Re: teeny atoms absorb huge EM waves

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Mon, 2 Aug 1999, Jim Green wrote:

> I sometimes think that our common physics teacher parlance gets in the way
> of our understanding: In this thread we have "energy " being "sucked in" as
> if it were a fluid and not a property of a body.  This is like saying the
> object "sucked in " "blue" and became "bluer"

Not "energy", but "electromagnetic energy".  Would you say that a
laser-pointer's beam is a property of a body?  I would say that it's a
propagating column of electromagnetic energy; that it exists as an entity
distinct from any bodies.  I would say the same about the microwave beam
coming from a radar dish, or about the EM flux in the dielectric within a
coaxial cable at 1GHZ or at DC.  Plot the Poynting vector field, and we
see the flow-lines of the propagating "stuff."  Those flow lines might not
really exist, even if the "stuff" does propagate in the directions they
indicate.

Fields might be an abstract concept, but they describe something in the
real world, and that "something" is not just an abstract concept, and not
just a property of some other entity.  The same goes for the stuff I'm
calling "EM energy".  Energy in general might be an abstract concept, but
"light beam" or "RF waves" are something that actually exists in the real
world.



I keep noticing a particular concept which has given me physics-insights
in the past.  Remember the classic optical illusion which is a drawing of
an old woman's face, and also a drawing of a seated young woman looking
away?  More and more I'm coming to realize that the entire physical world
is just like that drawing: the real world cannot be pinned down to a
single "correct" interpretation.  Instead there are a variety of
interpretations which conflict with each other.  Does that drawing depict
an old woman?  Yes, but when we see the old woman's face, the young woman
vanishes.  What then is the SINGLE CORRECT interpretation of that drawing?
In other words, what is the real world REALLY like?  If we give an answer,
we throw away all of the equally-valid but incompatible answers.  (This
isn't QM I'm discussing, this is regarding our personal experience of the
everyday world.)

So, am I a fractal crystal or am I an electrochemical reaction?  Am I a
cloud of independant atoms, or am I a semi-liquid?  Am I an opaque object,
or a self-aware neural network?  When I look at one, the other vanishes.
I can fool myself by rapidly switching back and forth, and then deciding
that both viewpoints are true simultaneously.  But this is a mistake, just
as if I had decided that I can see the old and the young woman
simultaneously in the optical illusion.

If I concentrate on looking for the one right description of the real
world, I end up with an extremely limited viewpoint, and things such as
wave-particle duality seem strange as a result.  I'm beginning to suspect
that wave-particle duality is normal, and it's our quest for the "one
correct description" which is bizarre.  What is the real world, really?
The question is improper.  It's like asking what that drawing of the
old/young woman depicts when nobody is looking at it.


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William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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