These sort of cavity effects on superconductors have been discussed for a while. It seems to me that any cavity effects are very subtle and might not be real. I might read the paper on Monday, but...
These sort of cavity effects on superconductors have been discussed for a while. It seems to me that any cavity effects are very subtle and might not be real. I might read the paper on Monday, but my gut instinct is that it will be very difficult to tease out a nontrivial cavity effect from something trivial in experiment.
The math in this article is way above me head. That said, I was listening to an excerpt of a Feynman lecture yesterday, who I find infinitely more accessible. The man had a real skill at teaching....
The math in this article is way above me head. That said, I was listening to an excerpt of a Feynman lecture yesterday, who I find infinitely more accessible. The man had a real skill at teaching. He was speaking on how each photon emitted actually travels every possible path along its route instantly. He goes on to say that the vectors for all but the path of least resistance that we observe it traveling cancel each other out. Is this a layman's way of understanding what these "virtual photons" are, or are they something unrelated?
I find myself wondering if the fact that photons have mass, are simultaneously everywhere, exert gravitational force, and instantly travel all paths somehow relates to what we've labelled "dark matter".
I love that I was introduced to something similar to this in a community college physics class (shout out to Mr. Balough at F-City [not a profanity, it's my hometown] College), if he will ever...
I love that I was introduced to something similar to this in a community college physics class (shout out to Mr. Balough at F-City [not a profanity, it's my hometown] College), if he will ever read this). Granted, it was while the Hadron Collider was being built and string theory was included in the education as well... but my later education (~+15 years after that) caught me up. And I almost follow the article, though as @arch stated, Feynman made things easier to easily follow.
So I can't comment on all of it, but although photons do have momentum (the quotient of Planck's constant and the photon's wavelength), they do not have mass. This is what allows them to travel...
So I can't comment on all of it, but although photons do have momentum (the quotient of Planck's constant and the photon's wavelength), they do not have mass. This is what allows them to travel at, well... the speed of light without requiring infinite energy to get there.
Lacking mass, it is very difficult (likely impossible) for light to exert gravitational effects. Furthermore, as mentioned, light has a much larger effect pushing outward than pulling inward. Of course, cosmologically, this effect is also deeply attenuated at distance, as the expanding universe causes the wavelength to become redshifted, decreasing its aforementioned momentum, in the process, so it can't contribute anything to the dark energy side of the equation, either.
These sort of cavity effects on superconductors have been discussed for a while. It seems to me that any cavity effects are very subtle and might not be real. I might read the paper on Monday, but my gut instinct is that it will be very difficult to tease out a nontrivial cavity effect from something trivial in experiment.
The math in this article is way above me head. That said, I was listening to an excerpt of a Feynman lecture yesterday, who I find infinitely more accessible. The man had a real skill at teaching. He was speaking on how each photon emitted actually travels every possible path along its route instantly. He goes on to say that the vectors for all but the path of least resistance that we observe it traveling cancel each other out. Is this a layman's way of understanding what these "virtual photons" are, or are they something unrelated?
I find myself wondering if the fact that photons have mass, are simultaneously everywhere, exert gravitational force, and instantly travel all paths somehow relates to what we've labelled "dark matter".
I love that I was introduced to something similar to this in a community college physics class (shout out to Mr. Balough at F-City [not a profanity, it's my hometown] College), if he will ever read this). Granted, it was while the Hadron Collider was being built and string theory was included in the education as well... but my later education (~+15 years after that) caught me up. And I almost follow the article, though as @arch stated, Feynman made things easier to easily follow.
So I can't comment on all of it, but although photons do have momentum (the quotient of Planck's constant and the photon's wavelength), they do not have mass. This is what allows them to travel at, well... the speed of light without requiring infinite energy to get there.
Lacking mass, it is very difficult (likely impossible) for light to exert gravitational effects. Furthermore, as mentioned, light has a much larger effect pushing outward than pulling inward. Of course, cosmologically, this effect is also deeply attenuated at distance, as the expanding universe causes the wavelength to become redshifted, decreasing its aforementioned momentum, in the process, so it can't contribute anything to the dark energy side of the equation, either.
Which lecture if you remember? I've heard this before and can't get my head around how it works, I'd be curious to give it a listen.
This is an interesting article about the quantum effect of photons. I’m not a quantum physicist so if anyone has any critique please post it!