetic wave is continuous, these two wave components are continuously flowing through one another and intersecting at the nodes. Essentially creating a beam of light that is a continuous wave as well as a continuous stream of photons. So, when we do experimentation to see if light is a wave, it behaves as a wave. At the same time if we decided to see if light was a stream of particles then our experimentation will prove this as well. This view of light is not really the weaker of my two hypothesis, it is as valid as my next suggestion. In reality it is almost exactly the same, the only difference being where the photon exists in this stream of particle light.

Rather than having the photon exists at the nodes, my second hypothesis simply places the photon where the amplitudes of the two waves exist simultaneously. There are also a sub-possibilities withing this hypothesis. The first way that I consider light to exist in this fashion deals with the particle wave moving in a straight line with no rotation. The amplitude of the magnetic and electric components coincide with one another at right angles. It is here that the photon may exist. Again, the addition of the two components is what gives rise to the existence of the photon. Since this is a wave the two components of this wave are continuously adding up at one point.

So, we can imagine that the photon exists in the amplitude of the two waves. The presence of both components of the electromagnetic wave is what gives rise to the photon. This becomes even more clear when we consider that this electromagnetic wave may be rotating at a high velocity as it moves forward. This is the sub-possibility that I mentioned earlier. If light rotates at a high velocity then the two waves are combining even further to give rise to the photon. The rotation of the beam of light at high velocity could create a region within the wave to behave as a particle. This region, in the above example, is in the amplitude of both wave components. This has some interesting results. The amplitude and wavelength of the electromagnetic wave directly effects what type off photon will exist.

This goes back to Einsteins packet of energy or quanta. The photon, which is the quanta, is dependent upon the nature of the electromagnetic wave. The longer the wave length the less energy there will be to go into the photon. The shorter the wavelength the more energy there is available to go into the photon. The energy available in the light wave is the exact same amount of energy that will be available to the existence of the photon. This is the essence of the "Particle Wave". They are not separate entities. The electromagnetic wave cannot exist without the photon and the photon cannot exist without the electromagnetic wave. As soon as a beam of light leaves its source, it does so as a wave. The photon also instantaneously comes into existence soon after this wave leaves the source. So, if the question was "Which came first, the wave or the photon?" The answer would be the wave component, but since the photon instantaneously comes into existence soon after; it really doesn't matter. The two are almost instantaneous.

Conclusions

It is time we cowboy up and stop dancing around this issue. Yes, we know that light exhibits both a wave nature, and a particle nature. It is then reasonable to assume that an electromagnetic wave and a photon are one and the same. You cannot have an electromagnetic wave without the photon and you can't have the photon without the electromagnetic wave. I put forth in this paper two scenarios where the photon could exist within the electromagnetic wave. I have also stated that it is the presence of both the electric and magnetic wave that combine to create the photon. Since the combination of these two waves gives rise to the photon and I currently believe that it only gives rise to a photon; we can re-designate the electromagnetic wave as the "Particle Wave". This particle wave "IS" energy and is different from other waves; which are energy that is moving through matter. The particle wave is the essence of energy, while other waves are nothing more than energy exchanges between and through matter.

By: Dennis Huff

Dennis James Huff

posted by fdwvsmr55035 @ 8:38 PM