If the chromatic structure of white light I am proposing is correct then the conventional understanding of light, in general, is flawed. And vice versa, of course. Indeed, there is no way that the two can live together, and there’s no way that some form of reconciliation could ever be found. The reason is simple and immediately obvious.
The conventional understanding of light is based on the assumption that the particle of light, the photon, is emitted with a definite wavelength, which it uncompromisingly maintains for its entire lifespan. And the lifespan of the photon is, in principle, infinite. In effect the conventional understanding of light asserts that a photon emitted at point A with a definite wavelength (which also determines the photon’s frequency, its energy, its colour) travels to point Z (theoretically, to infinity) without changing any of its attributes. In order, then, to preserve the conventional understanding of light and to accept the chromatic structure I have proposed one must believe that the photons emitted by a source are part of a grand conspiracy. That’s because one is left with no other choice than to accept that all atoms of a source of light, acting in perfect unison, first emit a wave of red photons, then one of orange, followed by a wave of green ones, then blue, then violet photons—and then keep repeating this cycle for the entire lifetime of the source. This is the only way light (as conventionally understood) could display the chromatic structure I have proposed. And no one can believe that. I certainly don’t.
But I don’t believe that the conventional understanding of light is correct either. There are many reasons why I don’t believe in the conventional description of light, but since we’ve been talking about the behaviour of light in prismatic experiments I want to show you now one reason specific to our current topic.
In my own investigation on the prismatic behaviour of light I have conducted the following experiment. On a large triangular prism I have drawn a line parallel with the refracting angle, at half way on one side. Then I reasoned: If the conventional understanding of light is correct, when I’ll turn the prism around to look at the image of the line from the side opposite to the one where the real line is drawn, I should find that the virtual line on that side appears displaced lower than half way. That’s because, in accordance to the conventional understanding, the image of the line is carried by particular photons from its original position, and since those photons are refracted at an angle less than the incident the image of the line should appear at a lower point on the other side of the prism. There is no room for compromises in this reasoning, and the conventional assertion is direct and categorical. Upon conducting this experiment, however, I found that exactly the opposite is the case! (See the photos below.)
Now this was an observational fact I had never seen discussed anywhere, so I have no idea if it is even known in conventional physics. But its theoretical implications are manifold, beside its obvious violation of the conventional rules of refraction. (A note of caution for physicists: Do not be tempted to resort to ‘geometrical’ explanations. Think carefully and assess the experiment on its own merits). The most important theoretical implication of this observational fact will become manifest in my understanding of the nature of light, which I’ll discuss in a moment. Before getting to that, however, I want to show you two more photos—in which you’ll see two variations of the experiment above.
These photos do not only reinforce the conclusions of my previous experiment; they should also dissuade physicists from trying to find some patch to cover this new hole in the conventional theories. I have no doubt that the pictures above do not need any additional explanations either, especially since any interested party can easily confirm the observations for themselves.
This simple experiment demands a definite answer, and that answer can clearly not be extracted from the conventional understanding of the phenomena involved. But this experiment, when analysed with genuine objectivity, reveals some marvellous aspects of the nature of light. For instance, a close scrutiny of the experiment shows that the image passing through the prism does not only defy the path predicted by the conventional theory—it also chooses the shortest path through the prism! This fact is significant and beautiful at the same time. Another significant realisation—even if puzzling, at a first sight—is that the image passing through the prism is not carried by the photons which the conventional theory demands. How could the image in the experiment above, then, travel in the opposite direction? After all the image is carried by the light itself, isn’t it? This may seem like a paradox, but in reality everything can be beautifully explained by extending the mechanics of wave propagation in a medium to a quantum description of light.
On how light travels in my universe, according to my understanding of quantum mechanics
More than two thousand years ago the ancient Greeks proclaimed that in the Universe things unfold “as above, so below”. That meant that the same rules govern the phenomena at macroscopic level—the world of planets, stars, galaxies—as well as at the microscopic one—in the realm of atoms. At the same time they also declared that “Nature abhors a vacuum”—meaning that there is no place for nothingness in the Universe. And until recently, historically speaking, these two Greek ideas had served and guided humanity’s quest for knowledge well.
