Let's Argue About A Photon

[James_S_Saint]

Twitty, my apologies, I missed this post entirely and I don’t want to get into another argument but I will repeat that an equation is NOT a definition. An equation merely relates one measurement to other measurements, but it does NOT tell you WHAT it is that you are measuring. That is the area of Philosophy in which scientists are so very poor.

@lizbethrose

if light has the duality of both particle and electromagnetic wave length and speed(?), wouldn’t a photon–as the elementary substance(?) of light–not also have a dual nature? We don’t ‘see’ the particles that constitute light because they have no mass–nor does a photon particle–but the photon can be observed because of its behavior–When meeting with a mass, it curves around that mass because of gravity. The curving is what’s seen, rather than the particle.

You have several things in that mixed together.
Yes, a photon has a “dual nature” in the sense that you are meaning.
We DO “see” photons. Photons are ALL we ever see. You only see because of the effect of photons striking your eyes.

“Mass” has 2 definitional characteristics (which is common in physics and actually 3 when you get deep into it). A mass is characterized by “mass attraction” or “gravity” and also characterized by “inertia”. Thus you have “gravitational mass” and “inertial mass”. Due to the way those characteristics are measured, they turn out to always be equal (but it is a matter of presumptions being made in the measuring).

Whether a photon has “mass” or “inertia” depends on how someone is defining those terms (which they avoid), what effect it will have on other presumed equations, and is why there is such confusion about it.

The curving of the photon around a mass is not why we see it, but rather it is why we can eventually see it even though a mass might be between it’s origin and us. We don’t see the photon until it strikes our eyes. A photon’s direction of travel is affected by gravitational mass, thus it curves its path when close enough to a mass object. You never “see” the path that the photon takes. You have to figure it out and it is commonly assumed to be straight, but that has been corrected in Science.

@lizbethrose

If I’m even semi-correct, so far, then what is the ‘particle.’ It has no mass, so it can’t be visualized as, say, analogous to a grain of sand. Can I visualize a photon particle as a minute speck of energy–a quantum sun, so to speak?

Yes. Or think of it as a grain of sand that is totally hollow with almost no shell. But remember that is only a visual thing. It isn’t shaped that way at all. A photon’s true shape is still up for debate. My work so far implies that its shape is more like an extremely small, short twirling snake of electromagnetic energy. And its color is due to the length of the snake compared to the number of times it twirls. A short tightly twirling photon will be blue. A longer, not so tightly twirling photon will be red.