tar

Imatfaal, Right you are. I read the words but didn't see what you meant, 'till the other day. But then again, I am 60. I meet new people all the time. And have new ideas all the time. Regards, TAR

The center of each diamond shape can be seen as the intersection of one of the string colored "edges" of the octahedron, behind one of the blue colored "edges" of the cube.

Another neat observation about the spherical rhombic dodecahedron made with wire and wire nuts. If you join the blue wire nuts each to the three closest other blues with string, you get a perfect cube. If you join the orange wire nuts each to the four closest other orange with string, you get a perfect octagon. Regards, TAR I have only done it the one way, then the other. I will get some colored yarn and do both and take a picture, later today, after work. Its pretty neat. My edit is not working, I meant octahedron, not octagon.

Strange, So, when you launch the individual photon, the direction that the photon is heading has to be only in the general direction of the two slits, not toward the one or the other? To understand what is happening to the photons, in a particular launch situation, could you not launch a few billion toward the screen with no barrier and inspect the shot pattern on the screen, then repeat the experiment with a plate as wide as the distance between the slits, then add a plate to the right with a separation as wide as a slit, then one to the left as wide as the slit? It seems that in the second situation most of your photons would hit the barrier and not continue to the screen at all. So the question would not be which slit would they have gone through, but if they would even make it to the screen. So if you do not know, at launch which slit you are going through, chances are good you are going to hit the barrier between, or to the right, or to the left. It seems to me, the emergence of the interference pattern could be understood by knowing your shot pattern with no barriers and seeing what happens to the shot pattern as you apply plates of various widths inbetween, with varying gaps between a left and right plate. My thought is that you will get an interference pattern with only one slit, as I just held two of my fingers very close together and saw many black lines inbetween in the gap, running parallel to my fingers. If the back of my eye were the screen, there would be areas where photons were hitting and areas were photons were not. The areas where the photons were not, would be consistent with the black lines. Important I think, to know how big the source is, in comparision to the slit. That is, it would be physically impossible for the source to be a point source and a photon would thus be heading toward the slit from the left limit of the source sometimes, and someimes from the right limit of the source sometimes. It might be instructive to inspect the shot pattern from a single slit, then block exactly half of the source. Inspect the shot pattern and then block exactly the other half of the source and inspect the shot pattern. Regards, TAR

Strange, So if you can illuminate either the left slit or the right slit, on purpose, when you fire the photon, then you already know which slit the photon is going to go through. Regards, TAR

So, The double slit experiment has a directional inconsistency, if a photon heads off, away from a molecule in a particular direction. That is, a particular photon would either be heading for the one slit or the other, on the way out from the source. If, at the source, only photons headed directly toward the center of the left slit were allowed to proceed, then the screen on the other side of the slit, would be hit a lot in a direct line between the source and the left slit. The area on the screen in a direct line between the source and the right slit, would not be hit much, since the precision of direction at the source has already been designed. So the question becomes, how precisely can a photon be directed? Can it be aimed at one slit or the other? And how big is the path of the photon? Can it be directed to go though the center of the slit and not hit the edges? If such precision is possible, and only one photon could be released in this precise direction at a time, why would there be a question as to which slit the photon passed through? It would have to go through the slit that is was aimed at. Regards, TAR

