# Schrödinger's cat of Light
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 6, 2018, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360 "2018-07-06T04:04:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Jim\_Peebles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_Peebles)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/41 "2018-07-19T16:25:58Z")
There’s always going to be some place where you think: it really simplifies things to consider light a particle here. But that doesn’t make light a particle. I guess you could reverse that and say the same about a wave, or a disturbance in a field. But the route of particle leads to all sorts of mental gymnastics which don’t ever really make sense from the get go. Not to mention a wave particle duality is stark raving mad. I think QFT is on the right track, with a disturbance in a field. (A field/ether moving like a river in our vicinity, not still like a pond, in light of the Michaelson Morely findings.)
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/42 "2018-07-19T16:42:10Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#):
>
> Yeah, it was first explained to an impressive degree assuming light is a particle, but so what? That’s just a calculational trick.
Dude, I’m gonna blow your mind here, but it’s calculational tricks all the way down.
That’s what the people who object to wave-particle duality can’t seem to get over. A photon isn’t anything other than a photon. It makes its own rules, and doesn’t give a crap what those pencil-pushers back at headquarters say.
It surely is possible to interpret particle-like behavior by photons as just some special case of wave-like behavior. But as you say, it makes things a lot more complicated. We have simple equations that predict the behavior of photons to whatever number of decimal places Chronos quoted above. They work like a charm. So you wanna throw them out because the idea of light being particle and wave and both and neither hurts your head?
There’s a concept in physics known as an “[interpretation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics)”. “An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how concepts in quantum mechanics correspond to reality.” Except the point about an interpretation is that it doesn’t make any difference. When you want to predict quantum mechanical behavior, you shut up and calculate.
If you want to whisper to yourself when you’re doing math that treats a photon as if it were a particle that it’s all just a misunderstanding, and that deep down inside a photon is not really a particle, it’s just a wave that by some strange coincidence happens to have behavior that can sometimes be mathematically modeled by treating it as a particle, then feel free my friend. No one can stop you, and they wouldn’t want to if they could.
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### Author:  [@Jim\_Peebles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_Peebles)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/43 "2018-07-19T16:52:02Z")
At some point the distinction does matter. You can play the wave here, particle there game and do lots of practically useful stuff. But the theoretical framework itself is going to advance by describing light in a more detailed fashion where (I am convinced) a particle will be ruled out. But it still won’t be described completely (at least I see that as a very safe bet). An analogy: you can do all sorts of research in Chemistry without knowing about quarks and such, but that doesn’t mean quarks (the more detailed description of matter) is just some personal belief that makes you feel better.
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### Author:  [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/44 "2018-07-19T16:53:32Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#):
>
> There’s always going to be some place where you think: it really simplifies things to consider light a particle here. But that doesn’t make light a particle. I guess you could reverse that and say the same about a wave, or a disturbance in a field. But the route of particle leads to all sorts of mental gymnastics which don’t ever really make sense from the get go. Not to mention a wave particle duality is stark raving mad. I think QFT is on the right track, with a disturbance in a field. (A field/ether moving like a river in our vicinity, not still like a pond, in light of the Michaelson Morely findings.)
That is not the claim I am making, nor what the evidence shows. Yes he particle model and the wave model are often items of convenience for us humans to talk about particular effects, and by trying to dismiss the particle-wave duality it is actually what I would say is the attempt at simplification. Because it ignores experimental data in an attempt to clean up a “messy” concept.
It doesn’t matter if it is “is stark raving mad”, invoking semi-classical theories such as Bohr-Kramers-Slater and Lamb may be useful to describe the photoelectric effect, but those semi-classical theories fall down when quantum effects of light revealed in modern experiments.
Before the quantum model for the atom was developed the photon was needed for the photo-electric effect, which is what the Lamb paper address, but that paper you provided cannot explain the 1924 Bothe-Geiger electron-x-ray coincidence experiment, Compton scattering, or black-body radiation.
Lamb can use semi-classical methods to some of these effect, but a viable replacement theory needs to explain all of the observations.