With the advent of quantum mechanics, however, both those ancient principles have been discarded. Why? The conventional physicist would probably answer that he had no choice, since the experimental evidence and the quantum theory that ensued have proved that those two ideas are incompatible with the physical reality.
Consider the modern understanding of what light is. Let’s ponder for a while especially at the way the conventional physicist describes, in plain language, how the particle of light travels from its point of emission A to a point Z. First of all, the photon is understood to have a dual nature—it is a particle and a wave. These two radically different aspects can be quite comprehensibly described in one sentence: The photon travels as a wave and arrives as a particle. Thus, a photon emitted at point A has a definite energy, which automatically gives it a definite wavelength and a definite frequency. All these attributes are directly related, of course, and knowing just one of those attributes automatically tells one what the others are. Now, wavelength and frequency are physical attributes that belong to the waves phenomena, and waves require a medium in order to exist. The photon, however, does not require a medium in order to exist and to travel, according to the current understanding. This idea of a medium-less wave was somewhat forced into physics by a chain of events that started from a philosophical debate about the nature of space and ended with an experiment which failed to detect a dubious theoretical medium that was supposed to fill space. This most important chain of events will be the subject of my next article and I will therefore say no more about it here. For my purpose it suffices to say now that in the conventional theory the photon travels from its point of emission A to point Z (meaning to the end of the Universe, to infinity) without changing either its original attributes or its speed.
In developing my own understanding of light I began by assessing all theoretical and empirical contentious issues which the conventional theory could either not explain at all (like the experiment above, and the prismatic observations I have discussed earlier), or to which the conventional theory offered what I considered to be desperate or debatable answers (like in the two-slit experiment and its more sophisticated variations; e.g. the delayed choice experiment). I wanted my understanding to have a solid physical basis also, from which its answers to the above experimental observations could flow naturally and coherently. To that end I thus drew a list of requirements my understanding should uncompromisingly meet, and then I looked for the physical basis that should form its backbone. This step turned out to be the easiest of all—to my complete satisfaction.
Consider the phenomenon of water waves. This is perhaps the most familiar form of waves to us—even more familiar than sound. That’s because water waves are tangible, and their medium can be seen. The medium is water, and when that medium waves it creates waves. (Pun intended, of course). That’s simple enough, but there is one crucial thing relevant to this phenomenon. When the water waves, the water is moving up and down but it remains in the same place. In other words, the water that forms a wave does not travel from one place to another—it simply raises above its normal level and then drops below its normal level. When it raises it forms a crest, when it drops it forms a trough. The water itself, however, remains in the same place; it does not travel. And, strictly speaking, neither does the wave. The only thing that travels is the disturbance in the body of water, and that disturbance creates the waves by forcing the water to raise at certain points. Thus, as the disturbance travels from point to point it creates new waves along the way. This is the crucial aspect of wave formation in water, and if you imagine a body of water extending from A to Z, then a disturbance travelling in that water creates a wave at A, then another at B, then C, and so on.
The water wave formation I’ve briefly described is, in fact, characteristic for all types of wave formations in a medium. The generation of waves in a medium is the direct result of that medium’s reaction to some form of physical disturbance, and ultimately the shapes and distribution of the waves represent the evolution in time of that disturbance. It is therefore possible to learn from an observation of the waving field of a particular generator of waves a great deal about the disturbance that generates those waves. Thus I was reasoning, when I began looking for a coherent understanding of the nature of light. Of course, the conventional belief is that light does not require a medium in order to travel, and conventional physicists are convinced that their belief is empirically sustained by experiments (one of those being the in-famous Michelson-Morley experiment). But, after an intensive scrutiny of the theoretical arguments and experimental evidence onto which the conventional understanding was built, I found that my reasoning was reinforced—rather than weakened. That fascinating chapter will form the backbone of my next article, however. In this article I have tried to stick as much as possible to the main subject—which is concerned with the behaviour of light in prismatic experiments according to my understanding.
An exploration into the nature of light inevitably means a departure from the so-called classical physics and an entry into the quantum world. And the quantum world, according to the conventional understanding, is a bizarre realm. It is a world where common sense plays no part and where the governing laws are statistical in nature and decreed by chance alone, we have been repeatedly told. So much so that anyone who is not shocked by quantum mechanics does not understand it, we have also been warned.