Awe, "As I stated before revenge is illogical in the sense that we have no control at all over the way we are and even what we can control is nothing but a result of our genetic make up or our beliefs which are largely determined by our environment." I think we have a lot of control over the way we are. And a lot of how we feel about things, and what we do about things, has to do with how others feel about it. My own personal theory, or way of looking at people is that each individual has their own collection of teams that they are on, and the list changes and the complextion of each changes as a person evolves and grows and takes on new associations and/or stregthens earlier associations. So I would agree that our beliefs are largely determined by our environment, in that our social environment is made up of the various teams that we are on and each team has its history and rules and objectives, which we have "signed up" to associate ourselves with, follow and pursue. Revenge is something I think done to a non team member. If this is true, then it is not illogical, as certain teams are in competition with each other, and lines have been drawn, as in the Israelis and the Palestinians, and you support your team by "getting back" at the other team. There are, in my estimation, certain contractual obligations one has to team members. Not written of course, but sort of understood by everyone, either on the team or outside the team. Fathers protect their children and give them the benefit of the doubt. Your company's widget is superior to the widget of the competitor. Your country's flag is more beautiful and meaningful than the silly rag the other folks have. In this "picture" of human behavior and the realities of the world, one "has to" stand up for their beliefs and support the beliefs of their team members. It happens all the time on this board, where religious folks are marginalized and scientific folk are glorified. Its proper team behavior. Not illogical at all. There is not an "objective" way to be, that allows one to rise above being a human. We have to be human, because we are human and it is therefore the only way a human can be. So I disagree with you a little in the way you throw up your hands and say we have no control over ourselves. We have absolutely control over ourselves, and can pick our teams and our manner of support of each. Especially in the U.S. where freedom to chose your own God, and follow your own beliefs is guaranteed in our constitution. Being on such a team that believes in human rights and freedom and the rule of law, puts me on the same team as most of the countries of the world, and at odds with nations with Warlourdes and Mullahs, and at odds with wanna-be nations like ISIS with horrible history, rules and purposes. When ISIS cuts of a head, I need to catch the SOB and kill him back. Revenge in its purest and simplist form. Justice in its purest and simplist form. Not illogical. And something I have complete control over deciding to do or not...as a nation and as a leauge of nations. My team. Dimreeper, "An eye for an eye" was the Hammerabi code that was the basis of the legal systems of most of the world. What do you mean by "we knows where that leads"? Regards, TAR

Awe, Perhaps an uncritical view of reality is behind the need for revenge, but I am thinking it is more a "settling of the score." If you take a normal everyday thing, like merging on the highway, there is a give and take required, expected and engaged in, all the time, by everyone. One can step out of line and be pushier than everyone else, or be unexpectedly timid and anger the people behind. Even in the absence of a superior being keeping score, we have each other and everybody else to consider is keeping track of who owes who what. Who owes who a favor or reward, and who has been taken advantage of and who has taken advantage of somebody else inappropriately and is due a come-upance. We after all are animals with an evolutionary history. Pack rules, or herd rules, or survival of the fittest, or some combination of the above, mixed with religious, and philosophical ideas, have formulated and inspired our laws and morays and behavior toward each other. Power is sometimes shared, sometimes given and sometimes taken. When the power balance is understood and accepted by all involved, things unfold nicely...when one steps out of line they are scolded, if they continue they are punished, if they continue they are shunned, if they continue they are ousted, if they continue they are killed. Where the revenge comes in, I think, is where and when the purpetrator is not subject to the pack rules and is not responsive to the social cues and team chiding and such. When outside the normal flow of retribution and score settling, and the evening out of who owes who what, I think there is still a "thing" that needs to get done. Since it by definition can not work the normal, clean, understandable way that scores are settled amoung friends and families and within orderly societies, but still needs to be settled, revenge might be taken. Regards, TAR And perhaps spiteful things that people do, are sort of baby revenge. Little ways to "get back" at people and settle the score. Perhaps required when the disadvantaged are harmed. Keying the car of the rich "b!t#3", so to speak. Justice carries the balance scales after all. It is not to hard to formulate an argument whereby revenge is in some measure, justice.

