From: et@teal.csn.org (Eric H. Taylor)
Subject: Re: Good Things come in Big Bangs
Followup-To: et@et.com
Summary: lightspeed, photon size, photon behaivor
Keywords: photons, particles, waves, spirals
Organization: Eric Taylor and Associates Inc
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 05:41:32 GMT

In article <92223.095959A54SI@CUNYVM.BITNET> A54SI@CUNYVM.BITNET writes:
>
> This is a private conversation going public. Already in progress. Anyone can
>join!
>
> Paul, Eric:
>
> Light will ALWAYS get to the bottom of the telescope. It acts like radiation
>spreading from a point, more than it does machine gun fire. So I think that
>diagram was misleading.
>
> I don't buy this abberation stuff yet. Consider the up and down motion similar
>to a fist yanking on a cord attached to the doorknob. Now a given point on the
>string waves up and down JUST as does the fist. Only with a time delay. I would
>advise you discount the time delay when looking at celestial ranges, where
>simultaneity needs to be based on c itself...no absolute clock et al
>
> I pictured the refraction of light by the G field analogous to warp of
>spacetime as both trying to explain light curvature.
>
> I don't see why a ref. frame can't go at c. The fact that accel. to c of a
>massive object should be irrelevant. And to get an EM wave to 'stand', just
>stop time, but, note the dE/dt and dB/dt terms in c propagation, so I can see
>Einstein's objection there.
>
> Waves MUST and ALWAYS DO travel with respect to their medium!
>
> If all photons travel at c, how can two photons, each going c, interfere and
>produce a slower photon? Not to mention that Dr. is all washed up if you
>believe Dirac when he said two photons can't interfere; a single photon can
>only interfere with itself.

Ok, some observations and clarifications are in order here. These are all
quoted from off the top of my mind, I haven't looked up anything here.
These are just my understandings of how photons work. Feel free to make
corrections/additions.

* Photons don't interact with each other.
* Photons always travel at the speed of light.
* Photons always travel at the speed of light in empty space.
* A photon's reference frame (moving at the speed of light) always sees
  nothing but empty space.
* Normal matter is mostly empty space.
* Photons do not slow down when passing thru a medium.
* Photons may be absorbed by a medium, in which case they cease motion.
* From the reference frame of a photon, the instant it sees something other
  than empty space, it has collided, and thereby ceases to exist.
* Photons do not see other photons.
* A medium may immediately re-radiate an absorbed photon.
* Photons may be scattered by a medium by the same process.
* Photons that are reflected do so by bouncing (elastic collision).
* The time delays caused by absorbtion and re-radiation cause a photon
  to apparently slow down, when passing thru a medium.
* Multiple photons can interact with a medium to interfere and produce other
  photons.
* Multiple similar photons define a wave.
* Normal space is permeated with neutrinos.
* There is no such thing as empty space.

Can neutrinos collide with each other???

Ok, so I went and looked this one up:

"The enormous factor from nuclear densities ~10^14 g/cm^3 to the density
of field fluctuation energy in the vacuum, ~10^94 g/cm^3, argues that
elementary particles represent a percentage-wise almost completely
negligible change in the locally violent conditions that characterize
the vacuum."
[...]
"The most evident shortcoming of the geometrodynamic model as it stands
is this, that it fails to supply any completely natural place for spin
1/2 in general and for the neutrino in particular."

--- GRAVITATION, Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler, p1202-1203

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