- #1
Q-reeus
- 1,115
- 3
First, a short story to illustrate a philosophical issue I have not seen discussed let alone resolved:
Mac was about to press the 'On' button of his super-duper special microwave oven with perfectly reflecting interior walls. Inside, a random jumble of thermal photons, comprising a 'photon gas', criss-crosses the interior. One of them, let's call it 'Phil', reflects on the fact that apart from an absurdly small coupling from gravitational 'charge' computed on the basis of their individual energies E = hf, they are non-interacting massless Bosons. Blissfully indifferent to each others presence, they pass through each other without in any way effecting the others energy, momentum, phase, polarization or spin - 'ghosts through ghosts'. Not only total energy but also net gravitational influence is just the sum of their individual contributions. All is sensible thinks Phil. But then Mac gives that 'On' button a short burst (quickly realizing there was nothing inside to absorb the energy), and suddenly Phil is living in a strangely different environment. By chance Phil has the correct frequency, phase, orientation and location to be in lock-step with billions of newly added photons, all in lock-step with each other (microwave oven as an energized cavity resonator). Phil, along with each lock-step neighbor, becomes aware by calculation that now each has amazingly acquired billions of times their individual energies E = hf and momentum p = E/c, since by superposition the net cavity field amplitude is just the linear sum of their individual contributions, whereas the cavity field energy density goes as the square of that amplitude. (Phil realizes there is no net system energy anomaly - the oven had to work harder and harder in pumping in all those new photons). What's more, Phil and co now have to each churn out billions times more virtual gravitons in keeping with their mutually enhanced energies (optionally, replace 'virtual gravitons' with 'spacetime curvature'). Noticing that the thermal photons continue on exactly as before, Phil frowns "this collectivist madness is insane; how can we be 'non-interacting' in every other way except for this incredible blow-up in mutual energy/momentum/gravity?" End of story.
Might just as well have used a different scenario comparing the mutual energy/momentum/gravity of say light beams intersecting at right angles, one being a phase-coherent laser beam, the other an incoherent beam from say a flash-light. Same dilemma arises. Sure, system behavior works out OK in accordance with the formal mathematical framework, but is that good enough? Is it all covered satisfactorily in QFT - 'overlapping wave-functions' or some such? Input please.
Mac was about to press the 'On' button of his super-duper special microwave oven with perfectly reflecting interior walls. Inside, a random jumble of thermal photons, comprising a 'photon gas', criss-crosses the interior. One of them, let's call it 'Phil', reflects on the fact that apart from an absurdly small coupling from gravitational 'charge' computed on the basis of their individual energies E = hf, they are non-interacting massless Bosons. Blissfully indifferent to each others presence, they pass through each other without in any way effecting the others energy, momentum, phase, polarization or spin - 'ghosts through ghosts'. Not only total energy but also net gravitational influence is just the sum of their individual contributions. All is sensible thinks Phil. But then Mac gives that 'On' button a short burst (quickly realizing there was nothing inside to absorb the energy), and suddenly Phil is living in a strangely different environment. By chance Phil has the correct frequency, phase, orientation and location to be in lock-step with billions of newly added photons, all in lock-step with each other (microwave oven as an energized cavity resonator). Phil, along with each lock-step neighbor, becomes aware by calculation that now each has amazingly acquired billions of times their individual energies E = hf and momentum p = E/c, since by superposition the net cavity field amplitude is just the linear sum of their individual contributions, whereas the cavity field energy density goes as the square of that amplitude. (Phil realizes there is no net system energy anomaly - the oven had to work harder and harder in pumping in all those new photons). What's more, Phil and co now have to each churn out billions times more virtual gravitons in keeping with their mutually enhanced energies (optionally, replace 'virtual gravitons' with 'spacetime curvature'). Noticing that the thermal photons continue on exactly as before, Phil frowns "this collectivist madness is insane; how can we be 'non-interacting' in every other way except for this incredible blow-up in mutual energy/momentum/gravity?" End of story.
Might just as well have used a different scenario comparing the mutual energy/momentum/gravity of say light beams intersecting at right angles, one being a phase-coherent laser beam, the other an incoherent beam from say a flash-light. Same dilemma arises. Sure, system behavior works out OK in accordance with the formal mathematical framework, but is that good enough? Is it all covered satisfactorily in QFT - 'overlapping wave-functions' or some such? Input please.
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