From my perspective, on the other hand, the only thing I found bizarre in the conventional understanding of quantum phenomena was the perseverance with which the scientific community continued to maintain the assumptions upon which their theory was based even when they realised that the results of those assumptions were inevitably forcing them toward increasingly incoherent conclusions. For instance, consider the essential idea of the so-called two-slit experiment—which, according to Feynman, incorporates the fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics. If the conventional physicist hadn’t been lured into declaring that there is no such thing as a spatial frame of reference at absolute rest (or, had he thought carefully about the nature of ether before discarding it as superfluous) who would have found the results of that experiment bizarre? Think about it. (I’ll discuss this subject in my next article).
The truth is simple—no one would have been shocked by the results of the two-slit experiment (and of all other experiments based on it, for that matter). In fact the results of all those experiments would have been predicted (and indeed expected), isn’t it? As it happened, in spite of realising that they were pushed inexorably toward increasingly bizarre and incoherent conclusions by some of their highly dubious assumptions, the conventional physicists at the forefront of the research into quantum phenomena never found the strength to go back before the creation of some famous theories, and to start a new quantum investigation afresh. They chose instead to continue with the same assumptions, and to force the rest of us to believe that in order to understand the quantum phenomena we must abandon common sense and logical reasoning.
But I refused to buy that idea. For two reasons. Firstly, because I found it absurd, not bizarre. (And to my mind the Universe cannot be absurd. It can probably be bizarre, but not absurd). Secondly, because the price to pay for that idea was grossly inflated. (Meaning that, to my mind, for what the conventional quantum theory offered it asked far too much in return. I won’t elaborate on this).
I chose, instead, to disregard the conventional assumption of the non-existence of a frame of reference at absolute rest and to adopt the mechanics of wave propagation in a medium. The frame of reference at absolute rest I adopted was akin to Newton’s absolute space, not the imaginary ether that was supposed to fill space as in Maxwell’s equations. In effect I decided to consider light as a disturbance of the spatial continuum. And in adopting this view I was in good company, for many conventional physicists have thought, along with John A. Wheeler that
...A particle is a quantum state of excitation of space, a “geometro-dynamical excitation”.
As the particle of light, the photon—therefore—is the excitation of a quantum of space, and it comes into being as the direct reaction to a spatial disturbance. In a way the photon is light’s equivalent of a water wave. If we imagine a source emitting light at a point A, then that event results in a spatial vibration beginning at that point which propagates through space creating photons along the way (at points B, C, D...). This simple idea is central to my understanding of light.
Of course, apart from this basic idea that forms the core of my understanding, there are quite a few other things that need to be comprehensively explained. Before taking on that task, however, I want to show you a couple of animations that illustrate what I’ve discussed so far. Firstly, below on the right is an animation of how I see light ‘travelling’ from a point of emission to an observer. Compare my understanding to the conventional one (shown on the left), paying special attention to the photons’ distribution in each animation. Secondly, below those two animations there is another, which illustrates my understanding of what the light field of a source (emitting mostly in the visual spectrum) looks like, and in this case I leave the comparison to the conventional view to your imagination.
I’m sure the animations above have helped in conveying to you most of my understanding of light, without any additional explanations. But, as I was saying earlier, there are a few essential points that need elaboration. The most important point in my understanding of light is that space plays a major dual role: It is the medium within which a sufficiently energetic disturbance creates photons, and it is also an integral part of any electromagnetic field. A crucial aspect of the roles played by space in my understanding is somewhat related to the ancient belief that “Nature abhors a vacuum”. This means that, in my understanding, there are no gaps in the light (electromagnetic) field. This is in direct contradiction to the conventional view, where one could theoretically thread one’s path in the electromagnetic field of a source by avoiding contact with any photons. In my understanding, however, any point in the electromagnetic field of a source is subjected to an unavoidable contact with a stream of photons. In effect, at any point an observer would record a succession of photons, which in the human visual spectrum would be formed by a red photon, followed by an orange one, then a yellow...
There are many important points I did not discuss in this little chapter, mainly because they necessitate careful elaboration (and that would have forced me to digress from the subject I have tackled so far). This little chapter, which I called “How light travels in my universe”, has revealed enough though to enable you to see on what basis I believe that there is a better explanation for the prismatic experiments than the basically Newtonian view, which forms the foundation of the conventional understanding. Next I will subject the most important prismatic experiments to an analysis from my own perspective of light, and I will follow that with a comprehensive article on quantum mechanics and the nature of light in my understanding.
