What Distinguishes an Experimentalist from a Theoretician?

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

I have never been more confused than from reading your last post. There are many words that need more elaborations: LQG, String, gravitino. It is not for me to explain what these words really mean in relation to this thread. So you have to be the one to explain why you need to use them in this context.

All I am using are accepted physical concepts and only the ones that I already have some understanding not the ones that I saw somewhere and have no idea what they mean. But for the sake of argument I'm going to describe what those words mean to me.

LQG - Means loop quantum gravity. The 'loop' is a word borrowed from string theory to explain the quantization of gravity.

String - Is a new entity for a theory that can explain away the real problem of infinities when the physical dimension of matter becomes zero.

Gravitino - Is a supersymmetric partner of the graviton. But you have to realize that even the graviton is not yet discovered so why talk about something that is even more undetectable than its origin.

Let me tell you a secret, I never learn Chinese because I learn them by rote.

Antonio

Postscript: The philosophical issue of this thread can be summarized as the following questions:

1. Is it justifiable for a theorist to formulate something which in truth can never be detected by our current experimental techniques?

2. Will experimentalists accept a theory based only on sound mathematical logic?

 

[8LPF16]

Antonio,

First off, let me say I agree with "Is it justifiable for a theorist to formulate something which in truth can never be detected by our current experimental techniques?" I would say no. At least with the photon, we can use actual evidence like the obvious incremental build-up of atoms, Sunlight, etc that have been done. We can re-create light and color that is stable, but not other "theoretical" particles. Colliding particles produces effects, which can teach about results, but not causes. These "short lived" particles may or may not occur naturally, and because we made them, we can not assume they have a part in the normal cycle. (can't rule it out either)

Yet how far does Science regularly go to this place? We don't even have the complete picture of the photon, and they keep going further with bringing ever smaller and undetectable theoretical particles into the picture. It is like building a brick house on a wood foundation.

I put Q-space, LQG, Gravitino, and String theory together because they represent the same concepts to me. Reducing things down to their fundamental level. These are all saying "what happens before the photon", or what is going on when the photon is not around.

It is when working with accepted values of the photon that the normally workable equations of E=MC^2, and E=h/f break down. There may be others as well, but this one is clear.

We also do not have the 100% accurate description of what a photon is, only good predictions of what it does. I tend to postulate that Light is the cause of all "things", and I think, that Science tends to say it is only an effect.

It just seems more logical to me to work on a better understanding of Light and the Photon before building on top of it.

I am not saying there can be no progress from going beyond total understanding, and predicting future events. Look at the periodic chart, Mendelev did not have total understanding, but by recognizing a mathematical pattern, was able to make good prediction.

Sometimes a new model comes along, and without changing the equation, produces great leaps of understanding. Feynman diagrams are good example. No one asked "are there really squiggley lines between particles?

I'll go beyond "detectability" right into the impossible "mind experiment". I'm sure that detractors of Einsteins' theory must have said at some point "It is impossible to drive your car the speed of light , so why bother?" Or, "if an object must take on infinite mass to travel at C, then the photon would have infinite mass or not travel at C." (neither is true)

Slowly, experiments were done, equations brought forth, and eventually, his ideas were pretty much accepted. Schools still use these mind tests (that are impossible) to demonstate the concept that does have a mathematical "solve".


LPF

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

Your love of the photon is beyond my comprehension. And your tenacity of it by not letting go further proved to me your obsession.

If you really love the photon, you must let it go out of the cage in your mind. It's very hard to keep holding on to something that is traveling at the speed of 300,000 km/s. Human thoughts do not travel at light speed.

The theoretical "particles" I am thinking and hope to be talking more about are the following:

1. Graviton
2. Magnetic monopole
3. Higgs boson
4. Tau neutrino (observed: Fermilab july, 2000)

These are "particles" where current researches are being made while we speak. Theoretically, these are predicted to exist. But experimentally, they have not been found so far. There are many experiments done and a lot of money spent but still no concrete evidence.

The reasons why do scientists want them found are the following resolutions:

1. If the graviton is found, this discovery will justify the quantum hypothesis for all force fields (gravity, EM, strong and weak).
2. If the magnetic monopole is found, this will resolve the asymmetry between electricity and magnetism.
3. If the Higgs boson is found, this will resolve the origin of mass.
4. If tau neutrino is found, this will resolve the generation problem of quarks and leptons.

