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Hello, I have a light mill that rotates when no light shines on it. What do you think? Jenny |
Hello Jenny, There are many "strange" things that sometimes happen with the light mill. I could only speculate what causes your mill to rotate, but I can share with you another unusual experience I hope you can replicate: Stand your light mill in the palm of your left hand and walk about 20 feet in straight direction. Reverse, and when you get back to the starting point, note the direction it is spinning. Now repeat the walk but with your right hand holding the mill. You will note that the mill is now rotating in the opposite direction. It is always the same direction for a particular hand, for me, anyway. If you know how to explain this, let me (and us) know. Mike I. |
Hello Mike, I am fascinated by a light mill I purchased a few years back. In searching for the true mechanics behind it's rotation under the presence of light, I ran across your article on the subject. I was curious about it rotating backwards in the freezer so I tried it. After an hour working with the freezer, it did not rotate backwards. It still spun with the black surface moving away from the light source. What am I missing? Rob Hanowski
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November 2004 Hello Rob, You are missing better instructions! The light mill in the freezer rotates backwards just fine if you: 1. Prepare a flat area in the freezer to stand the light mill on 2. Don't leave the freezer door fully open -- watch the mill through a small opening. After about two seconds you will see the dark paddles starting to advance (it's counterclockwise on my mill) 3. Backward rotation gets faster if you turn off the freezer's light bulb -- you will be able to see the paddles okay through the opening and cutting off the radiation from the light bulb adds quite a bit to the reverse rotation. If you are searching for the mechanism of light mill's motion, I hope you will come up with better answers than the school text. In the freezer, the gas inside the mill radiates preferentially into dark paddles because dark paddles are getting cooler faster. As the photon radiates from the gas molecule in the framework of momentum conservation, the atoms in the gas molecule must bounce toward each other with the resulting lower pressure at the surface of dark paddles. (Outside the freezer, light source heats up the dark paddles, which radiate photons that are absorbed by gas molecules with consequent outbounce of atoms and increase in gas pressure at the dark surface.) I don't know if anyone tried it, but using monatomic gas such as helium inside the light mill would not be able to get the mill rotate at all -- and this may be beneficial in some applications. It's the orbitals made by the valence electrons that do the work. Mike I. There is more to light mill in this topic First reference to reversing light mill rotation goes back to 2002. It is in the 'Stump Your Teacher' page. |
To whom this may concern: In your review of the books The Joy of Pi and A History of Pi you made some interesting and opinionated comments to which you are entitled. This is extremely nitpicky, but I just wanted to address your statement, "...but what is there beyond making fine optical lenses that uses Pi?" Mathematicians, when expanding upon math, generally do not worry about the practical uses of the math they create. You see, any mathematical system is based upon a set of axioms, or rules. It's like a game: mathematicians create rules and draw interesting conclusions from them. Pi is an interesting conclusion drawn by mathematicians. It does not need to have any practical applications - it does not even need to have a real world application! Actually, math does not exist -- it is an idea in our heads that can be used to approximate and model the real world. Does this make sense? I only said that because it seems as if you are downplaying the importance of pi, although in many mathematical systems, pi is extremely interesting. Sincerely, Justin Elchert
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May 2004 Hi Justin, In a book review I take the position of the reader who is thinking about parting with 10 to 30 bucks for purposes other than wallpaper. Mathematicians should by all means impress each other with the most recent abstractions but when putting something into a book all authors should have reader's benefits in mind. Whether math actually exists is a good question. Whether math is actually able to describe the real world is also a good question. In the domain of relationships there are no hard rules and math is struggling to describe our free economic system, for example. As soon as some rules are discovered, they change. (Nietze/Nietzsche took this a step further by arguing that truth does not exist.) Building from rules is but a portion of mathematics. There are intractable problems that take so long to complete the math guy should not