Keith Dysart wrote:
Transmission lines can be
understood well, and real world problems solved without
reference to photons and EM waves.

If that were true, we would not be having this
argument. The real world problem is - where does
the reflected EM energy go? Since you have not "solved
that real world problem", your methods are suspect.

OTOH, optical physicists solved that same problem
long before any of us were born.

Why won't you use the circuit
theory bases equations to solve problems for which they
work?

The main reason not to use your methods is that you use
them to arrive at wrong concepts. EM waves cannot exist
without energy. If there exists no EM wave energy, there
are no EM waves. If EM waves exist, they are necessarily
associated with energy and momentum, both of which must
be conserved. The amount of that energy flowing past a
measurement point/plane in a unit-time is the power
(density) associated with the reflected wave. Even the
energy and momentum of a single photon can be calculated.

Any length of transmission line with reflections contains
exactly the amount of energy necessary to support the
forward and reflected waves. That amount of energy exists
in the transmission line and is not delivered to the load
during steady-state.

Because your model doesn't tell you where the reflected
energy goes, you assume there is zero energy in reflected
waves. Again, I challenge you to use your fingers to
replace the reflected power circulator load in a system
with a KW source driving an open-circuit. That shock therapy
will, no doubt, change your mind about the non-existence of
reflected power.
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com