Since you mentioned the name 'Mendelyeev' (this person belongs more properly in chemistry than physics), permit me to ask you a question: how did the chemist found the chemical element 'helium'? Depending on your answer, it might removed the mystery of your love of the photon.

Since you mentioned Feynman diagram (this diagram only pictorially represents a tiny portion of the extremely complicated QFT equations and only people with knowledges of the integral equations can truly appreciate the beauty of the diagram) but the key is knowing what the coordinates axes represent in physical dimensions, I am going to ask you another 'pick your brain' question: Do you know what the two axes of the diagram stand for? Not the squiggly lines you talked of.

In my hypothesis, I am associating the Higgs boson and the graviton as the same particle but going in different directions of time. The graviton is growing younger while the Higgs boson is growing older.
The graviton is reducing its spatial dimension. The Higgs boson is increasing its spatial dimension. In other words, the space-time dynamic structures of graviton and Higgs boson are exactly "opposite."

Antonio

 

[8LPF16]

Antonio,

I don't recall the story of how helium was first discovered. I am roughly familiar with the process. Just mentioned Mendelyev for his "prediction". He also refused to believe in the electron.

I think what you're asking on Feynman diagrams is time? Indicating two directions.

My intention was not to berate Scientists, on the contrary. I was pointing out that all of the most brilliant minds in history have had great ideas, wrong ideas, and silly ideas. They are just human, like all of us. This is to be expected.

Your description of my behavior is probably quite true. Passion...

Who ever (which "camp") is first to discover this missing ingrediant will get to name it. It is rather pointless to debate it beforehand.

I am not very knowledgeable about the magnetic monopole. Can you tell me about it?


LPF

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

I had to do some quick researches before replying to your last post. I did not have all the facts in my head. And the followings are what I have found out.

Helium was discovered by the astronomer Janssen during the solar eclipse of 1868. He detected a new Frauenhofer line. This line does not match any of the chemical elements found at that time. So Lockyer and Frankland suggested the name helium because 'helio' is a Greek word means the sun.

Janssen used a "super-prism" to analysis the solar spectra. This is not an ordinary glass prism that you so loved about. Glass prism can contain a lot of impurities. And also the molecular structure of glass is random. Glass are supersaturated fluid of silicon dioxide molecules. They are not crystal of regular lattice structure. Crystal are used by modern spectroscopist for analyzing x-ray spectra.

Prism as used by Newton to separate the wavelength of sunlight was no doubt one of the great discoveries of science. I was also mesmerized by the purity of the colors when I first saw it at age 5. But until now I still could not count 7 colors. I counted only six. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. I could not distinguish the indigo between blue and violet. But all I am doing is just qualitative analysis. In physics, what's needed is quantitative analysis. To do that a very high resolution super-prism must be used.

The technical name of a "super-prism" is called diffraction grating. Diffraction grating was 1st constructed by the American astronomer David Rittenhouse in 1785. There is no evidence that he used it for any serious scientific experiment.

But in 1821, Joseph von Frauenhofer starts his work on diffraction grating and thus made great progress for the then new science of spectroscopy. He discovered absorption lines (dark lines) in the solar spectrum.

In the science of spectroscopy, there are more spectra than anyone can handle. Because basically each element in the periodic table has its own unique spectra. For the element hydrogen alone, scientists found five major spectral series: Balmer Series, Pfund Series, Brackett Series, Ritz-Paschen Series, and the Lyman Series. Balmer Series is the only one in the visible region. These are the fingerprints of the elements that help scientists to find out what elements are there in an object, from an atom to a star or to a galaxy. Spectroscopy is the most productive science of applied physics. It is used by physicists, astronomers, chemists, biologist, metallurgists, "all use it as a routine tool of unsurpassed accuracy and precision, as a detector of atomic species to determine the characteristics of heavenly bodies and the presence of atmospheres in the planets, to study the structures of molecules and atoms, and to obtain a thousand and one items of information without which modern science would be greatly handicapped." Quote by Richardson Gratings.

The coordinate axes of Feynman diagram are space-time (only 1-dim space is shown) the same as that used in Einstein theories of relativity. The points in this diagram are world-points or events and the lines are worldlines (squiggly lines are used only for distinguishing the different worldlines of diferent things), the traces of the events when they move in space-time.

In physics, there are other more advanced abstract diagrams being used. The phase space diagram (position-momentum), the configuration space diagram (multi-dimensional),and others I can't recall at this time.

