Talk:Photon

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Photon structure

Would it be acceptable for me to add [1] to the other references page section? The work is a significant advance with relevance to many other pages. Reference to it in those pages would augment this project's value. HCPotter (talk) 08:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)]

• Talk:Planck's law(-->Standard photon)[[[User:HCPotter|HCPotter]] (talk) 10:20, 13 November 2011 (UTC)]
• Talk:Photon(-->Photon Field)(HCPotter (talk) 10:25, 25 December 2011 (UTC))
• Talk:Doppler effect(-->Photon volume) (HCPotter (talk) 10:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC))
• Talk:Hubble's law(-->Photon expansion)(HCPotter (talk) 08:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC))
• Hubble's law(-->Acceleration)(HCPotter (talk) 09:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC))
• Talk:Physical cosmology(-->Photon effects)(HCPotter (talk) 09:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC))
• Physical cosmology(HCPotter (talk) 08:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC))
• Talk:EPR paradox(-->Hidden variables)(HCPotter (talk) 08:03, 11 March 2012 (UTC))
• EPR paradox(-->Hidden variables) (HCPotter (talk) 08:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC))
• Talk:Dirac equation(-->Pair production)(HCPotter (talk) 08:43, 1 April 2012 (UTC))
• Dirac equation(HCPotter (talk) 09:19, 8 April 2012 (UTC))

This article proposes a new theory, but is published in Apeiron, which is not indexed by Web of Science (thus has no impact factor) and is considered as a "dissident journal". We need reliable secondary sources establishing the notability of this theory. Materialscientist (talk) 08:34, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Withouth reading the paper in detail, (I pretty much stopped when I saw this was published in Apeiron, which isn't considered a reliable source by our standards), the jist of it is that this is original material, thus shouldn't be included per our policy on original research. First get those claims published in a reputable journal. Then it needs to be reviewed/endorsed as mainstream by the physics community. Then it could be included. But not before. This is not a judgment on whether your paper has merits or not, simply that its inclusion in Wikipedia would be premature at this point in time. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 10:43, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect diagram

This diagram needs correcting, fails to show 90 degree phase shift between E-M waves. I'll replace sometime, unless someone else does first. Here's a correct diagram: [2]. Tom Ruen (talk) 04:09, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

In 1900, Maxwell's theoretical model of light as oscillating electric and magnetic fields seemed complete. However, several observations could not be explained by any wave model of electromagnetic radiation, leading to the idea that light-energy was packaged into quanta described by E=hν. Later experiments showed that these light-quanta also carry momentum and, thus, can be considered particles: the photon concept was born, leading to a deeper understanding of the electric and magnetic fields themselves.

Correct me if I'm wrong - but I think both images are incorrect in that they give the incorrect wave direction. I'm assuming that the arrow and word 'distance' in the present image is referring to the direction of wave propagation. The proposed image is much nicer looking, except for the direction which should be the cross product of E and B. The animation on the electromagnetic radiation page is correct.PhySusie (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC).

There is no phase shift (see e.g. Sinusoidal plane-wave solutions of the electromagnetic wave equation or Electromagnetic wave equation), but the propagation direction is indeed wrong in most images on Commons (as they are derivatives of this one). Correct images are File:Tem wave.gif File:Onda e y ma 20.JPG File:Onda electromagnetica1.jpg [3] [4], etc. I might have known why there are two types of images, but completely forgot. Materialscientist (talk) 07:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Is the photon elementry?

A photon is made of one electron and one anti-electron so how can photons be described as elementry? EveryThingIsRelative (talk) 10:07, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Questions like that are best put at the wp:reference desk/science. Article talk pages are for discussions about the content and format of the article, not for discussions or questions about the subject. See wp:talk page guidelines. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 11:15, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Photons inside superconductors

The following sentence is missing a reference: """Photons inside superconductors do develop a nonzero effective rest mass; as a result, electromagnetic forces become short-range inside superconductors.""" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.136.58.100 (talk) 10:40, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

 tagged - DVdm (talk) 10:54, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Photons CAN be localized, EM field IS closely related to schrodinger wave function

I removed a longish paragraph in edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Photon&oldid=509261917 just now. Please see http://physics.stackexchange.com/a/34966/8841 for my description of why. In addition to what I wrote there, you can read discussions of how the EM waves ARE very close to "Schrodinger" wave functions in , and . Briefly, a "complex" electromagnetic field is used as a matter of course in quantum electronics and engineering, in the dynamic field case, the imaginary part of the dynamic electric field is within a constant of the dynamic magnetic field (and vice verse). The localization of the photon is completely possible, but the localized states cannot be stationary in free space. But is a car moving 100 kph any less localized at any instant in time than a car parked?

Mwengler (talk) 15:50, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of validity of the paragraph removed (and reinserted by an unreg), the electromagnetic field is not a wave function. This does not preclude the photon to have its wave function, but one just has to realize that it is not the same as a field strength, in the same way as a quantum mechanics is not a quantum field theory. There exists a simple thought experiment to check the difference. Wave function is a quantity those linear combinations correspond to quantum superposition. If a particle's wave function is, say, doubled (in some piece of a space), this does not mean that we now have more particles. And what does a doubled field strength mean? IMHO it means 4 times more photons. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:18, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

If a (bosonic) particle's wave function is doubled in all of space, you have four particles instead of one particle, just as with the photon. I am not claiming that the E-field is the Schrodinger wave. I am claiming that the exact same thing that allows a wave packet description of the electron to demonstrate so clearly the Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows it to be demonstrated for the photon. The photon cannot be localized and stationary, but every time a photodetector is triggered, it is with a photon quite localized in x, y, z, and t. If one of the fans of non-localisability of photons could explain the very obvious and trivially achieved "real" localization of em energy in that context, that would be very helpful.

On a related subject, just how much should I respect an uncommented untalked about undo by an unreg? Mwengler (talk) 19:23, 29 August 2012 (UTC)