- #1
DiracPool
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What is the most accurate way to think of a photon moving through space?
1) Should we think of it as an entity that travels as an integrated corpuscle that parts the "quark sea" of empty space and maintains it's internal integrity as it moves from point A to point B, or..
2) Should we think of it more as the propagation of a "quanta" or measured value of energy through an essentially unmoving, rigid medium, kind of like a domino effect where a perturbation in one part of the medium in turn perturbates the adjacent part, and so on down the line?
In latter instance, the medium doesn't move but for a simple oscillation around a center point, and nothing is "cutting through" the medium as we would think of, say, a thrown baseball cutting through the medium of the atmosphere. Whereas in the former case, we have an integrated, autonomous object cutting through some medium.
1) Should we think of it as an entity that travels as an integrated corpuscle that parts the "quark sea" of empty space and maintains it's internal integrity as it moves from point A to point B, or..
2) Should we think of it more as the propagation of a "quanta" or measured value of energy through an essentially unmoving, rigid medium, kind of like a domino effect where a perturbation in one part of the medium in turn perturbates the adjacent part, and so on down the line?
In latter instance, the medium doesn't move but for a simple oscillation around a center point, and nothing is "cutting through" the medium as we would think of, say, a thrown baseball cutting through the medium of the atmosphere. Whereas in the former case, we have an integrated, autonomous object cutting through some medium.