Since magnetism was discovered, it is a fact that there is always a north pole and a south pole. If we take a bar magnet and cut it into half, we basically get two shorter bars, which contain each own N-pole and S-pole. If we keep on cutting the bars into smaller and smaller pieces we can never separate the N-pole from the S-pole. But in electricity, there are positive charges and negative charges. And these charges can exist independently of each other. Yet electromagnetism is the unification of electricity and magnetism and from Maxwell's equations, these are symmetrical.That's why scientists believe that the subtle symmetry can be found when they have isolated the N-pole and S-pole into magnetic monopoles. Personally, I don't think both magnetic monopoles exists in our universe. WE have to take two universes together and the magnetic monopoles is shared by one universe having a N-pole and the other universe having a S-pole at one particular temporal intersect. In a sense the combined magnetic poles is a bridge between two worlds.

Antonio

 

[8LPF16]

Antonio,

It is no wonder I have not heard much on the monopole, because there is no such thing. By the time you get even close to the
"theoretical smallness" needed, the object being divided would lose the proportionate mass / charge necessary for a reading of magnetic value. This is why simultaneuous actions can and do exist. There are things this small, and they can not exist alone.

The neutral value is the closest thing to this definition. It relates to both (N/S) because it is neither. Not because it is both. It is the bridge that you speak of, just as NOW is neutral to past and future on a 2 time line theory. From the present prespective, NOW is neither; from a fixed point in "before" time (the past), NOW appears to be both. The "was" future becomes NOW in the same way that the "was" past was once the NOW. When you understand this, you see that most of Science is predicated on theories that work from the "past" perspective. This is because of how reality appears to us naturally; WE are fixed points in time from the moment of our birth, and everything that we encounter in life has a fixed point of "beginning", and a predictable "end".

Here is the Scintific proof of what I just said (us thinking that what was past is NOW). I will use quotes from your last post.

QUOTE "Prism as used by Newton to separate the wavelength of sunlight was no doubt one of the great discoveries of science.(1)
...
"The technical name of a "super-prism" is called diffraction grating. Diffraction grating was 1st constructed by the American astronomer David Rittenhouse in 1785. There is no evidence that he used it for any serious scientific experiment."(2)
...
"Spectroscopy is the most productive science of applied physics. It is used by physicists, astronomers, chemists, biologist, metallurgists, "all use it as a routine tool of unsurpassed accuracy and precision, as a detector of atomic species to determine the characteristics of heavenly bodies and the presence of atmospheres in the planets, to study the structures of molecules and atoms, and to obtain a thousand and one items of information without which modern science would be greatly handicapped." Quote by Richardson Gratings."(3)UNQUOTE

This experiment in (1) is UNDUPLICATABLE. It has catastophic flaw in the instructions for replacating the experiment elsewhere. There is no distance specified, and ONLY 1 specific distance produces a "rainbow" on the wall. THEREFORE, I will NEVER reproduce said results from other distances, and the theory is flawed. Not wrong in its' singular prediction, just INCOMPLETE truth.

Yet, as quote (3) truthfully explains, almost everything else is based on this partial picture of true reality. The colors that are absorbed or reflected are based on the colors (freq) that the particle is made from. So trying to understand what is happening without a rigorous study of the interactions of color (resonant freqs) is futile. It can (and has) produce theories that "work", but they are MIRROR images of the "alternate" reality. They exchange values for PAST with NOW, and have many problems with singularities, probabilities, infinities, and uncertainty, etc. Science has "sold out" from the sense that they have abandoned the scientific principle of accurate predictions. Science refuses to admit their inherent lack of complete understanding, and has marched forward (with the financial tenure of Dept. of Defense funding) with the view that the system of Nature operates semi-randomly, and can't be predicted. If they said otherwise, there financial future would be seriously questioned.

With modified prismatic experiments, a more complete picture develops. It is unbelievable that these, and quote (2) have not been done. TRY IT !

LPF

here:https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13565

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

Let me tell you what are the facts that I know about the photon.

1. The photon cannot aged. It is not affected by time. All photons by themselves are simultaneous existence (but not exactly true in QFT)Einstein proved this fact in his special theory of relativity. The 4-dim space-time interval is zero. The space-time intervals of matter are not zero. If they are then they are photons. Because 4-dim space-time are not zero for matter, simultaneity cannot be defined for matter but for photon it can be defined. If space-time interval is not zero, past and future can be defined. If it's zero, time does not exist.

2. The photon is the vindication of the principle of superposition.
And this is proved by the polarizability of light and the feasiblity of MASERs and LASERs and other telecommunication devices.

