Bill Westmiller asks:
I'm confused on a quasi-technical question you may be able to answer.
But, this equation seems to take no account of the intensity of light.
For example, red light always has the same frequency ... so one might
assume it always has the same energy.
Is there something inherent in E or h that reflects or assumes a
particular light intensity standard?
Bill:
Good question. Quantum
mechanics (QM) deals with the “smallest quantity of motion.” Although my blogs have
pointed out the numerous philosophical errors in QM, physicists have used Max Planck’s
brilliant work to explore the theoretical properties of the smallest microcosms,
not without some experimental success. Nonetheless, because of the attendant philosophical
obfuscation, QM gets extraordinarily complicated. Let me try to explain what I
think it is about in simplified terms.
In neomechanics, we stress the
collisions between microcosms. The quantum would be a description of collisions
involving the smallest microcosm known, in this case, the photon. In regressive
physics, including QM, the photon is the particle that carries light from
source to observer. In neomechanics, of course, we consider aether-1
particles to be the constituents of the medium for light. In our theory light
is simply wave motion in which aether-1 particles collide with each
other as in any other wave motion. The emitted motion from the source travels
microcosm-to-microcosm to the observer, as it would in any other medium. As
in water waves, the individual aether-1 particles pretty much stay
at home. I am not sure, but these aether-1 particles could just as
easily be photons. We could call them that, except for the unfortunate
connotations given them by Einstein. True, there could be even smaller
particles, such as the aether-2 particles that Steve and I
hypothesize as the constituents of aether-1 particles.[1]
They also would be responsible for the “subquantic” motions hypothesized by physicist
David Bohm.[2]
It is doubtful, of course, that we will ever be able to detect aether-2
particles, much less hypothesize much about them. For now, let us continue with
the smallest of everything, which invariably must use Planck’s constant (h = 6.62606957
× 10-34 m2 kg / s).
From the neomechanical
perspective, I speculate that today’s “smallest quantity of motion” would be
one “cycle” in the Planck equation you mentioned:
E = hv
The “v” in the equation is the frequency in cycles per second. High
frequency light (e.g., blue, with a short wavelength) produces more collisions
per second than low frequency light (e.g., red, with a long wavelength). That
is about as close as one gets to intensity when working at the photon/aether-1
level of the universal hierarchy.
The next level involves a
qualitative change with billions of collisions instead of the individual
collisions modeled by QM. Wave-particle duality requires that the photon travel
without a medium, bringing its own waves along with it. I must admit that I
could never understand that conjecture even though I once believed in the 3 in
1 god stuff. Some of those photons must be gigantic, with some electromagnetic
waves being over 10 km long. As a practical matter, we measure light intensity
at the next level of the hierarchy in various ways, depending on the discipline
(sorry for getting a bit elementary here). Many of these, especially astronomy,
assume a spherical light source emitting in all directions. Intensity follows
the inverse-square law for light, as it does for gravitation, atomic
interactions, and many other phenomena:
Intensity is proportional
to: ______1______
Distance2
A good illustration of the
inverse square law is:[3]
The gist of the inverse
square law is that the motion produced by a particular microcosm is transmitted
geometrically in the 3-D universe, with its effect being scattered over ever-larger
spheres. We see this all the time when practicing archery. If all your arrows
hit a 4” circle at 20 yards, expect them to hit a 16” circle at 40 yards. The
spread will increase by four times when you double the distance. Similarly, an
observer or detector will see only a tiny fraction of the light emitted from a
distant body, depending on the subtended angle. Astronomers often indicate this
fraction in terms of angular diameter as seen from Earth. Looking straight up
and from the western horizon to the eastern horizon would comprise an arc of 180
degrees. The Moon has an angular diameter of less than 34 arc-minutes, while Venus
has an angular diameter of less than 66 arc-seconds simply because it is much
farther away. If all luminous celestial bodies were identical, it would be a
simple matter of estimating their distances by measuring their light intensity.
Because they are not identical, much more is involved, but you
get the point: intensity is multiple rather than singular. A single water
molecule, like the lone fan in the stadium, does not a wave make.
[1] Puetz,
S.J., and Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Universal cycle theory: Neomechanics of the
hierarchically infinite universe: Denver, Outskirts Press (
www.universalcycletheory.com ), 626 p.
[2] Bohm,
David, 1957, Causality and chance in modern physics: New York, Harper and
Brothers, 170 p.