think of intractable (nonpolynomial) problems as being in the solved category. In the quantum mechanical environment the commutative property does not hold and that is a good start. In the end it is about computability. Perhaps we can accept that nature computes for the purpose of growth and sustenance and by so doing deals with (potentially) chaotic situations. Calling math natural or practical - or a totally cool abstraction - may all be true. I agree Pi is interesting. Calculating Pi in different mechanical ways to a large number of decimal places puts both books at but high school level. Cheers, Mike I. Using Pi in the pyramid points to harmonics series Review of two books on Pi Justin refers to Review of three books on Riemann Hypothesis. In comments, we look for the conservation of momentum in the mysterious but real number ½ {July, 2005} New work on circle and Pi |
Hello Mike, Sorry if my English isn't always perfect, it is not my mother language. I think you show some interesting thoughts at your web site... although I have not read everything yet. Nevertheless I notice that the momentum of light is an important issue for your further reasoning. I agree with Jay Hinson on your correspondence page (http://www.hyperflight.com/correspondence.htm) that there does exist a lot of evidence for the real momentum and energy of photons, like photo electric effect, scattering at (sub)atomic level, gamma-particles with radioactivity. You do not comment to those facts. Your only comment is to the mill toy. But isn't bouncing photons to the blades of such a mill not more or less the same as bouncing a rubber ball to the earth. After collision the ball seems to have the same speed in the other direction. The change of momentum for the ball is indeed 2mv. So the change of momentum of the earth is also (2mv) but as a vector pointing in the opposite direction (total momentum change as result of the collision as vector sum is 2mv-2mv=0). But when you take in account the earth's mass and the fact that the earth gets this momentum as result of the collision you can also calculate that the amount of kinetic energy transferred from the ball to the earth is almost (but not entirely) zero. So the earth gets a very tiny speed as result of that collision, but so small that nobody will notice it. Conclusion: we won't be observing such an effect but it is still there only much to small for us to notice. I should say this is also the same with photons colliding with a mirror (or the blades of a mill). The effect on every single photon (momentum, energy and therefore also wavelength and color) is so small that it will be very difficult to measure it directly (on the photons). The only thing is to have an awful lot of photons colliding with the mill so that a lot of tiny effects add up to something measurable (so a frictionless mill is going to rotate in perfect vacuum). I'm not saying that the rest of your theory on your web site is nonsense.... I did not had the time yet to read all of that. I'm only saying that having light colliding with a mirror is more or less the same as throwing rubber balls to the earth and saying that rubber balls has no real momentum and energy because they seem to collide back with the same momentum and energy as they had before and therefore nothing of that can be transferred to the earth. Best regards Jan Rasenberg (Netherlands)
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April 2004 Hi Jan, You compared photons of light with rubber balls to make a point about collisions. A large moving ball gives a small ball large velocity. In reverse, a small moving ball gives a large ball little velocity. The conservation of momentum holds. But what about the conservation of energy? Your comment regarding frequency (color) change is an excellent one. Since light always propagates with the same speed (in a given medium), any presumed change in photon's energy must be compensated for with the change in wavelength because photons do not slow down or stop. Classically, then, shining light at gas would or should create all kinds of new wavelengths because repeated "collisions" with (forward, backward, and sideways) moving atoms would result in various new wavelengths. A "collision" with an incoming atom should produce significant (observable) change in the wavelength. Color change, however, does not happen. Using light mill, when the bright paddle moves toward you the reflected photons should be classically imparted with huge momentum that would produce wavelength change. Again, this is not observed. In another example, a scanning (moving mirror) interferometer could not work properly if the moving mirror gives the reflecting photon momentum and changes light's wavelength. Light can be absorbed, refracted or reflected. Light's energy manifests only during absorption (as heat or motion). The fact that photon's momentum is virtual during reflection or refraction is the new thing about light that is not a part of mainstream science. Cheers, Mike I.