3. The photon is traveling at the constant speed of 300,000 km/s only in vacuum. The speed slowed down in air, in glass, in water, in diamonds. This is explain by the refractive index and Snell's law.

4. The photon is the one and only existence messenger for all the information about the entire universe.

5. The photon is an electromagnetic wave (circa 1873 Maxwell) and then a particle (circa 1905 Einstein).

6. The photon has no mass (explained by Einstein).

7. The photon has momentum (explained by Max Born and many others).

8. The photon is one of the key particles that is responsible for the unification of the electromagnetic field and the weak nuclear field.

9. The vacuum contains an infinite amount of virtual photons. There is a difference between virtual and real photon. Quantum field theories can explain these differences.

10. The number of photon in our universe is not infinite. Modern cosmology theory can explain why.

11. The different energy values of the photon gives us the colors of the rainbow and the colors from the prism and color in general. If photon has only one (quantum) energy value then the universe will appear in black and white. A blue photon has more energy than a red photon. For a blue photon to become a red photon, it has to give out energy. And for a red photon to become a blue photon, it has to get in energy.

12. The photon is a radiation. It never rest, it is always moving forever until something catches then it becomes trapped and do the works of a slave in shuttling energy back and forth inside the cage.
Since photon is always moving, it is impossible to find what shape it is, a ball, a cube, an egg or any other shape. No scientist is worried about the shape. For all practical purposes, the photon is a point. Wavelength and frequency are properties of photon's motion not its structure.

There are more properties about the photon that I miss. But if your theory is to disprove any of the above then you really have to publish it in the scientific journal.

Antonio

Postscript: I read your posts again and I still did not see a clear description from you about this modified prismatic interactions of color (resonant freqs). This, no doubt, is an experiment that you have done (I shied away from asking you before but in order to clear up this prolong discussion one sense for all) I have to ask you to give clear documentations (using graphics, drawings, etc. and email me at antoniolao@aol.com)because I am trying my best to put all your pieces together and I'm sure nobody (from reading your posts) in the world can understand what is it that you are so sure about. You might have a great idea but the burden of the proof is in you and not in me to figure out from your posts.

I am almost tempted to ask you a personal question about the level of your formal education and experience in physics, mathematics, chemistry, the experimental sciences and higher advanced topics in theoretical physics. To be honest with you, you probably notice that I hardly mention anything about string theory because I know very little of anything about it. Same with tensors and group theory or quantum electrodynamics or quantum chromodynamics or standard model or LQG or gravitino or photino, wino, squark, slepton. By using a word, I must be capable of backing up with plausible arguments. otherwise it's a waste of time talking about it. We can never reach a closure.

I don't understand what you mean by "partial picture of true reality." You seems to know the difference so please explain. To say that one thing is true you must already know what is false. For me, I can say that something only give a "partial picture of reality." This statement is better without the word "true."

I don't understand when you say "science refuses to admit their inherent lack of complete understanding." I think what you mean is that a person who works in science. You need to be specific as to which person you are talking about. is he Einstein? Dirac? Feynman?
Your generalization of science is definitely out of context.

Who is viewing that the system of Nature operates semi-randomly, and can't be predicted? I know I don't. So again, you have to specify the person or persons by giving their names (whether dead or alive).

FYI: The yearly Federal funding for scientific research has been going downward since the 1990s. There are private research fundings that might have remain the same or increase. But these are special interests mainly for profits and private gains and not for the general welfare of the public.

You said "INCOMPLETE truth" and "UNDUPLICATABLE" about Newton's experiment with prism of sunlight? I don't see what the big deal about this phenomenon? "No distance specified"? If you have studied the physics of dispersive effects in media such as air, water, and glass you might not have any problem knowing why distance is or is not a factor.

I have more questions but these are enough for now. Thanks for your continued interest.

 

[8LPF16]

Antonio,

Thanks for the list of photon information. It is nice to see so much on one page. I agree that the burden is on me; if you have the patience, I have the energy.

I will try to convert a diagram to e-mail to you about a more clear instruction on prism experiment. This might help for now.

prism
|
|
/_\ --eye
|
|
paper (at 3, 6, 12")


Quote"I don't understand what you mean by "partial picture of true reality." You seems to know the difference so please explain. To say that one thing is true you must already know what is false. For me, I can say that something only give a "partial picture of reality."unquote

The partial picture is the results from Newton's Classic Prismatic Experiment. The rest of the picture is the results from the 3 Modified Prismatic Exp. When you have all the data together, you get the whole picture. This is why I say "true" picture.

