From: Marc Afifi (marc_afifi@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 29 2000 - 12:14:06 PST
Message-ID: <20000329201406.10595.qmail@web204.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 12:14:06 -0800 (PST) From: Marc Afifi <marc_afifi@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: QED
Paul,
Believe it or not, my students will love your answer
to question 3. It will undoubtedly inspire more truth
seeking questions which I will have to forward along
to you.
I remember you saying that an experiment was done in
which red laser light was caused to turn green by
sending it through a saw-toothed chopper. Presumably,
the color change was an effect of shortening the
photon. Now, if the photon takes every possible path
in the universe(I assume it can do this because
distance between two points is infinitely
contracted)then how is it that chopping it in a very
narrow region of space causes the entire universal
photon to change color?
On a related note, I love Bob Miller's image walk and
do it with my students every year. In the past I have
gotten away with saying things like every photon
contains all the information of the whole image, but
this year I didn't. I explained that the image got
clearer with a smaller hole because fewer photons were
allowed to interfere with each other. Then I made the
statement that every photon contains the information
from the entire image and thus the greatest detail
would be revealed if just one photon was allowed to
hit the screen. My very bright (no pun intended)
students didn't like that and challenged me. So I got
to thinking and I realized that the error was in using
the idea of a clear image in this explanation because
if just one photon were allowed to hit the screen the
hole would have to be so small that diffraction would
occur and there would be no image, just blurry
fringes. Now, if every photon contains all the
information of the entire image but diffraction causes
us not to see the image if the hole is too small, is
the information of the entire image stored in the
fringes of the diffraction pattern? Or am I, once
again, out to lunch on this one?
-Marc
=====
Marc Afifi
Chemistry, Physics, Marine Science
Pacific Grove High School
Pacific Grove, CA
http://www.pghs.org/staff/afifi/d5hp.html
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