Understanding Light: Questions & Answers

[GRB 080319B]

Padremo, since you posted the feynman lectures, could you help me with my questions about them and/or the other topics as well? Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[reilly]

GRB 080319B -- Once again, let me suggest that to answer your questions, and for you to understand the answers is an exercise of three years of study -- two if you are really quick. That is to say, you will need to understand and master most of Jackson's E&M text, and then master a basic course in QM, and then master an introductory course in quantum electrodynamics. Look at it as: the answers to your questions will take several hundred pages of text. For the level of specificity you request, there are not any short cuts. That's life in the physics world. (If you don't understand thermal radiation, then you are in trouble, and thus you need a course or book on the physical phenomena that lead to quantum theory -- often advertised a a beginning course in atomic physics -- like Planck and Einstein and Bohr. If you do not have a good grasp of the basic atomic physics involved, you will never understand light.

Good luck,.
Reilly Atkinson

 

[GRB 080319B]

GRB 080319B -- Once again, let me suggest that to answer your questions, and for you to understand the answers is an exercise of three years of study -- two if you are really quick. That is to say, you will need to understand and master most of Jackson's E&M text, and then master a basic course in QM, and then master an introductory course in quantum electrodynamics. Look at it as: the answers to your questions will take several hundred pages of text. For the level of specificity you request, there are not any short cuts. That's life in the physics world. (If you don't understand thermal radiation, then you are in trouble, and thus you need a course or book on the physical phenomena that lead to quantum theory -- often advertised a a beginning course in atomic physics -- like Planck and Einstein and Bohr. If you do not have a good grasp of the basic atomic physics involved, you will never understand light.

Good luck,.
Reilly Atkinson

Thank you very much for your advice reilly. I am going to study this topic in-depth and refrain from posting questions whose answers I wouldn't understand without a substantive foundation. I apologize for not listening to your help the first time. I will leave this thread open for anyone else to post their questions.

Thank you all for your help.