We are still stuck with the particle-wave duality.
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### Author:  [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/45 "2018-07-19T17:07:23Z")
Here is a fairly accessible short video of Feynman, that explains why when you move past the simplistic case, the particle model is sometimes needed.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7OEzyEfzgg)
Hawking radiation is yet another case that cannot be described by a pure wave theory.
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/46 "2018-07-19T17:20:53Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#):
>
> Light is a wave. This “wave-particle duality” stuff is nonsense. Do a google scholar search for the 1968 paper “The photoelectric effect without photons” by Lamb and Scully for a simple 15 page explanation. Yeah, it was first explained to an impressive degree assuming light is a particle, but so what? That’s just a calculational trick. And sure, students can do calculations assuming a particle here and a wave there and get good answers, but so what? That doesn’t make light a particle. Do you have to empty the photons out of your camera after taking a bunch of pictures? I think quantum field theory, where a photon is described as a disturbance in a field is getting back to waves in an ether. So I think the cognocenti in physics have actually abandoned wave-particle duality.
That paper specifically mentions four areas that haven’t been explained without photons on the first page. So it cannot be used to say photons aren’t required.
It also only shows you can derive Einstein’s formula if you start with assuming excitation of an isolated atom described according to quantum physics, which to me seems insufficient to say the photo electric effect, which happens to electrons in the conducting band of a metal with thousands of interacting atoms, has been described without photons.
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### Author:  [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/47 "2018-07-19T17:27:02Z")
To clarify my reference Hawking radiation. QED one of the most tested and most accurate physical theories constructed yet, yet QED predicts that the photon is a massless _particle_.
[Some effects that the semi-classical wave only theories cannot explain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_shift) are related to QED and related to Hawking Radiation.
So without a replacement theory, that can also make predictions down to the _parts per trillion_ in accuracy range we are stuck with the duality and photons/electrons/… as particles and waves.
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### Author:  [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/48 "2018-07-21T06:22:55Z")
If the photon is the force carrier for magnetism, why can’t you cancel magnetic field just with a piece of paper? And should not “magnetic photons” propagate straight forward as light does?
I prefer layman’s terms(but no relatives) not mathematics…
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/49 "2018-07-21T13:22:38Z")
Yes, “magnetic photons” are just photons, and you’re reading this by detecting them moving straight forward off of your screen. I’m not clear why you think this would mean that a paper would block magnetism, though. Just because it blocks some tiny subset of photons, in one particular very narrow energy range?
As to whether light is “really waves”, or “really particles”, by even asking the question you’re falling into a trap. We can’t answer it, not because we don’t know enough about photons, but because we don’t know enough about “real particles” or “real waves”. All we can actually do is describe those things vaguely in terms of the way electromagnetism works.
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### Author:  [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/50 "2018-07-21T16:48:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Yes, “magnetic photons” are just photons, and you’re reading this by detecting them moving straight forward off of your screen. I’m not clear why you think this would mean that a paper would block magnetism, though. Just because it blocks some tiny subset of photons, in one particular very narrow energy range?
>
> As to whether light is “really waves”, or “really particles”, by even asking the question you’re falling into a trap. We can’t answer it, not because we don’t know enough about photons, but because we don’t know enough about “real particles” or “real waves”. All we can actually do is describe those things vaguely in terms of the way electromagnetism works.
As a total novice, I know nothing about everything, but if I remember correctly photons do not interact with each other. Why do “magnetic” or “sticky” photons do?
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### Author:  [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/51 "2018-07-21T17:22:08Z")
> [@komolono](#):
>
> As a total novice, I know nothing about everything, but if I remember correctly photons do not interact with each other. Why do “magnetic” or “sticky” photons do?
You’re not understanding what Chronos just wrote, and you are introducing new concepts and ideas without properly describing them.
Are you surprised that x-rays aren’t stopped by paper? If not, why are you surprised by any other type of photon being stopped by them?
Do you realize that some materials let near-infra red light through, and stop visible light, and vice versa?