Quote "I don't understand when you say "science refuses to admit their inherent lack of complete understanding." I think what you mean is that a person who works in science. You need to be specific..."unquote

I'm talking about the games that go on over funding. You can not say "we don't know" very much before the money is gone. In order to keed the cash flowing, "science" regularly acts like they know more than they do. These untestable inclusions, and terming phrases like "uncertainty", "probability", or requiring other dimensions, I feel is not "clean" Science. (fuzzy) No one specific, just an observation of the capitalism running Science.

Quote "You said "INCOMPLETE truth" and "UNDUPLICATABLE" about Newton's experiment with prism of sunlight? I don't see what the big deal about this phenomenon? "No distance specified"? If you have studied the physics of dispersive effects in media such as air, water, and glass you might not have any problem knowing why distance is or is not a factor."unquote

There is only ONE distance that a prism will produce the rainbow as Newton predicted. So IT IS a factor. When you do Modified Exp. 2 or 3, you can watch distance effect the results, as it is occurring.
Look at the importance of distance in his equations for gravity. I agree more with Newton Gravity than Einstein G. Gravity would be like the "monopole" that you mentioned, attractive to all by simultaneously being N and S, or + and - . (but this is not 1 pole)

LPF

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

You have to forgive me, I just realized this morning that the experiment done by Michelson and Morley in 1887 concerning photon, is a direct experimental proof that distance is NOT a factor.

This experiment is the key for Einstein to develope his theory of special relativity (1905) and the photoelectric effect (1905). The latter led him to receive the Nobel Prize in 1921.

I am looking for further proofs that distance is not a factor in the physics of dispersions, refractive index, Snell's law in optics, Dehmelt's work using the Penning traps, Bragg's x-ray diffraction experiments and many supporting evidence that as far as photon is concerned, distance is NOT a factor.

Another property of photon that I need to mention is that it is a boson. Pauli Exclusion Principle does not apply to bosons. Photon is the same as a Bose-Einstein condensation, a newly discovered state of matter subjected to Bose-Einstein statistical distribution. A billion, billion, billion number of photons can enter the eye of a needle, which is a property that other fermionic matter cannot do.

Antonio

I have went thru NASA funding problem in the early 1990s. I was trying to get a $50,000 funding for an independent research on a conceptual feasibility for a magnetic alignment of charged plasma particles inside a rocket engine. My boss at that time give me enough money for 2 weeks to document my ideas. And I sent it to NASA for review but they rejected it rightoff with an explanation that it was not scientifically sound. They were thinking about practical application and I was thinking about theoretical formulation. So funding is just whoever has the money, and give it to somebody, if they believe in the idea that they ar supporting and hoping to get their money back a hundred times more. Funders do take a risk with the money and some research works do take advantage of it. There are con artists even in science as long as there is money involved.
But the pursuit of knowledge should not be subjected to any kind of swindling. Knowledge is based on fact and logic. Whoever has the fact has to use logic to prove it to whoever has the money.

The "distance" in Newton's law of universal gravitation, in electrostatics (Coulomb's law) and magnetostatics (Ampere's law) are the laws of inverse squared distance for forces that become weaker and weaker as the "area" increased and the squared distance is not really a "distance" but an "area." There is a big different between the concept of "distance" and "area." These are mathematically analyzed by Stoke's theorem and Gauss' theorem or divergence theorem in vector analysis. These are the foundations of potential theory and a book by Oliver Dimon Kellogg entitled 'Foundations of Potential Theory" first published in 1927 can help you understand what I am saying. Einstein's general relativity is a generalization of these mathematics using the general higher dimensional form of vector analysis called tensor analysis and a book by Tullio Levi-Civita entitled 'The Absolute Differential Calculus (Calculus of Tensors)' written in 1926 can also help you understand what I talking about.

 

[8LPF16]

Antonio,

I think that we must somehow be talking about different things. I don't know. Are you talking about distance from light source to prism? I would agree then. I will repeat this statement with confidence:

"There is only ONE distance that a prism will produce the rainbow as Newton predicted. So IT IS a factor. When you do Modified Exp. 2 or 3, you can watch distance effect the results, as it is occurring."

When I am talking about prismatic experiments, I am talking about the first definition of "light contains all colors" that was used in Science. And, for now, I am just talking about COLOR interaction. I don't need more complexity to define this.