Mondie, Interesting, but it talked a lot about violent movies and tv and the compilation of studies was made back in 2001. There has been the war on terror inbetween then and now, and there is a prosocial, helping aspect to fighting an actual enemy that wishes to destroy your society and your way of life. I think now, in 2014 the ability to be a sweetheart to any and all, is not the only measure of prosocial behavior. Helping seemed to be the measure of prosocial behaviour, and I wonder if it would be considered prosocial to help fight and enemy, or rescue helpless people from harm by killing aggressors. There is after all, workcamps in North Korea, warlords in several African nations, ISIS chopping of peoples heads and women's clitori, and any number of places in the world, were ugliness and aggression are already apparent. There is a certain requirement that we, as a society retain, for warriors, who will protect us, and our way of life. Besides, that is just the obvious benefit of aggressive behavior, there is also an argument that aggressive behavior is a useful characteristic for football players, successful salespeople, and lawyers, politicians and freedom fighters of all sorts and shapes and sizes. My point is, that there is a role in society and in each of our characters for violence and aggression, and fun in a game, can be had, without spilling any actual blood, or breaking any actual laws or creating any actual losers, or inflicting any loss or pain on any actual person. The key, is being able to control your aggression and apply it appropriately. It is also probably important not to let fantasy leak inappropriately into real life, and to remember that real people are smart, and capable and not only able to be hurt, but to hurt back. So the study shows that aggression in a game or movie or show will up the aggression tendencies of the watcher. This is sort of obvious to me, but boys will be boys, and men will be men, and we have our ways to focus our testosterone on the things that will help our families, schools, teams, and society. And to play games that bleed off some of our natural aggression, that has no enemy to fight, in ways that won't hurt anybody. Such as violent games. And in regards to the socio-paths who played violent games, I would remind you that they also probably drank milk and ate chocolate, which most likely did not contribute to their sociopathy. And most people that lose their sensitivity to others were hurt by others on some deep emotional level, in real life. Such pain can be inflicted by just about anybody on anybody, with or without the inflictor being aware of the pain they are causing. And there are shows that are disrespectful of others, that are not considered violent or evil, like Southpark, that I personally feel are responsible for a desensitising or empathy lessening current in our society, that nobody seems to worry about as much as violent video games, but which might be just as injurious to prosocial behavior, as playing a violent game. Regards, TAR

Bluedot, Not very happy with 3 though. Just can not come up with anything better. At least it makes sense, although it is not as satisfyingly obvious as Imatfaal's solution to number one. Regards, TAR Still looking for 2's answer. If we can come up with an agreeable answer for 2 we can ask the OP for an assessment of how we are doing, since we have "conditional" agreement on the other 4.

bluedot, OK, on three. If the code is that 10 sided figures should be rendered filled with dark grey on a dark grey background. 8 sided figures should be filled with white on a dark grey background, and 6 sided figures should be filled with light grey on a white background, then there is only one correct answer that fits the above rules. I won't mention it, because there is only one that fits the above code. Regards, TAR

Strange, Into the vicinity of the entity we consider the electron, and back out. The Sun/comet thing was not meant to be a direct analogy, just the idea of coming in and going right back out. Sorry for the whimsical thoughts, but they are, at least to me, not completely random. Perhaps a little like Strawberry jackets, but there are aspects of the world that are very big and hard to check on, very far away and hard to check on, very slow in developing and thusly hard to check on, very tiny and quick and thusly hard to check on, very numerous and thusly hard to envision and so on. I am not suggesting that "anything goes", I am suggesting that the place does not need to be completely homogeneous and can have differences on different scales, that do not "have to" average out 100% of the time. The universe is known to bend light, excuse me, light always goes in a straight line through curved space (whatever that means.) There is room to entertain some strawberry jackets out there. Black holes are entertained, where physical laws are somewhat bent out of shape, and we don't know exactly how they act in different situations because we have not been able to poke and prod and turn the thing around and write down what happens and take temperature and pressure readings and model its movement and such. So I just entertain thoughts that would be consistent with what we know, make sense if looked at from an imaginary perspective, that we are incapable of taking in actuality, and that "add back" in terms of explaining what we see and experience. Like the universal now, that I think we already assume and know about, that you figure does not exist. How else would we be able to say that the star in the sky was "really" 3 lys away and what we were seeing "really" happened 3 years ago, unless, three years ago, what was happening there, and what was happening here, were happening at the same time? Regards, TAR