There are many important points I did not discuss in this little chapter, mainly because they necessitate careful elaboration (and that would have forced me to digress from the subject I have tackled so far). This little chapter, which I called “How light travels in my universe”, has revealed enough though to enable you to see on what basis I believe that there is a better explanation for the prismatic experiments than the basically Newtonian view, which forms the foundation of the conventional understanding. Next I will subject the most important prismatic experiments to an analysis from my own perspective of light, and I will follow that with a comprehensive article on quantum mechanics and the nature of light in my understanding.
Prismatic experiments in a new light
The first prismatic experiment ever conducted involved simply an observation of how things appeared when one looked at the world around through a prism, or a similarly shaped block of glass. What is observed in such an experiment is known by everyone: Objects appear outlined with the familiar colours of the rainbow. It is said that none other than Aristotle first offered an explanation for this observation, and if that is true his explanation was accepted as a fact until late seventeenth century, when Newton began his own investigation of light by designing and performing new prismatic experiments.
I have already talked about those events and I have analysed the pros and cons of what is known in this field. If you remember, I pointed out that although Newton’s theory of light and colours toppled the modificationist views that preceded it, it never offered an explanation for that earliest prismatic experiment I mentioned above. In fact even today, more than two millennia since Aristotle’s time, there still isn’t an official explanation for the observational fact of that experiment. I have been asking the scientific community for many years now to clarify this issue, without success. About eighteen months ago I even posted a challenge on YouTube for the conventional physicists to answer (in the context of the mainstream theory, of course) this question—with the same negative result. I have written to hundreds of conventional physicists around the world, with the same request and basically with the same result.
Naturally, in this situation anyone should ask: Why?
A conventional answer to my challenges
It’s been nine months since the beginning of my personal revolution against the reigning theories held as absolute doctrines by the current establishment of conventional physicists. I had begun my revolution by presenting on YouTube three simple experiments which I know the conventional physicist cannot explain by using his theories. In these nine months I have written to hundreds of conventional physicists around the world, from simple Ph.Ds to Nobel Prize winners, inviting them to explain the observational facts of my experiments. Nine months ago I was still naive enough to believe that in a matter of a few short weeks I will receive a sufficient number of responses to use as a healthy beginning for that badly needed reassessment of the conventional understanding in physics. I know that a substantial number of those I have written to have watched my videos. I know that because I had to resort to some harmless tricks in order to entice them to watch the video with the experiments, although I do not know exactly who exactly watched them. I know, nevertheless, that a group from Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge did, a group led by no less a figure than the Nobel laureate Prof. Brian Josephson.
This group, I was told by the great man himself, could see nothing wrong with the current state of conventional understanding—although they didn’t bother to show me how their understanding could explain the observational facts of my experiments. Prof. Josephson sent me a couple of emails with rather obscure messages (you can find them in my blog), but nothing of significance came out of our short-lived correspondence. As the time was passing I had resigned myself to devising some new strategy, but then—finally—I received an email from a conventional scientist, an email with a definite answer to my request.
The email was from Prof. Steven Dutch, from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Now, Professor Dutch’s field of expertise is really Geology, but he also teaches Astronomy at the named University—which certainly entitles him to offer an expert opinion to my request. This fact was reinforced by his prompt reply, in which he did not even hint that my request was falling somewhat outside his sphere of expertise. I must also say that, in any event, his answer was (as you’ll be able to see for yourself) in complete agreement with the current theoretical understanding of the issues I had raised. Before showing you his reply, however, I would like to tell you—very briefly—about how I came to write to Prof. Dutch.
In my daily browsing of the Web I came across this page. I loved the first paragraph on this page so much that I immediately decided to write to the author. For those who did not click on the link above I reproduce here the paragraph I’m talking about.