P.S. {6/20/04} One of many comments and discussions on light's virtual momentum at reflection goes back to September 1999. This article makes a case that space borne reflector will not move for lack of absorption. There are several items here on the issue of light's virtual momentum. Present day physics degenerated into a presumption that once a physical quantity is defined and validated it then stays that way. Transformations, and reversible transformations in particular, have not been forgotten by chemists and mathematicians (matrix operations). Although light's momentum is virtual at reflection and refraction the act of absorption is the operation of photonic transformation. Any physical quantity should be seen in the framework of operations where the physical quantity either remains invariant or transforms. The invariance as well as the transformation happen in the framework of energy conservation. Creation of new photons is also an operation involving transformation. It is the lack of the transformation framework that makes present quantum mechanics "weird," while the guys the likes of Wheeler, Hawking, and Penrose are clueless and deal with it by making weirdness normal. Here is a February 04 topic with the intro on transformations. |
Hi Mike, You correctly point out that the dark side recedes in a light mill, and you also correctly point out that in a complete vacuum a light mill will not move. The reason for this is that this has nothing to do with the momentum of light. In fact, at a typical 100 Watts per square foot of direct sunlight, there is insufficient momentum from the sunlight to overcome the friction of the vane against the supporting axle. When a light mill is exposed to light, the vanes create heat and through a process similar to thermal transpiration at the vane boundaries, there is a pressure difference which turns the vanes. In fact, if the whole apparatus is cooled significantly below room temperature and not even exposed to light, the apparatus will turn the opposite direction as it warms up. Light, in fact does carry momentum. Since light is not a field, if it did not carry momentum, it would not have any detectable manifestation and might as well not exist. Bram Kivenko
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Hi Bram, I may like your reasoning but since we arrived at different conclusions the best thing to do is to perform the experiment. There are lasers available for some time now that are powerful enough to measure the presumed pressure light can exert on mirror. I also wish someone would apply for a patent based on pressure of a light beam bouncing between two parallel mirrors and getting over-unity worth of free energy after the first bounce. Maybe somebody tried it and the Patent Office is making him build a working perpetual machine model. Light does not carry momentum but light can create momentum in the framework of momentum conservation. Think about photon as being an even function. Cheers, Mike
If you have a hefty laser, do theXperiment |
Dear Mike: The lack of causality in the quantum world has long troubled me. Why, I thought, does causality seem to exist in the macro world and yet find itself thrown out in the generally accepted quantum theory? Is there something going on in the double-slit experiment that we have not noticed? An answer -- we will never know if it is THE answer -- comes from the physicist Lewis Little. Are you familiar with his work? He calls it the Theory of Elementary Waves. I have been studying it, and I do not yet understand it completely, but he proposes a very interesting explanation for quantum behavior. If you know of it, then I would be interested to know your thoughts. Sincerely, Greg Corrado |
Hi Greg, Good way of looking at causality is by taking its superior and inferior aspects. Causality allows you to use the if-then method, which gives you hard rules, formulas, predictability, and, therefore, reality. On the other hand, if-then method is intractable for many problems, particularly nonpolynomial ones; that is, it will take so long to solve certain problems, the resolution takes "forever" to obtain. Quantum mechanics is about processing related variables with unbounded concurrency. In QM you can find solutions to nonpolynomial problems in practical timeframe. You will find that causality cannot happen in 4D because you cannot construct rules there. So, instead of seeing causality as something that gets "thrown out," look at it as something that has a range of applicability. You can see causality as the result of a solution to complex problems because causality is a fundamental component of formal systems. I am not familiar with Lewis Little work, yet I suspect many people's QM work eventually leads to the duality of the real and virtual. Intractability, to me personally, is fun to tackle because the physical parameter of spatial distance is a real parameter within causal rules and if you stay causal you will reach the conclusion that "you cannot get there from here" because it would take practically forever to get to another solar system, for example. Cheers, Mike I. |
My name is Nick. . . I'm impressed and find it wonderful that someone would propose a completely new theory outside of Einstein's theory of relativity. I'm not convinced. Forgive me for being the skeptic, but give me credit for trying :). What I was hoping you could help me with was a few examples of holes or flaws in Einstein's theory of Relativity that might just make my Astronomy teacher stutter. "Dr. Z," my Astronomy teacher, is a very approachable guy who really knows his stuff and I've personally talked extensively with him. Today, for example, I talked with him about supernovae, white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes and everything seemed nice and dandy, but it seems you reject black holes. If you reject the existence of black holes, what do you believe those sections of the universe that are believed to have black holes are? And if you reject black holes, you must reject white dwarfs and neutron stars, yet they are extremely observable. How do you explain their existence?