Strange, But is it random enough to have an equal distribution in any and all directions? I am thinking that how the photon that excited the electron comes in, might have something to do with how the photon departs the atom. As you said, the reemitted photon in some situations is in phase with the absorbed one. And since photons of the wrong quantum number just won't get caught by a certain electron, of a certain energy on a certain level of a certain shell, some photons just fly right by, or perhaps even through the cloud the several electrons describe around a nucleus. Not impossible to consider that the timing is important, in terms of "where" the electron is in its orbit, in respect to the incoming photon. Don't know whether it would make more sense if an electron picked up the energy from a photon "going its way" or by "running into it", but the release direction may be partially dependent on the vector of the incoming photon. Like you said, random, but perhaps a little less than completely random. Like trying to hit a spinning baseball, coming in at 94 mph with a round bat, its sort of random which way the ball is going to leave home plate, if you hit it at all. Could go foul or fair or up or into the ground, but its "less random" enough by virtue of the batter's intent, to shift your 3rd baseman into the most likely spot the hitter will "place", the ball. If there is not a requirement that an even distribution in all directions must take place, and environmental factors of nearby masses and electric and magnetic fields, along with which direction the exciting photons came in from, can influence the direction into a less random distribution, then judging the energy of a distant glowing thing, might be error prone, since you might be in a high probability direction and over estimate the things power output, or be in a low probability direction and underestimate the thing's photon output. Specially possible with distant things like galaxies, because you have no way to move around and take a reading from all vectors. Just the one in this direction, is the only one you have access to. Even possible that light tends to travel along the strings of galaxies, rather than through the voids, like electrons in a wire, or water and soap in the areas surrounding and between the "voids" of the bubbles. Photons just might have "preferred" routes away from the electron/atom that launched it. Depending on the environment the atom is in. Regards, TAR Just thought of something. If a photon comes in and then goes out, it really can't be held for any length of time, because that would require the "pulse" which was traveling at C, grind to a near stop, and then upon release, resume its light speed trek. Seems easier to consider the pulse traveling right on through in some "natural" way, like a comet coming into the Sun's immediate vicinity and being released or slingshot around, "right away".

So, not random?

And the time of the breaking might not be random, either. The energy of the electron was boosted up at a particular time, there might be a certain time it takes to get rid of that packet of energy, and a limit to how long it can hold on the packet. There thus could be a relationship between the incoming direction of the photon that boosted the electron up, and the consequential release direction, relative to the circumference of the electron's route averaged between the lower orbit and the upper. In fact, it might not be random at all and could be very dependent on the incoming photon's energy and vector. After all, only a certain photon, with a certain energy can even be absorbed by a particular electron on a particular level. This is what contributes to the quantum nature of the energy absorbtion and reemission anyway, so the mechanics might result in a certain pattern of possible "out" routes, dependant on the "in" route.

Strange, Ok, we will put my problems with dark matter, and forshortening, and the twins aside. Those things are already agreed upon, and not in my favor, for the most part. "It goes in a random direction. When you have enough of them you see light transmitted in all directions." Was your original answer to the thread title. I am wondering though if it has to be true. Could the surrounding matter and energy and fields affect the initial direction of a photon. For instance if the electron that released it, was on a particular "course" because of other electrons, around its atom or nearby ones that were repelling it in a certain direction, then the release, though possibly random in time might be limited in direction. For instance if you had a steel ball you were swinging around your head on a thread, the thread would break at some random time, but the ball would go off only in certain possible directions, not ALL directions. Your feet are in the way, so you can not describe a circle around your head, that includes where your feet are. And if we would place a powerful electro magnet somewhere in the vicinity, the Randomness of the release, would be put somewhat in question. Regards, TAR

Dimreepr, I think your switch idea, or question is important here. There is a difference between how kids handle their fantasy-reality interactions. Some empathy switch, can get slightly, or temporarily, set wrong. If this goes to far it could cause real world harm. Two events that I witnesses a few weeks apart a number of years ago illustrate a subtle difference in "play" behavior that indicated to me that some kids have better control of the "switch" than others. Good case: Child playing Ninja in his driveway with a pretend sword, we made eye contact and he lowered his sword. Bad case: Child standing on the grass between the sidewalk and road firing at cars with his finger. We made eye contact, he stepped toward me, almost into the street and shot me. One had control of the situation, the other was losing it. Regards, TAR

Sounds like a plan.