It’s been nine months since the beginning of my personal revolution against the reigning theories held as absolute doctrines by the current establishment of conventional physicists. I had begun my revolution by presenting on YouTube three simple experiments which I know the conventional physicist cannot explain by using his theories. In these nine months I have written to hundreds of conventional physicists around the world, from simple Ph.Ds to Nobel Prize winners, inviting them to explain the observational facts of my experiments. Nine months ago I was still naive enough to believe that in a matter of a few short weeks I will receive a sufficient number of responses to use as a healthy beginning for that badly needed reassessment of the conventional understanding in physics. I know that a substantial number of those I have written to have watched my videos. I know that because I had to resort to some harmless tricks in order to entice them to watch the video with the experiments, although I do not know exactly who exactly watched them. I know, nevertheless, that a group from Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge did, a group led by no less a figure than the Nobel laureate Prof. Brian Josephson.
This group, I was told by the great man himself, could see nothing wrong with the current state of conventional understanding—although they didn’t bother to show me how their understanding could explain the observational facts of my experiments. Prof. Josephson sent me a couple of emails with rather obscure messages (you can find them in my blog), but nothing of significance came out of our short-lived correspondence. As the time was passing I had resigned myself to devising some new strategy, but then—finally—I received an email from a conventional scientist, an email with a definite answer to my request.
The email was from Prof. Steven Dutch, from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Now, Professor Dutch’s field of expertise is really Geology, but he also teaches Astronomy at the named University—which certainly entitles him to offer an expert opinion to my request. This fact was reinforced by his prompt reply, in which he did not even hint that my request was falling somewhat outside his sphere of expertise. I must also say that, in any event, his answer was (as you’ll be able to see for yourself) in complete agreement with the current theoretical understanding of the issues I had raised. Before showing you his reply, however, I would like to tell you—very briefly—about how I came to write to Prof. Dutch.
In my daily browsing of the Web I came across this page. I loved the first paragraph on this page so much that I immediately decided to write to the author. For those who did not click on the link above I reproduce here the paragraph I’m talking about.
A Note to Visitors
I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issue with any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question: What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong? I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutability is one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover, I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determine whether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games. Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all you have to do is commit to a criterion for testing. It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-minded enough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
Now, as I was saying, I loved this paragraph so much that without any delay I sent Prof. Dutch the following email.
I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issue with any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question: What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong? I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutability is one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover, I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determine whether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games. Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all you have to do is commit to a criterion for testing. It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-minded enough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
Now, as I was saying, I loved this paragraph so much that without any delay I sent Prof. Dutch the following email.
From: Remus Poradin [mailto:remusp@optusnet.com.au]
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 1:47 AM
To: Dutch, Steve
Subject: Experimental proof that the conventional theory of light propagation is flawed
Dear Professor Dutch,
Firstly, as you demand in your website, I will answer your question. I will be satisfied that my belief (see the subject of this email) is wrong if you can explain--by using the conventional theory, of course--the challenges presented in this video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNvE_X5JIcQ
If you cannot do it I will then ask you the same question: What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong? Now, I know that the conventional theory cannot answer the challenges in that video, but I'll save you the embarrassment of having to invoke some phony excuse that will prevent you from answering this email, and--as such--I will invite you to look up the answers to those challenges on this page online http://jaccuse.info/About%20light.html
Thanking you for attention
Remus Poradin
P.S I know that there is slim to nil chances of receiving an answer from you, but I hope that you will learn a valuable lesson about personal beliefs, wisdom, and truth. Thank you once again.
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 1:47 AM
To: Dutch, Steve
Subject: Experimental proof that the conventional theory of light propagation is flawed
Dear Professor Dutch,
Firstly, as you demand in your website, I will answer your question. I will be satisfied that my belief (see the subject of this email) is wrong if you can explain--by using the conventional theory, of course--the challenges presented in this video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNvE_X5JIcQ
If you cannot do it I will then ask you the same question: What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong? Now, I know that the conventional theory cannot answer the challenges in that video, but I'll save you the embarrassment of having to invoke some phony excuse that will prevent you from answering this email, and--as such--I will invite you to look up the answers to those challenges on this page online http://jaccuse.info/About%20light.html
Thanking you for attention
Remus Poradin
P.S I know that there is slim to nil chances of receiving an answer from you, but I hope that you will learn a valuable lesson about personal beliefs, wisdom, and truth. Thank you once again.
I must say that the tone in my email was deliberate, and I make no apologies for it. I must also say that I did not expect an answer to my email, but—to the Professor’s credit—I was wrong on this.
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