Understanding Light Wave Propagation

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the propagation of light waves, specifically addressing whether photons leave a trailing cone as they move through space. Participants explore theoretical implications, experimental setups, and the nature of light in various contexts, including its behavior in vacuum and mediums.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation
  • Experimental/applied

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants question whether photons leave a trailing cone, likening it to a wake behind a moving object.
  • Others argue that if photons left a trailing cone, it would be possible to track their progress, which contradicts current understanding of light propagation.
  • A proposed experimental setup involves using two spheres to detect interference patterns, suggesting that such a pattern could provide evidence for light propagation.
  • Some participants express skepticism about the feasibility of tracking photons, stating that once a photon interacts with a detector, it cannot provide information about its journey.
  • There is a discussion about whether light beams between spacecraft would be visible if photons are absorbed at the target, with conflicting views on visibility based on the absence of a medium.
  • References to Cherenkov radiation are made, with some participants drawing parallels between the phenomenon and the idea of a photon leaving a wake.
  • Concerns are raised about the validity of suggested experiments, with some participants asserting that the proposed setups do not yield the expected results.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express multiple competing views regarding the nature of light propagation and whether photons leave a trailing cone. The discussion remains unresolved, with no consensus reached on the proposed ideas or experiments.

Contextual Notes

Participants highlight limitations in tracking photons and the assumptions underlying their arguments. The discussion also touches on the implications of light speed being constant across different inertial frames, but does not resolve the complexities involved.

hubble_bubble
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Can anyone tell me how light waves propagate. Will a photon have a trailing cone?
 
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hubble_bubble said:
Can anyone tell me how light waves propagate. Will a photon have a trailing cone?
If a photon left a trailing cone, like a wake behind a boat or any other body moving through a medium, then we would be able to track its progress. But we can't.

We can't track the progress of light. If we could, we could identify a medium in which the light waves propagate. This is what scientists prior to Einstein (and a few afterwards) were trying to do.

Einstein showed that we could just assume that light propagates at a speed of c in any inertial state we choose and it would be just like if we really were at rest in a medium that propagates light.
 
The way to test this would be to have two spheres one inside the other. The inner sphere would contain the slits as in the two slit experiment with a photon fired through. Detecting a 360 degree interference pattern around the sphere would be a proof.
 
You could also have two cones one within the other at a set angle.
 
Interestingly if this worked you may actually measure the size of a photon.
 
hubble_bubble said:
The way to test this would be to have two spheres one inside the other. The inner sphere would contain the slits as in the two slit experiment with a photon fired through. Detecting a 360 degree interference pattern around the sphere would be a proof.

hubble_bubble said:
You could also have two cones one within the other at a set angle.

hubble_bubble said:
Interestingly if this worked you may actually measure the size of a photon.
Any experiment that you can devise in an arbitrary inertial state that is supposed to identify the propagation of light will result in a false positive. So you better only do the experiment one time since on the surface of the earth, we are continually changing our approximately inertial state (due to the rotation of the earth, its revolving around the sun and the motion of the sun through our galaxy) and you apparently want to ignore all the other experiments that already confirm that we cannot identify the propagation of light.
 
I haven't read the experimental data. Do you have any links?
 
I have read it and digested it. The interference patterns are very interesting. In particular the spacing and width of the dark band. This doesn't, however preclude what I was saying in the first instance. Light speed is constant to all observer's. Whatever frame you are in. There is a peculiarity to light that no one seems to have noticed. If it were possible to film a photon from directly behind as it was fired, what would you record? The photon is traveling away from the observer. Would you still record it? Would you record it's entire journey to its target?
 
  • #10
hubble_bubble said:
I have read it and digested it. The interference patterns are very interesting. In particular the spacing and width of the dark band. This doesn't, however preclude what I was saying in the first instance. Light speed is constant to all observer's. Whatever frame you are in. There is a peculiarity to light that no one seems to have noticed. If it were possible to film a photon from directly behind as it was fired, what would you record? The photon is traveling away from the observer. Would you still record it? Would you record it's entire journey to its target?
How do you expect to film a photon? It's not a bullet that you can shine a light on and see it from reflected light. A photon is light traveling away from you or on some path that doesn't intersect you. If it does intersect you, particularly in the eye, that's the end of the photon and you see it when it arrives at your eye but it doesn't provide a clue about when and where it was on its way to you, does it?

You cannot record, measure, observe or track the progress of a photon or even vast collections of photons making up light waves. What you can do is what Einstein suggested, which is to assign a propagation to light, but remember, when you then say that light propagates at c, that's because you defined time and distance in such a way for it to do just that.
 
  • #11
How do you know you are right? Have you tried the suggested experiment?
 
  • #12
hubble_bubble said:
How do you know you are right? Have you tried the suggested experiment?
You have not suggested an experiment. All you did was say something that is gibberish and assume it means something. The phrase "...film a photon from directly behind as it was fired..." is meaningless at best. Scientists (and not just scientists!) film photons all the time. How photons are "filmed" is understood exquisitely well. You "film" a photon by colliding a detector with it. Period.
 
  • #13
OK how about this. If you had two spacecraft outside the Earth's atmosphere that shine a wide beam of light directly from one to the other so that the photons are absorbed completely at the target, would you see the light? There is no medium through which it travels so reflection would not be an issue. Would you see it through a telescope? It is not traveling in your direction. Working from your argument the light beam would be invisible.
 
  • #14
I also suggested the sphere and cone experiments.
 
  • #15
hubble_bubble said:
I also suggested the sphere and cone experiments.
"Will it leave a trailing cone?" Is not an experiment either. Your "sphere experiment" is just the double slit experiment and it doesn't produce the results you suggest.
 
  • #16
hubble_bubble said:
OK how about this. If you had two spacecraft outside the Earth's atmosphere that shine a wide beam of light directly from one to the other so that the photons are absorbed completely at the target, would you see the light? There is no medium through which it travels so reflection would not be an issue.
Of course. Spacecraft do this. Heck, you can test this yourself by looking at satellites from your backyard.
Would you see it through a telescope? It is not traveling in your direction. Working from your argument the light beam would be invisible.
No, you would not see the beam. Yes, it is invisible.
 
  • #17
Thank you. That's all I wanted to know.
 
  • #18
hubble_bubble said:
OK how about this. If you had two spacecraft outside the Earth's atmosphere that shine a wide beam of light directly from one to the other so that the photons are absorbed completely at the target, would you see the light?
No, you would not see the light. How could you, you just said "the photons are absorbed completely at the target".
hubble_bubble said:
There is no medium through which it travels so reflection would not be an issue. Would you see it through a telescope? It is not traveling in your direction. Working from your argument the light beam would be invisible.
If you want to see the beam, then you need to have some kind of an atmosphere to reflect part of the light back to you.
 
  • #20
But the particle that is traveling faster than the speed of light in the material is not a photon, it's a charged particle. Why does this make you think of a photon leaving a "wake" in the shape of a cone? If that were the case, then there would be cones all over the place in all directions in the example of the cherenkov radiation, wouldn't there?
 
  • #21
The question has been asked and answered. There is no "trailing cone"
 

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