/sci/ - Science & Math

Op again: I think that it is, otherwise it probably could be possible to create two photons with destructive interference and energy conservation would be violated, on the other hand if light is merely a disturbance in EM field then we are guaranteed that in some other direction these two waves create constructive interference and we are allright.

>>7575590
oh bother, cannot unsee
>gorilla-faced creature spanking the monkey & ejaculating

>>7575590
coil wouldn't generate electromagnetic field, it would generate magnetic field, so no

wave-particle duality is probably not real, despite experiments suggesting otherwise.

>>7575590
>Would for example coil generating alternating electromagnetic field on frequency of visible light start glowing?
Theoretically, yes, practically that's not possible for so many reasons that are really not that interesting. It doesn't really matter how you generate your oscillating fields, but yes, when you hit the right frequency, you get visible light.

>more specifically how can it be both wave and particle.
Light is a wave, as it's an oscillating field. However, this oscillating field interacts with other fields, for example fermionic fields such as the electron in portions/quants, which is what we observe. It's probably a really bad idea to imagine light as little photons flying around. The particle nature of fields only becomes apparent when they interact, but as interaction is the only way to observe those fields, we see them as a bunch of particles. It's a difficult thing to fully grasp and I know people who know a lot more about particle theory than me and still don't have the full picture. To get there you should probably do some quantum field theory and see where the idea of photons comes from and how it's related to the gauge fields (the electromagnetic fields). However, it's a long way.

>>7575644
Do you know what maxwell's equations are?

>>7575590
Light is a little wave that moves through a field.
This field is invisible and intangible, but it is influenced in concentration by matter intersecting it.
You can think of that field as gas, if you want, except that it doesn't exhibit any properties of gases.

Also, Occam's Razor is a sham.

so light is a wave, do all the waves move at the same speed?
Is the speed of light just the speed of waves?

>>7577231
Light is not a wave. Light is also not a particle. Light is a superposition of waves which gives it some properties of both.

And no, not all waves travel at the same speed, but the equation of all waves is the same:
d^2W/dt^2 = (1/v^2)d^2W/dt^2
Which is a differential equation of some e^(ix), a sine wave for example. The v of light is based on experimental constants which were determined before the wave like nature of light was known.

>>7577263
And pic related is what superposition means. A Fourier Transformation of an infinite number of standing waves can create any continuous, differentiable function. A photon is a superposition of an infinite number of wave lengths, neither point like or wave like.

>>7575652
It's a wave of energy that appears as a particle when you pin point it's position using probabilty

>>7575590
What, exactly, is the origin of wave-particle duality depends on your interpretation of what the math of quantum mechanics means.

One explanation of it is that all particles - including photons - are "amplitude waves" in their respective fields.

Photons, then, are waves in the photon field. The square of the amplitude of these waves is the probability of finding a photon particle at that location.

In the way quantum field theory, such as quantum electrodynamics, is typically done, there are no "electromagnetic fields", not really - the effect of these fields is generated by the exchange of "virtual photons."

However, in some sense these are really more a mathematical artifact of the perturbative nature of calculations in quantum field theory than any kind of "real" structure.

>Would for example coil generating alternating electromagnetic field on frequency of visible light start glowing?

Yes. For engineering reasons, however, it's not really possible to make a visible-light antenna; you'd need to switch your current back and forth so extraordinarily quickly that it is beyond the reach of current technology.

However, if you could do that somehow, your antenna would indeed radiate visible light.