Followon to image theory
Cecil Moore wrote:
There is no contradiction in quantum electrodynamics.
There's certainly a paradox.
A photon encounters an electron in a radial and is
absorbed.
We know that electrons are inspired to move in a particular fashion
when they are irradiated. But how does a photon tell the electron
which way it should move? Kinematics would seem to have little to do
with this phenomenon.
Later, that same electron emits a photon.
A photon which, if the direction in which it is emitted is unknown,
can be made to create a diffraction pattern - implying that a wave was
emitted rather than a particle. Putting us right back where we started.
The photon cloud surrounding
a radial contains photons that came from that radial
and from everywhere else.
But what is it about this "cloud" that is actually cloud-like? Isn't
it really more like a wave of photons? :-)
That some photons must be
put in a basket labeled "reflected" and some put in
a basket labeled "not reflected" is simply nonsense.
I think Feynman uses almost that exact analogy, with probabilities
assigned to each, in the first few pages of QED.
73, ac6xg
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