Does light refract like they say it does

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers on the nature of light refraction, exploring both wave and particle interpretations. Participants express curiosity about how light behaves when transitioning through different media, the implications of its duality, and the underlying theories that explain these phenomena.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses skepticism about the conventional understanding of light refraction and seeks clarity on both wave and particle interpretations, as well as lesser-known theories.
  • Another suggests using a specific software package to explore light reflection through Feynman's sum over paths, indicating a technical approach to understanding the phenomenon.
  • A participant explains that waves traveling at different speeds in various materials change their angle at the boundary, emphasizing that this is a wave phenomenon without a satisfactory particle explanation.
  • Concerns are raised about momentum transfer when light hits a boundary and how it appears uniform after passing through a prism, with questions about the particle model's compatibility with these observations.
  • Some participants discuss the relationship between Maxwell's equations and the quantum mechanical behavior of photons, questioning how the electromagnetic 4-vector relates to probabilities.
  • References to Huygens' principle are made as a way to explain refraction, with links provided for further exploration.
  • There are differing views on whether the speed of light changes in a medium, with some asserting that only the group velocity slows down while individual photons always travel at speed c.
  • Discussion includes references to dispersion relations and how molecular interactions in materials affect the propagation of light.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants exhibit multiple competing views regarding the nature of light refraction, the behavior of photons in different media, and the interpretations of speed changes. The discussion remains unresolved with no consensus reached.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference various theoretical frameworks and interpretations, highlighting the complexity of light behavior and the need for careful consideration of definitions and assumptions in the discussion.

sts107a
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Does light work like they say it does

Hey guys! I was wondering if you could help me. I’m fascinated how light can be separated when it passes threw a medium. However I’m not really convinced of the current interpretation on how it happens. I was hopping every one could give me a clear understanding of how it is suppose to work and how they think it works. How it works for a wave interpretation and how it works for a particle interpretation. Plus some lesser known theories, if there are any, on how light works. Thanks!
 
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May I suggest you download this package http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~pt/proofs/QED.sty, and run it. The first example IIRC, is the reflection of a beam of light off a panel of finite thickness, done in terms of Feynmann's sum over paths. It should raise your consciousness a bit. If anything in it confuses you, check back here.
 
Thanks for the site! but I can't get it to work.
 
Can't get it to work? I don't even know the peck that gobbledygook was!
 
selfadjoint, not everyone knows what latex is you know...
 
How they think it works is how it really work. Here's how it works.

Waves that travel at different speeds in different materials will change the
angle they move once they pass through a material boundary. This is
because the peaks and troughs of the waves still have to line up at the
interface, and the only way to make that happen is to have a different
angle on either side of the material.

There is no good particle picture for this, its a wave phenomenon.
 
Ok but what happens to all that momentum when it hits the boundary. I mean if its traveling at C and then strikes different medium wouldn’t it slow down? And my biggest question is why it is so uniform when it comes out the other side I.E. a rainbow. And if light has duality isn’t it safe to say their is a model out there that would incorporate the particle pic?
 
If there are no reflections at the boundary and no losses in the medium, the
momentum sails right through the object. If some is absorbed or reflected, then momentum is transferred to the object.

When it slows down, that's not the same as losing momentum. The mometum
must be computed from the fields and the dielectric constant of the material.

It looks uniform to you on the output of the prism because there are many photons.
Each photon (according to it's energy/momentum will come out of a prism at a
different angle (assuming they all go in at the same angle.) This IS the particle
picture.

The thing you have to remeber is that Maxwell's equations ARE the (first
quantization now) quantum mechanical euqations for the movement of photons.
That is, the magnitude of the electromagnetic 4-vector IS the probability of finding a photon at that point in space time.
 
The thing you have to remeber is that Maxwell's equations ARE the (first quantization now) quantum mechanical euqations for the movement of photons.
That is, the magnitude of the electromagnetic 4-vector IS the probability of finding a photon at that point in space time.

Probabilities are numbers between 0 and 1. How is the "electromagnetic 4-vector" scaled to this range?

What do you mean by "electromagnetic 4-vector"? Do you mean the source vector, or the potential vector? or the Field tensor?
 
  • #10
Crosson said:
Probabilities are numbers between 0 and 1. How is the "electromagnetic 4-vector" scaled to this range?

What do you mean by "electromagnetic 4-vector"? Do you mean the source vector, or the potential vector? or the Field tensor?



The units of the EM field are not probability but it's easy to make them
be so. You simply normalize them by the volume integral over the
universe of the square of the fields.
 
  • #12
One can derive Snell's Law using the boundary conditions imposed by Maxwell's Equations. You can also derive Snell's Law using conservation of momentum arguments (i.e. using the particle nature of the photons).

Claude.
 
  • #13
Edgardo said:
Hello sts107a,

you can explain refraction by saying that the speed of light changes in the

You mean the group velocity of the EM-wave. The speed of a photon is always c...

marlon
 
  • #14
Nope, I am talking about the speed of light.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
"Does the speed of light change in air or water?
Yes. Light is slowed down in transparent media such as air, water and glass. The ratio by which it is slowed is called the refractive index of the medium and is always greater than one"

With speed of light I mean how fast the wavefront (no photons here) moves (as can be seen in the animation).

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light:
"The speed of light through a medium (that is, not in vacuum) is less than c (defining the refractive index of the medium)"

From http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Speed_of_light:
"In passing through materials, light is slowed to less than c by the ratio called the refractive index of the material. The speed of light in air is only slightly less than c. Denser media, such as water and glass, can slow light much more, to fractions such as 3/4 and 2/3 of c. This reduction in speed is also responsible for bending of light at an interface between two materials with different indices, a phenomenon known as refraction."
 
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  • #15
Sorry Edgardo, Marlon is correct.

In a material like glass only the group velocity slows down.
The individual original quanta (which don't make it through the glass alive)
always travel at c.

Molecules in the glass get stretched by the light and abosorb the photon.
A little while later the molecules release another photon just like the one
that got caught but it's behind where it would have been in free space.

The math that describes this is called "dispersion relations" and the details
are different for different kinds of materials depending on how their molecules
react.
 
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  • #16
http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Group_velocity

This states the problem quite clearly

marlon
 
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  • #17
Ok, thanks for correcting me. And with respect to the photon always traveling at c, I found this one interesting:
https://www.physicsforums.com/archive/topic/t-9995_Speed_of_Light?.html
 
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