We're all taught about the duality nature of light, that the light
wave is made of photons, which behave like particles.

Now suppose you have a plane light wave that propagates forward. Along
the way, at a given time, are the photon densities the same
everywhere?  Consider that for a wave, there are crests and troughs
along the way.

Q Ray

Quantum Ray wrote:
We're all taught about the duality nature of light, that the light
wave is made of photons, which behave like particles.

Now suppose you have a plane light wave that propagates forward. Along
the way, at a given time, are the photon densities the same
everywhere? Consider that for a wave, there are crests and troughs
along the way.

Q Ray

It isn't correct to say that a light wave is 'made up of photons', at
least not if you think of a photon as being a well-defined object, such
as a brick or an electron.

Some previous threads on photons:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.optics/browse_frm/thread/c7206754b...
with a followup athttp://groups.google.com/group/sci.optics/browse_thread/thread/ff8349...

Earlier:http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/browse_thread/thread/463f7...http://groups.google.com/group/sci.astro.amateur/browse_thread/thread...

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

We're all taught about the duality nature of light, that the light
wave is made of photons, which behave like particles.

Now suppose you have a plane light wave that propagates forward. Along
the way, at a given time, are the photon densities the same
everywhere? Consider that for a wave, there are crests and troughs
along the way.


Q Ray

   Notes: "It is high time to give up the use of the word `photon', and
of a bad concept which will shortly be a century old. Radiation does not
consist of particles..."

Nobel Laureate Willis Lamb agrees. [He is not in any way denying the
"quantum duality properties" of light.]

W. E. Lamb, Jr., "Anti-photon," Appl. Phys. B, vol. 60, pp. 77--84
(February/March 1995).

We're all taught about the duality nature of light, that the light
wave is made of photons, which behave like particles.

In article
5c96e069-d55f-4426-88e4-0cc1a29c2...@n75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
 Helpful person <rrl...@yahoo.com> wrote:

I couldn't disagree more.  The concept of the photon is essential in
education, teaching students to use a familiar idea (particle) to
understand certain physical interactions.  Similarly, I wouldn't give

Sorry, without necessarily going all the way with Lamb, I really have to
disagree with this.  The term "photon" has a precise and meaningful
meaning (in brief, one quantum of energy in a Hermitian eigenmode of an
electromagnetic field).  This meaning has many aspects that are NOT in
common with particles.  Teaching that photons are particle-like IMHO
leads students to more confused misunderstandings than helpful
understandings; and it lets more sophisticated physicists, who should or
even do know better, get aware with a lot of garbage, not to mention
sowing further confusion.

Quantum Ray <QuantumRay@gmail.com> wrote:

We're all taught about the duality nature of light, that the light
wave is made of photons, which behave like particles.


If you happen to find soundbites useful, I'd suggest something
along the lines of "photons are countable waves" instead.

Treating light as moving particles does not work well.

I'm not that particular about phonons, but plasmons are just plain
silly--they're just electromagnetic surface waves, so if you need a name
for their quanta, they're photons. The name "plasmon" is a particularly
lurid example of the excesses of nomenclature that Lamb was talking about.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs (plasmonic *ugh* physicist)

On Mar 27, 12:44 pm, AES <sieg...@stanford.edu> wrote:

Notes: "It is high time to give up the use of the word `photon', and
of a bad concept which will shortly be a century old. Radiation does not
consist of particles..."

I couldn't disagree more. The concept of the photon is essential in
education, teaching students to use a familiar idea (particle) to
understand certain physical interactions. Similarly, I wouldn't give
up the wave description even though it is also an inaccurate
description with a similar number of shortfalls. Imaging explaining
to middle school students the "true" electro dynamic quantum nature of
light!

The problem is not with the photon but with the way people (for some
unknown reason) try to reconcile its properties with macroscopic
particles.

www.richardfisher.com

I couldn't disagree more. The concept of the photon is essential in
education, teaching students to use a familiar idea (particle) to
understand certain physical interactions. Similarly, I wouldn't give

In article
5c96e069-d55f-4426-88e4-0cc1a29c223f@n75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Helpful person <rrllff@yahoo.com> wrote:

I couldn't disagree more. The concept of the photon is essential in
education, teaching students to use a familiar idea (particle) to
understand certain physical interactions. Similarly, I wouldn't give

Sorry, without necessarily going all the way with Lamb, I really have to
disagree with this. The term "photon" has a precise and meaningful
meaning (in brief, one quantum of energy in a Hermitian eigenmode of an
electromagnetic field). This meaning has many aspects that are NOT in
common with particles. Teaching that photons are particle-like IMHO
leads students to more confused misunderstandings than helpful
understandings; and it lets more sophisticated physicists, who should or
even do know better, get aware with a lot of garbage, not to mention
sowing further confusion.

I guess phonons and plasmons are the next to get the ax ;=)

Marco