🚀 go-pugleaf

> 
> First off, classical E&M + plus quantized energy levels ALONE will
> not explain the photo-electric effect, or Planck's black-body formula.
> You need SOME additional hypotheses about the coupling between matter
> and the EM field.  For example, if energy is conserved, then how are
> we to reconcile the abrupt change in the atom's energy level (during an
> absorption or emission event) with Maxwell's equations? 

In grad school, we solved the Schroedinger equation for the hydrogen atom.
Later we did a calculation called the Stark Effeft where we added a steady
field to the system. The result was a series of mixed states which had
dipole moments. 

This is standard QM. So there is nothing to prevent us from calculating the
Stark Effect with an oscillating field, instead of a steady field. This is
the "coupling between matter and the EM field" which you refer to above. It
requires no additional hypotheses, and the result is a set of atomic states
which oscillate as conventional electromagnetic dipoles. In the presence of
a continuous excitation, these dipoles radiate continuously, with no abrupt
changes in the atom's energy level.

> 
> Next: what do *you*, Martin Green, think about photons?  This thread
> started on a pedagogical note: what should a high-school teacher tell
> his or her students about photons? 

There is nothing dis-honest with telling the students that scientists
believe light is made of particles. Furthermore, that this theory was
motivated largely by attempts to explain the black-body spectrum and the
photo-electric effect.

The dis-honesty is when we tell ourselves that we understand these
explanations.

Martin Green