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Hi Nick, It would be easy enough to reject things as such, and I hope people do not reject things off hand. Moreover, on principle there is nothing that is forbidden to exist in the universe since we cannot answer the question "forbidden by whom?" Black holes do not happen because the system will go supernova before the black hole (infinity of matter) can possibly form. Matter, then, converts to energy rather than accumulating without limit. I like your email because you should engage your teacher and I know your teacher will be glad to challenge you. I came up with a new page that will give you some insight on how to surf-ace the problems of present day (astro)physics. It's Stump Your Teacher time. Mike I. |
Dear Mike I am trying to understand the source of gravity on earth. Does it come from something inside the earth or is it caused by something external to the earth? Does anyone know what the gravitational field around the earth is physically made from- - is it some spinning particles? If you can refer me to answers for these questions I would greatly appreciate it. Regards, Leonard Sproat |
Hi Leonard, The sources of gravitation are the links between all atoms and atoms are indeed spinning. Some gravity links are stronger and some weaker: weaker ones come from farther away. These links are virtual and, as you learn from quantum mechanics, can collapse instantly. At the time of collapse a real momentum appears at the atoms where links collapsed and the continuation of links collapse results in additional momentum and, therefore, acceleration. Which links collapse and which remain virtual is a function of (or a result of) a mathematical solution to multi-body problems. Here on earth the mathematical solution is simple because all bodies are small compared to earth and are gravitationally relating to earth (and only weakly to each other). All two-body problems have general solutions and are covered by Newton (in-line) and Kepler (orbiting). The fun starts when many similar-size bodies get close together. As you can imagine, the topologies of such bodies must rearrange and that is how solar systems and galactic geometries result as solutions to multi-body problems. If you are interested in gravitation, you likely enjoy math. A solution is something that is computable. Multi-body gravitational problems do not have general mathematical solution but have specific solutions if these bodies find certain geometry and that is why multi-body systems such as solar systems and galaxies flatten out (become essentially two-dimensional). Gravitational force can become quite complex and includes both the linear and angular momentum (spin) although, here on earth the spin is weak and depends on other things. Enjoy, Mike I.
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Mike, my final conclusion is " Motion and Time are not relative as theorized by Einstein in his Special Theory of Relativity, but are Absolute if measured from the 'Fixed Position of Initial Light Pulse Emission' ." The "Fixed Position of Initial Light Pulse Emission" is a universal, absolute, fixed point of reference which is the SAME for all inertial reference frames. Sincerely, Gregory |
Greg, Stay with it and you may find additional "final" conclusions. There is a way to test the absolute reference by reversing the motion of the electron and the two slits (December99 DSSP Topics) in the two-slit experiment. My hunch is you are right. Mike I.
{April 30, 2004} |
i have a question. what is gravitational force, and what is the formula? is there a formula? thanks, katie
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Katie, Gravitational force arises in response to the conservation of energy. For the most part, gravity acts as attraction and there are formulas by Newton and Kepler. More interesting is the case when gravity results in a spin. There are no formulas for gravitational spin, but the spin and attraction are linked. If the spin is reversed, gravitational attraction is also reversed. Mike I.