In my experiments, distance is a factor because it changes the ratio of dark to light of the object being viewed. The same width of a dark line becomes higher ratio as distance decreases in viewing area.

I feel I should add the constant of the speed of light. This is speed, which is invalid without a distance. As distance increases then, time is going by. So, HOW you see the photon changes. In my experiments, you are looking at bent light at moments before those (not specified) by Newton.

LPF

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

I think I can finally get a closure to our discussions. The problem at the outset is that I am talking about pure physics, while you are interested about applied physics as that seen from your experiment.

All the answers that you are looking for are in the field of applied physics called photometry. There is also a field called radiometry and the following website can help you determine which field you really want to spend more on.

http://www.optics.arizona.edu/Palmer/rpfaq/rpfaq.htm

Also if you lookup the textbook by Halliday and Resnick 'Physics Part 2, Extended Version' 3rd ed published by Wiley 1986. Pages 938 to 956 on "Reflection and Refraction-Plane Waves and Plane Surfaces."

and

The more advanced practical book Edited by Casimer DeCusatis "Handbook of Applied Photometry'1997 published by AIP Press.
Chapter 1.

These sources of physics information will definitely take your worries away. I cannot summarize these information here in this site.
for one thing, I am not an applied physicist. So in term of detailed descriptions I don't know how to begin, and if I began, how to end.

Antonio

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

Follow-up to the following two paragraphs of your previous thread and addition to mine:

In my experiments, distance is a factor because it changes the ratio of dark to light of the object being viewed. The same width of a dark line becomes higher ratio as distance decreases in viewing area.

I feel I should add the constant of the speed of light. This is speed, which is invalid without a distance. As distance increases then, time is going by. So, HOW you see the photon changes. In my experiments, you are looking at bent light at moments before those (not specified) by Newton.


Your 1st red paragraph indicates to me that what you're concern about is the "intensity" of light. Light "intensity" does change with the distance away from the source. This is the same as that causes the expansion of the universe resulting in the redshift of all EM waves including light. For a point source (contrasting an extended source) the the total irradiance (total amount of radiation over a range of wavelengths) can be determined by adding the contributions at each wavelength.

For a point source of light, this still obeys the inverse square law:

E_T=\frac{I}{R^2}

E_T is the irradiance, a distance R from a point source of luminous intensity, I, on a surface perpendicular to the line between the point source and the surface where E_T is measured (here "surface" is the same as "area" and the "distance" is implicit from the radius of the spherical symmetry in the configuration that defines a solid angle in unit of steradians).

Notice that the speed of light is not a factor in the above equation.
But in a dispersive medium, such as a glass prism, light loses energy as it travels through the medium. And this change of energy is correlated to the change in wavelength or frequency of the light under study. And because of the refractive index of air not the same as the refractive index of glass, the speed of light in air is not the same as the speed of light in glass. This fact does complicate the analysis. The result of varying refractive indices is the bending of the light.

Antonio

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

More follow-ups on light dispersion, emission, and absorption:

Imagine we enter a dark empty room. We flick a switch, the room is flooded with photons (visible wavelegnths). But just as soon as we flick the off switch, the room reverted to darkness. What happens to the billions of photons that were there a fraction of a second ago?

To answer this question, we have to combined all the effects resulting from dispersion, emission, and absorption.

Those photons that were not absorbed by the walls are still there. But why can we see them? These remnant photons are really re-emitted photons from the walls. A blackbody is defined in physics as a perfect emitter or a perfect absorber depending on the situation such as temperature factor. The walls cannot be blackbodies. Some of the photons have to be re-emitted into the room but the re-emitted photons have their wavelengths in the infrared region (heat waves) and these photons are not visible to our naked eyes. The photons that were absorbed have increase the temperatures of the walls a tiny amount, which can only be detected by an IR sensor. So by flicking a switch, we are actually increasing the temperature of the surrounding air of the room by a very tiny amount of heat energy.

Antonio

 

[Antonio Lao]

8LPF16,

Addition to the previous three follow-ups:

Using simple facts and knowledge from thermodynamics at standard pressure of 1 atmosphere and room temperature of 32 degrees Celsius, there are approximately 1.3\times 10^{27} molecules of air in a room 12 ft by 12 ft by 12 ft. All these air molecules are moving at an average speed of .5 km/s around the room (this is the speed of sound in the room). The photons interact with these air molecules by the effects of collisions, re-emissions and absorptions. During each of these effects, the photons lose energy abruptly and drastically increase their wavelengths.

Antonio