🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1995Feb13.213825.1392@schbbs.mot.com>,
Bronis Vidugiris <bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com> wrote:
>In article <3hc5lq$l79@cwis.isu.edu>, Eric Rude <rudeeric@cwis.isu.edu> wrote:
>)
>)
>)
>)Hello
>)Here are some questions from some high school students:
>)1. If there is no animal life present (intelligent or otherwise), when 
>)the sun rises, is there color?
>
>Consider what happens when you take a picture with a color camera.
>If you are an Animist Copenhaganist, you might insist that the
>picture is in a superposition of states until an animal looks at it.
>
>More probably, you'll accept that cameras take pictures of color even
>without an animal present.
>
>If you are a Thermodynamic Copenhaganist, you'll insist that as soon as
>something irreversible (involving thermodynamic processes)  happens
>that it's "real".  (Of course, you'll probably waffle a bit
>about what irreversible really means :-) ).  This is my own position.
>
>An MWI advocate (Multiple Worlds Interpretation) would insist that you
>become correlated with one particular picture when you observe it, but
>that all possible pictures (along with all possible versions of you
>looking at them) exist in at least some metaphysical sense.
>
>)2. Is it possible (theoretically or otherwise) to split a photon? If so, 
>)what would it result in?
>
>It depends on what you mean by "split".
>
>There are some interesting experiments involving non-linear optics which
>"split" a higher energy photon into two lower energy ones.  But all of
>them are complete photons.
>
>There is another sense of "splitting" used to describe the behavior of 
>photons in between times when they are observed, also known by the
>technical term "superposition".  I'd suggest reading QED by Feynman
>or "Quantum Mechanics and Experience" by Albert for more details
>on this.  Feynman describes how photons act as if they 
>took "all possible paths", and Albert talks a bit about superpositions.
>I'd recommend reading Albert's Scientific American article in addition
>to the book - he's more concrete and less abstract in the former which
>may help understand the later.  The abstraction is likely to turn off
>readers who aren't familiar with at least one example of the abstract
>behaviors he talks about (IMO).  Neither uses advanced math.
>
>However, any observed photon is a complete photon - there's no such thing as observing
>as *observing* half a photon.  Another way of saying this is that
>photons appear to be fundamental particles (unlike atoms, or
>even protons or neutrons).
>
>
Let me give you another view. A photon is described as a quasi particle
with energy E = h nu.

Since h is a constant and indivisible then a photon split in half would
have to be   E = h nu/2.  Thus you would have two photons each of which
would have a frequency of 1/2 the original.

This, and a lot more, will become very clear if you read (study) the
thesis posted on this newsgroup called  ON THE QUANTUM AS A PHYSICAL 
ENTITY -- listed in the thread index.

Hope this helps.

                              V.V.  Model Maker