[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
But to me an advantage of this interpretation is that it always bugged me, with regard to photons being exchanged between electrons (for example) in order to exert electrostatic repulsion, How the hell does the photon find its way?
[/quote]
Can you elaborate? As far as I know, which isn’t a whole lot on this topic, photon “exchange” isn’t a direct transmission like a phone line where 1 electron makes some type of connection with another electron and they trade, energy simply causes 1 electron to emit a photon - the trajectory of which I’m not sure how to find possibly using conservation of momentum principles but with regards to waves/light - and if another electron happens to be in the path of that emitted photon then it absorbs the energy from said photon. Unless this is just the physics for dummies version they taught us.
[quote]Taufiq wrote:
I’ve been doing theoretical physics for a few years, and I don’t have a clue what half of that essay was talking about. I should rethink about my career choice…[/quote]
No real clue here either. Not a physicist. Scientists trying to explain God it seems. Interesting stuff.
[quote]JLu wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
But to me an advantage of this interpretation is that it always bugged me, with regard to photons being exchanged between electrons (for example) in order to exert electrostatic repulsion, How the hell does the photon find its way?
Can you elaborate? As far as I know, which isn’t a whole lot on this topic, photon “exchange” isn’t a direct transmission like a phone line where 1 electron makes some type of connection with another electron and they trade, energy simply causes 1 electron to emit a photon - the trajectory of which I’m not sure how to find possibly using conservation of momentum principles but with regards to waves/light - and if another electron happens to be in the path of that emitted photon then it absorbs the energy from said photon. Unless this is just the physics for dummies version they taught us.
[/quote]
Well, I got my understanding of it a long time back in self-learning from the Feynman Lectures on Physics (which is a truly great volume of books.) He explains it quite well. By now I can’t reproduce it.
In undergrad, related to this I only had the usual 2 semesters of Physics with Calculus and a physics track Electromagnetics course, plus PChem 1 and 2 (the second of which is quantum theory) and inorganic chemistry, which has a lot of wave functions. I tend to think this was never really covered in detail there and I did not worry about it on account of having Feynman’s explanation. In graduate school the only quantum theory I had was that related to organic chemistry and to spectroscopy. The latter might have covered this but if so I don’t remember; the former did not.
But if you check the Cramer slideshow linked before you will get what amounts to a good though extremely brief explanation.
I can’t tell you how to figure it without the advanced and retarded waves. Maybe there is some way with a ton of virtual photons, dunno.
When you first said retarded waves, I thought you were making fun of me. LOL I had to look them up.
V
It is an unusual name. I don’t know why that particular word is used.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
It is an unusual name. I don’t know why that particular word is used.[/quote]
Maybe a scientist somewhere has a sense of humor?
V
Could be! 
Feynman definitely did, but I don’t know if it was he or Wheeler that came up with it. Or if it may go back to much earlier consideration of time-symmetric solutions.
That is to say, equations that work the same either forwards or backwards in time. For example, if watching a film of the motion of the planets, you could not determine from the speeds and positions whether the film was running forwards or backwards, as Newton’s laws of motion are time-symmetric.
[quote]Vegita wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
It is an unusual name. I don’t know why that particular word is used.
Maybe a scientist somewhere has a sense of humor?
V[/quote]
Well the spins for sub atomic particles are referred to as flavours. And they can be either up, down, top, bottom, strange or charmed so I would say there is a sense of humour in there somewhere.
Damn, I haven’t touched physics since my 2nd year at Uni, but I think I’ll read the Wheeler-Feynman stuff tomorrow and Feynman’s lectures on QM (the only volume I’ve got on me right now). Of the top of my head, though - wouldn’t the emitter wave have a spherical pattern? Wouldn’t that make it impossible for the receiver wave (also spherical pattern) to cancel it completely, other than on the path between the emitter and receiver?
On another note - what makes more sense - cosmic Leprechauns stopping the LHC from working, or the fact that the more complex a machine the more can go wrong with it? Damn, I’m getting disillusioned in my old age…
Bartek
[quote]Vegita wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
It is an unusual name. I don’t know why that particular word is used.
Maybe a scientist somewhere has a sense of humor?
V[/quote]
Retard is from the french “retarder”. This word means to slow something down, hold it back, make it late.
Retarded means something that is slowed down, or held back.
This is obviously applies to a person’s mental capacity.
The more you know!
I don’t believe time travel is possible, just a theory.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I don’t believe time travel is possible, just a theory.[/quote]
YOUR MOM’S JUST A THEORY!
[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
Vegita wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
It is an unusual name. I don’t know why that particular word is used.
Maybe a scientist somewhere has a sense of humor?
V
Retard is from the french “retarder”. This word means to slow something down, hold it back, make it late.
Retarded means something that is slowed down, or held back.
This is obviously applies to a person’s mental capacity.
The more you know![/quote]
…and knowing is half the battle!
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I don’t believe time travel is possible, just a theory.[/quote]
Care to elaborate why?