<jabberwocky><div class="vbmenu_control"><a href="jabberwocky:;" onClick="newWindow=window.open('','usenetCode','toolbar=no,location=no, scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,status=no,width=650,height=400'); newWindow.document.write('<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Usenet ASCII</TITLE></HEAD><BODY topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 BGCOLOR=#F1F1F1><table border=0 width=625><td bgcolor=midnightblue><font color=#F1F1F1>This Usenet message\'s original ASCII form: </font></td></tr><tr><td width=449><br><br><font face=courier><UL><PRE>alfps@start.no (Alf P. Steinbach) wrote in message news:<40cc6e69.910330906@news.individual.net>...\n> * Rahul Jain:\n> >\n> > alfps@start.no (Alf P. Steinbach) writes:\n> >\n> > > Here\'s a question that has me (a non-scientist) baffled.\n> > >\n> > > I\'ve read that e.g. a photon of light from Andromeda is a few meters\n> > > wide when it finally arrives on Earth, and I can picture that as an\n> > > electromagnetic wave.\n> >\n> > I believe that this means that the 95% of the amplitude of the\n> > wavefunction is contained within a space that is a few meters wide.\n> >\n> > > When such a photon gives up its energy to an electron, which presumably\n> > > happens in a very short period of time and a very small region of space,\n> > > what happens outside that region to cancel the "rest" of the photon?\n> >\n> > The "rest" of it doesn\'t exist. Once it has interacted with the\n> > electron, its final position is "decohered" (at least according to how\n> > I\'d like QM to behave :) to location of the electron. IOW, the\n> > wavefunction, 95% of which spanned a few meters, collapsed upon\n> > interaction with the electron to the value that allowed that interaction\n> > with the electron.\n>\n> How, by what mechanism, does the decoherence cancel the photon\'s\n> electromagnetic fields of Maxwell\'s equations?\n>\n> And how fast?\n>\n> Or is the modern view that there is no electromagnetic wave?\n\nthis is just the result of the wave-particle duality of quantum\nmechanics; i.e. if you design a measuring device to measure the\nprobability wave effects of the particles you will measure them, if\nyou localize and measure the location of an individual particle you\nwill measure its particle effect. This result follows from the\nheisenburg uncertainty principle.\nlove and peace,\n(kirk) kirk gregory czuhai\nhttp://www.altelco.net/~lovekgc/kirksresume.htm\n\n</UL></PRE></font></td></tr></table></BODY><HTML>');"> <IMG SRC=/images/buttons/ip.gif BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER ALT="View this Usenet post in original ASCII form"> View this Usenet post in original ASCII form </a></div><P></jabberwocky>
alfps@start.no (Alf P. Steinbach) wrote in message news:<40cc6e69.910330906@news.individual.net>...
> * Rahul Jain:
> >
> > alfps@start.no (Alf P. Steinbach) writes:
> >
> > > Here's a question that has me (a non-scientist) baffled.
> > >
> > > I've read that e.g. a photon of light from Andromeda is a few meters
> > > wide when it finally arrives on Earth, and I can picture that as an
> > > electromagnetic wave.
> >
> > I believe that this means that the 95% of the amplitude of the
> > wavefunction is contained within a space that is a few meters wide.
> >
> > > When such a photon gives up its energy to an electron, which presumably
> > > happens in a very short period of time and a very small region of space,
> > > what happens outside that region to cancel the "rest" of the photon?
> >
> > The "rest" of it doesn't exist. Once it has interacted with the
> > electron, its final position is "decohered" (at least according to how
> > I'd like QM to behave :) to location of the electron. IOW, the
> > wavefunction, 95% of which spanned a few meters, collapsed upon
> > interaction with the electron to the value that allowed that interaction
> > with the electron.
>
> How, by what mechanism, does the decoherence cancel the photon's
> electromagnetic fields of Maxwell's equations?
>
> And how fast?
>
> Or is the modern view that there is no electromagnetic wave?
this is just the result of the wave-particle duality of quantum
mechanics; i.e. if you design a measuring device to measure the
probability wave effects of the particles you will measure them, if
you localize and measure the location of an individual particle you
will measure its particle effect. This result follows from the
heisenburg uncertainty principle.
love and peace,
(kirk) kirk gregory czuhai
http://www.altelco.net/~lovekgc/kirksresume.htm