On May 31, 12:42*pm, Cecil Moore wrote:

If you add a pint of water to a pint of water, the two pints of
identical molecules interact, analogous to one joule of coherent/
collimated photons added to another joule of the *identical* photons.
The results is two joules of identical photons, indistinguishable from
each other. If the superposition process is reversible, interaction
has not taken place. If the superposition process is irreversible,
interaction has taken place. Both outcomes are possible depending upon
the initial conditions.

ah, but in this case consider that you have a pint of blue water
moving to the right and a pint of red water moving to the left to be a
better analogy to currents of the waves moving forward and backward in
the coax. there are then 3 possibilities:

1. the two mix and cancel giving you 2 pints of purple water not going
anywhere.
2. the two bounce off of each other now giving you red water moving
right and blue water moving left.
3. the two pass by each other not mixing at all and continue on their
way.

if 1 happened you would indeed cancel the waves and end up with a
spare pile of electrons not going anywhere. while this may be
adequate for a mechanical analogy it doesn't say where the energy of
those two moving pints went so is obviously wrong.

number 2 conserves energy at least.

number 3 also conserves energy and gives the same energy distribution
as 2.

since electrons aren't colored it makes number 2 and 3
indistinguishable, so clearly the result is that both waves continue
on their way undisturbed by the other... which is what is observed in
all cases of em wave interaction in linear media.