So, Which way a photon heads when it is released, engenders the corelary question, of which direction did a photon that hits your eye or a sensor, come from. imagining a random surface as big a a pupil, placed anywhere out in the open, faced in some direction other than the surface of the Earth, and picking a day or night with good visibility and no clouds or buildings or trees or other obstructions, it would be reasonable to suspect that this small surface would be hit by a large number of photons streaming in from all directions. Enough photons for instance to see a starry night if you attached the pupil to a brain. Reasonable to assume that every position in space, out away from the planet is similarly populated by photons coming in from all directions. And each photon was released a certain time before arriving at the spot, consistent with the distance between the emitter of the photon, and the spot. So a spot, or position only has one configuation of photons, coming in from all directions, but that particular collection of photons has photons in it from our Sun, and from a nearby star. A different spot will also have photons in it from our Sun and a nearby star. If you draw lines back to the Sun and the nearby star you can judge the postion of the spot, and the other spot in relationship to each other and the Sun and the nearby star. Now the question is WHEN are you taking the particular collection of photons from spot A and spot B. My suggestion is that you take the collection NOW, no matter where you are. Take the collection in the universal now, and then add distances back or forward, depending on your purpose. To establish a time baseline, for determining this NOW, I suggest using the age of the universe, because every item in the universe, has to have a history exactly that long. And every spot in the universe has to have been there for exactly that length of time with the same amount of intervals for taking the collection of photons, as any other "current" spot, has to have had. So if one can estimate the age of the universe, one has established ones own age, and at the same time, established the age of every other spot and thing the universe has. In this regard the traveling twin, even though she is moving at relatavistic speeds, cannot help but move into areas that are exactly the same age as she is. There is a light travel time complication happening between her and her twin back home, and clocks will look like they have slowed or sped up and such, and distances measured by the one will appear to be different and such, but the twin can not help but stay in the unversal now. Everywhere she goes, it will be now for her, and every spot she will be in will be exactly as old as the universe, all the time, at every check. The photons from the Sun and the nearby star will still locate her position, and the photons that were on the way here from the nearby star, will be the ones she is running into on the way to the star, just getting to them sooner than we will receive them, and at a faster frequency. Probably when she looks forward toward the star the visible light from the star would be shortened in wavelength and increased in frequency to gamma waves or something, but she has to run into them, because all the spots she is going through are already populated by the photons from the rest of the universe. Time on the planet circling the star she is headed for would have to look to her, to be in fast motion as the photons from the events are coming to her at a rate much faster then they were released. And on the way back to Earth, the reverse would occur and the photons from Earth that were stretched out, reddened and slowed, on the way out, would be compressed and quickened on the way back, and when she got back, it would still be now, and she would be exactly as old as everywhere she was, and still as old as her twin. But that would make sense and be contrary to the predictions of the equations of relativity. So what's a fellow to do? Regards, TAR

Strange, Relativity, at its basis, is the understanding that reality consists of judgements true and consistent in one frame of reference, that would be otherwise judged from another frame of reference. But here, we have a tendency to require a "big picture" that both observers can be seen, observing, within. There were many that hypothesized an ether through which planets and stars and photons and particles moved. This was disproved with some mirror experiments, and interference fringes that showed there did not seem to be such a ocean we are floating through. Much of "relativity" seems to me to be concentrating on proving that we can't know reality or find a refererence point from which to judge what is true from both an inertial frame and a frame that is subject to some acceleration. My thought, consistent with the thread title, is that there is a geometry within which a photon and any other particle must exist in a particular position, at a particular time. And this particle postion is exactly defined by its relationship to every other particle in the universe. So tracking photons is possible, but only from an imaginary viewpoint, that does not require seeing the photon, just requires "knowing" where the thing is. As we know where the distant galaxy is currently, even though we will not see it there for millions or billions of years. For this to be possible, it requires that photons are physically on their way here, now, at every position that exists between here and there...all the way back to the actual current position of the galaxy. But it is impossible that any photons exist that have not been emitted yet, so there must be a current situation, a current arrangement of matter and energy, a current geometetry of space, where everything is in a particular spot in relationship to everything else. By definition, you can not "see" this arrangement in any manner other than the one that presents itself to us, but you can imagine it and model it, if you "visualize" without looking, and without expecting photons to inform you of the arrangement. The speed of thought I was alluding to, was not the actual completion of some synaptic arrangement in ones brain, but of our ability to switch grain size, and get "outside" a scene, to view it, far faster than a photon could change position to that degree. So we have limitations, but also great analogy power, and can make any transforms we need to. Just good to carry ALL elements we can think of, through, during the transform, and not leave any out that allow us to imagine an impossible thing. The arrangement the universe is currently in, is by definition, emmense and not modelable. We don't have enough synapses within our relatively tiny heads to put every item in motion, at its proper and true and real relationship to everything else. We can just sort of estimate the thing. But for me, tracking photons, is a good back check, and a good predictor. Regards, TAR

