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Re: QUANTA

"John S. Denker" wrote:
1) Atoms are really small. They are too small to couple well to the
Maxwell field. Therefore they are always high-Q oscillators. A Q of 10^8
is typical. (The same cannot be said for dye molecules, which are large
enough to couple rather better.)

Could you elaborate on this point? What sets the size scale of the
"Maxwell field"? Since you are talking about oscillators, I assume that
we're talking about a transverse size scale. But maybe you are just
referring to wavelength?

--
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UC San Diego, Chemistry