You are attempting to build a case against photons by picking parts of reality you don’t know/understand and assuming they are evidence in this case. This is a fundamentally flawed approach and very frustrating to observe.
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### Author:  [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/52 "2018-07-21T18:16:43Z")
> [@naita](#):
>
> You’re not understanding what Chronos just wrote, and you are introducing new concepts and ideas without properly describing them.
>
> Are you surprised that x-rays aren’t stopped by paper? If not, why are you surprised by any other type of photon being stopped by them?
>
> Do you realize that some materials let near-infra red light through, and stop visible light, and vice versa?
>
> You are attempting to build a case against photons by picking parts of reality you don’t know/understand and assuming they are evidence in this case. This is a fundamentally flawed approach and very frustrating to observe.
Why don’t magnetic waves burn you? Ok I may understand a part of your reasoning, but I have not heard of any magnetic field killing the Meissner’s frog. Have you? I doubt your knowledge is not quit there…
Maybe I’m the Trumpet of this thread and you are the putamn…
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### Author:  [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/53 "2018-07-21T18:51:53Z")
Energy, speed and magnetic field just don’t add up here. But we have Chronos. Burning sensationg vs. gravitional force. Now, I prefer mathematics.
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### Author:  [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/54 "2018-07-21T19:25:49Z")
Ok - nobody has it…Or maybe Chornos who I admire, can tell us that they (the mathematic Physicist) do?
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### Author:  [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/55 "2018-07-21T21:59:29Z")
> [@komolono](#):
>
> Why don’t magnetic waves burn you? Ok I may understand a part of your reasoning, but I have not heard of any magnetic field killing the Meissner’s frog. Have you? I doubt your knowledge is not quit there…
> Maybe I’m the Trumpet of this thread and you are the putamn…
- The heat from your loved one laying next to you in bed,
- The glow of the fireplace on the other side of the room,
- The radio signal from your cellphone carrier that just delivered your last text,
- The x-rays that diagnosed your broken leg, which allowed you ignore that text from work,
Are all the same exact thing, either viewed as electromagnetic radiation, radiant heat, light, radio wave, x-rays.
They have different energy levels, and they interact with different materials in different ways, but they are all exactly the same thing, just at different energy levels (aka frequencies) or intensities.
Unfortunately like any other area, you will have to put in the time and practice to understand this just as you do to learn the guitar, speak another language or ride a bike.
There are tools to help you with this if it interests you, but you will not figure the meaning through pure philosophical reasoning. Here is one resource which may help you with this.
> **[Khan Academy | Free Online Courses, Lessons & Practice](https://www.khanacademy.org/)**
>
> Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2018, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/56 "2018-07-22T01:36:15Z")
I got burned from magnetic waves just a couple of weeks ago, as do many people this time of year who stay out too long without sunscreen.
And photons don’t interact with each other (at least, not to any significant degree). You seem to think that that contradicts something about magnetism being carried by photons. What?
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### Author:  [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2018, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/57 "2018-07-22T08:04:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> I got burned from magnetic waves just a couple of weeks ago, as do many people this time of year who stay out too long without sunscreen.
>
> And photons don’t interact with each other (at least, not to any significant degree). You seem to think that that contradicts something about magnetism being carried by photons. What?
How is that an answer to the “curvy” and “sticky” photons? Is not magnetism interaction?
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### Author:  [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2018, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/58 "2018-07-22T12:10:09Z")
For us incoherent bright lights, what do you specifically mean by curvy photons and sticky photons?
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2018, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/59 "2018-07-22T12:20:05Z")
> [@komolono](#):
>
> As a total novice, I know nothing about everything, but if I remember correctly photons do not interact with each other. Why do “magnetic” or “sticky” photons do?
What are “magnetic photons” and “sticky photons”? And what makes you think they interact with each other?
Also, what are “magnetic waves”?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2018, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schrodingers-cat-of-light/817360/60 "2018-07-22T12:30:06Z")
Photons don’t interact with each other. Photons are how electrons interact with each other.
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