So, similarly if you take the speed of light into account the woman and the guy can agree on when exactly and where exactly the lightning strikes, occurred, and this knowledge would fully explain to them both why the other saw it differently. My caution here, is that one can fully use the analogy of speed of light to speed of sound, and call them both delay, except one does not have anything faster that light with which to carry the analogy fully out, but the speed of thought. And it is only with this instantaneous viewing mechanism that one can have the strikes occur before they are seen. And this instantaneous view, obtainable only in ones imagination, is the kind of thing we do when we judge a thing touching our foot, "at the same time" as we see it and feel it. So which is "really true". The star in the sky that we see, or what that star is doing "now" that we will see in two years? You have to agree that you need both nows, to operate, and understand the thing, and the model of the thing. The now that you see, witness and experience. and the now you know must be presently occuring, inorder for you to be seeing now, distant thing, which have been delayed in arriving at your eye. We are used to saying that thunder happens a certain time after we see the lightning. Only our understanding can have the lightning happening a certain time before we see it.

But we had a simultaneous event we started with, at the stadium, figuring that seeing the clock was instantaneous relative to the speed of sound, which would take some time to travel. If we are talking about occuring and seeing as two different things, then the position of our reference clock would be crucial. There is a lag between the occurence of something and when the photons from it get to an observer. You could take this idea right down to the atomic level, and I think it would still be true. When something touches our foot, we figure it touched just now. We know what that means, even though there is a little slop in there in terms of the time light took to get from the event to our eye and through the brain synapses to our model of the world, and even though the electrical signals coming up from our foot arrived at our model in our brain at a different time than the light hit our eye, we know, from experience how to sort that all out, and what it means, in terms of the thing just now touching our foot. We don't have a lot of experience on the atomic level, of seeing a distant thing and touching it, at the same time. Nor do we have a lot of experience at seeing and touching a distant galaxy at the same time, but the analogy can be made, and the distances and times figured, to merge the event into one particular thing, that happened at one place, at one time. Regards, TAR

That is, do the two ends of the train move at the same time? Would this not mean that you could send information from the area of the solenoid coils, to the other end of the plunger extension, before you could send information along the same route, using light? Absolutely I agree that events that are simultaneous for one are not for another. Like the shouts at the stadium.

Was thinking about this issue yesterday, of the train, and considered a difficulty with imagining, and properly defining the "now" at two ends of a solid thing. There is only one instance of the thing, yet its two ends are separated in space. If we could build a solenoid with a plunger that extended a meter out, and the solenoid had a throw of 10 millimeters and we fired the solenoid out at a target 9 mm away from the end, and retracted it, and sent a pulse of light from the solenoid area to a sensor around the target area, just when we activated the solenoid, would the target be breached by the projection of the solenoid prior the arrival of light at the target area?

Exactly my point. There is a difference between when something is seen, and when it occurred, which is directly consistent with and proportional to the distance between the observer and the event. This distinction establishes the basis for relativity. If it is not clearly stated this way, the meaning is lost and people can make jumps between the frames inappropriately. Where my twist comes into play. that causes my perculiar take on the situation, and your lumping me in with relativity deniers, is that certain implications of relativity can be incorrect, if you lose your baseline. If I see someone has gotten the implications wrong, where my model does not say the same thing, I have to bring it up. Not to discount relativity, but to understand better what it is saying and what it is not saying. In this, certain words are crucial. like the difference between occur and see. Or the difference between shorten and appear to shorten. As I have said before, I am trying to help understand reality, not picture it in some impossible imaginary way that does not have all the elements fitting together. I am looking for the ways to view it, so that everything makes sense. I believe this is possible. to achieve such a view. We are in and of the thing, it is not surprising that we might have the ability to understand what it is like. Many things, like light cones, are described and imagined with a dimension dropped off, for better visualisation. The actual light cone, is exactly like my imagined half spherical shell eminating from my match when I was 13. That event is over, around here, but has not yet been withnessed outside the shell. Quacky perhaps. But not deluded. To consider two nows. One consistings of everything currently occurring, and one consisting of everything currently being seen.