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[Frank Potter responds]
--Momentum and energy are a four-vector in special relativity. Therefore, since light carries energy, light must have linear momentum. One can see the effects of the linear momentum of light by the old fashioned WELL EVACUATED radiometer with its four vanes with which the impinging light turn the vanes in the proper direction of rotation. I am not talking about the toy radiometer so prevalent in stores which does not show this momentum result of the light - these have too much air and other effects dominate the behavior. |
[Note to Frank Potter]
Hi Frank, I am turning to you as I came across many educated people clinging on the thought that light does impart real momentum to a mirror. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Are there any experiments where this was confirmed? (One way or another.) Regards, Mike Ivsin
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[Frank Potter responds] Let's take a single incident photon reflecting from a mirror. The process involves two steps: incident photon is absorbed (atom in mirror is excited to higher energy level), atom spits outs a new photon of the 'same' energy as the one it absorbed. Result: momentum transfer to the mirror, albeit very small, and the outcoming photon is not really equal energy because there has been a Doppler shift due to recoil. That's how the reflection process occurs. |
Thanks. Good old light mill. I am weary of equations since these rest at certain assumptions anyway. When you say "... since light carries energy, light must have linear momentum..." what do you think of the following: "Light approaches a mirror with certain energy, which is a function of its wavelength. Since the light's (photon's) wavelength is the same before and after the contact with the mirror, the photon did not lose any energy as it bounced off the mirror and, therefore, the net energy left at the mirror is zero." Regards, Mike I. |
[No response from Frank] |
If the electron comes into interaction, then the QM kicker is that the electron's orbit can change only along discontinuous quanta, rather than accepting the photon's momentum by the (particular) amount offered by the photon. My take on this is that the photon bounces off at the same wavelength and, therefore, without imparting any physical momentum. Otherwise, the photon must be absorbed in its entirety. If the photon interacts with a free electron, there can be a question of random frequency shifts due to random motion of electrons. The bottom line on this is that an experiment needs to be done and then we'll work the results into the mechanics of photon's interaction. I hear of a 1905 experiment, but I would not put any money on a pre-laser (low power) experimentation. I would much appreciate any reference you may have on laser beam moving a mirror in vacuum. Regards, Mike I. Comment: Deep confusion on light's virtual momentum stems from the fact that photon's energy can translate into momentum if there are molecules around that can then move or bounce. In the case of a mirror in space, however, light's virtual nature comes to light. |
[Jay Hinson responds:]
Photon momentum is very well established. I work in high-energy physics, and if i took the time, I could send you literally thousands of examples which indicate that photons have momentum. These are cases where we see a particle decay in our detector and we know the total momentum that has to be there in order to get conservation of momentum. Unless you include the momentum of the photons involved, you can't get the conservation of momentum (just like you can't get conservation of energy unless you include the photon's energy). For a more basic example, consider the photoelectric effect. That is the ejection of an electron from a metal whose surface is exposed to light. The light had to impart energy and momentum to the electron. As for the mill toy, I don't know why you think that the results would be different if we moved it from a very high vacuum (where experiments on such apparatus have been done and completely agree with theory) to a "complete" vacuum. Perhaps you could explain this confusion better? Finally, I also don't know why you conclude that a photon's momentum is imaginary. No equation predicts this to my knowledge. The momentum of a photon simply depends on the wavelength of its electromagnetic wave: p = h/lambda. Experiments strongly agree with this. This means that a photon of wavelength, say, 400 nm has a momentum of about 1.66*10^-27 kg m/s. You'd have to have an extremely intense source of those photons to have a visible effect on a macroscopic object like a mirror. However, there are plenty of experiments which show that photons do knock around other atomic and subatomic particles, imparting both energy and momentum. So, I'm not sure where you got the idea that photons don't have momentum, but both theory and experiments indicate they have a very well understood momentum. -Jay |
[Note to Jason Hinson:] Hi Jason, While I enjoyed your site, I am not sure how you can say (with a straight face, no less) that light carries real momentum. Should you apply light to a "light mill" toy, it is the dark side that is receding, not the bright side (bright side should receive twice the momentum). Light's/photon's momentum is an imaginary (i) quantity and light's energy is that of heat only. Should the light mill toy be completely in a vacuum, it will not rotate. I would appreciate a reference to any experiment where a laser, for example, physically moves a mirror.
