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