Comment: There are no trees to hug in this discipline, not after 80 years of detours. Unless you enjoy changes, there are no jamming opportunities in this market |
Mike, |
Comment: The fact remains that plasma effects vary greatly as a function of time for a particular radial distance. No one actually measured corona effects -- only extrapolated it from assumptions. Another thing: Your pseudo-science is getting the better of you. The fact remains that if the subject plasma experiment were performed again, the results would be completely different because the plasma effects are likely to change dramatically while the Fomalont & Sramek plasma-effects formula would yield the same correction. |
NOWHERE in General Relativity is it even suggested that "gravity bends space-time". GR suggests that what we perceive of as gravitation is actually a local manifestation of the global curvature of space-time, the curvature being caused by all mass-energy. Mike Attisha |
Comment: You can look at some theory's assumptions and proofs, or you can look at the applicability of it. If GR cannot explain the spin and the observed geometric formations, it does not matter what GR suggests or means or says. You are free to believe there are black holes, but I would not look very hard for them. You may know what some theory says, but what do you think... |
The Aharonov-Bohm effect can be demonstrated as variation on the classical two-slit experiment for phase variance in electromagnetism. Is there analogous effect in Quantum Gravitational Theory? Adam Baca |
Comment: The two-slit experiment/effect is not only about Quantum Mechanics, it is QM. Quantum Gravity's foundation is based on the logical computation (interaction, superposition) of the virtual elements. The Aharonov-Bohm experiment introduces magnetic field into one of the slits with the effect that the central lobe disappears ("phase variance"). Quantum-gravitationally speaking, the introduction of the magnetic field causes some virtual elements in this case virtual electron (can be possibly generalized to charged particles) to move away from its average value and spread toward the extremes. In spite of some interpretations of this effect, the magnetic field does not block the slit but it computationally interacts with the virtual electron in ways other than the original mechanical aperture. This effect is not the same as when an electron is partially bounded (by light) before it enters the slits. |
Because gravity originates at the atom and manifests itself outside the atom, the gravitational mechanics somehow join the micro and the macro. This is similar to light except that light is visible [detectable] and real when it leaves the atom |
Comment: In the quantum mechanical foundation of gravity there is no physical (real) aspect of gravity such as gravity waves. There is a bit more to light particularly when considering the virtual aspect of light (Bell Conjecture and/or perception of light's polarization by humans) |
The general theory of relativity remains unshaken... Jim Wilson, Science Editor Popular Mechanics |
Comment: Some can get there from here -- shaken, not stirred |
Inaugural Contribution Resistance to Gravity I do not buy it, this "force-at-a-distance", this notion that two bodies nontouchingly find within one another the disposition to draw closer, and closer yet -- or (what's worse) to spin perpetually about in tandem, the old scandals of Paolo and Francesca and binary stars, old stories that seem to reveal a bitter view of life. Against those who promote this doctrine I admit I hold a small grudge, a kernelled idea that they wish to trap us all in a tyranny of vectors. The government of heaviness: a force which increases just enough to keep pace with mass, never an instant more nor less, a rather dry sort of magic seeping through the universe, incumbent and unblinking. Better to say: We are all connected. Or: We were going that way anyway. A fixation of smoke around our heads, Amy and I are sitting in a busy restaurant with much food still left between us but no desire to eat more now. I am not, I think, talking about how matter fails to live up to my expectations; if I am talking at all it is about the weather, or Matthew Arnold, or if I still have enough energy perhaps I am telling a story (but not too sadly, to fit the mood) about someone I knew and had forgotten until the jogs of Amy's questions and the wine. We are not touching, which is some relief, because even if there were a gravitational pull it would be nothing compared to the starts and yanks which seem to erupt from her skin and which I have felt knocking me in all sorts of directions. Instead I worry the wine bottle with both hands. There is something quite happy about the way its emptiness holds itself, patient and warm, there in front of me.
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