Relativity localization question

[questionposter]

There's WHAT on laser cooling? I'm not going to chase down every red herring you throw at me. If you can't point to the relevant part, don't bother. You don't physically target individual atoms. Being able to cool or image an atom does not mean you hit it with each photon you sent at it.

If I can aim so well that I can destroy cancer, I'm pretty sure I can hit a person, that's the point, I never specified how far away they were, I was thinking they were rather close.

 

 

 

Again, I am not going to waste time watching a video when I have no confidence it is relevant. What I said was that the uncertainty principle is not the concern with FOCUSING x-rays or gamma rays. You changed the subject, AGAIN. (and yet accuse me of only skimming your posts)

How well a beam is focused effects it's accuracy, and you said aiming gamma-rays wasn't accurate.

 

 

 

Sigh. How many posts back did I say wavelength? Why are you still asking the question?

Because you didn't answer my question. Wavelength means nothing before measurement, there is no possible way to tell what the wavelength is before you measure a photon.

 

You still have not explained why you think you would detect the photon instantaneously if you don't know where it is, or faster if it has a longer wavelength. You are proceeding as if it were true, and yet haven't established that it is. That's a problem.

IF a photon had no parameters to the 3 dimensional space it occupied before measurement, we would just see random photons being measured everywhere. We'd see photon from billions of light years away and measure them right in-front of us while the photons from the objects in-front of us might be measured by somethign else millions of light years away.

Edited May 8, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

If I can aim so well that I can destroy cancer, I'm pretty sure I can hit a person, that's the point, I never specified how far away they were, I was thinking they were rather close.

 

 

How well a beam is focused effects it's accuracy, and you said aiming gamma-rays wasn't accurate.

 

No, that's you taking what I said and twisting it to mean what you want it to mean. An answer given to a specific scenario does not generally apply to any scenario. Context matters. You made some specific claims — without any support — and I rebutted them. Those claims aren't true. That does not mean that a different claim is untrue. And here you've backtracked from targeting a specific atom to hitting a person. That's a huge change in scale.

 

 

Because you didn't answer my question. Wavelength means nothing before measurement, there is no possible way to tell what the wavelength is before you measure a photon.

 

You keep changing the conditions of the question. You said the emitted wave was a gamma. How can you know this if the wavelength is unknown? If it's truly unknown, then you can't claim to tell me what the energy is. But if the energy is, e.g. 1 MeV, then I know the wavelength is about 1.24 pm and know this to some degree of precision.

 

IF a photon had no parameters to the 3 dimensional space it occupied before measurement, we would just see random photons being measured everywhere. We'd see photon from billions of light years away and measure them right in-front of us while the photons from the objects in-front of us might be measured by somethign else millions of light years away.

This might make sense if you aren't aware that light travels at a constant speed in a vacuum. Except that of course you're aware of this. So why does it suddenly go out the window in the context of this discussion?

[questionposter]

No, that's you taking what I said and twisting it to mean what you want it to mean. An answer given to a specific scenario does not generally apply to any scenario. Context matters. You made some specific claims — without any support — and I rebutted them. Those claims aren't true. That does not mean that a different claim is untrue. And here you've backtracked from targeting a specific atom to hitting a person. That's a huge change in scale.

Ok, if I ask a question and you say it's false, I assumed it was false and then built off of what couldn't be true and could only be true based off of it being false.

 

 

 

 

You keep changing the conditions of the question. You said the emitted wave was a gamma. How can you know this if the wavelength is unknown? If it's truly unknown, then you can't claim to tell me what the energy is. But if the energy is, e.g. 1 MeV, then I know the wavelength is about 1.24 pm and know this to some degree of precision.

It's only known from one frame of reference, and that frame of reference didn't actually measure the photon, there was just a neutron that decayed or something. If it was actually known, wouldn't it collapse to a finite point and not be delocalized at all?

 

 

This might make sense if you aren't aware that light travels at a constant speed in a vacuum. Except that of course you're aware of this. So why does it suddenly go out the window in the context of this discussion?

I could have swore you knew how it worked. Entanglement. It happens instantaneously, but light doesn't travel between any two distances for it to happen. Why? Because it's a correlation of probability (which wavelength effects), and not a causation, which I thought you said yourself in another topic. The same goes for light, it also has probability, and a radio wave is more likely to be measured over a larger distance than a gamma ray. So, if there was no limit to the size of the probability of a photon being measured, it would extend infinitely and all photons would be measured instantaneously, but since that doesn't work that way it means there has to be finite parameters governmening how the probability of a photon spreads out, and one of these things I thought was wavelength, but since the wavelength before measurement is undetermined and wavelength should be relative anyway, there must be some other thing that governs the parameters while a photon is unmeasured otherwise we would measure the photon instantaneously.

Edited May 8, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

It's only known from one frame of reference, and that frame of reference didn't actually measure the photon, there was just a neutron that decayed or something.

 

But we understand the Doppler shift.

 

If it was actually known, wouldn't it collapse to a finite point and not be delocalized at all?

 

Why would it? It still has a wavelength.

 

 

I could have swore you knew how it worked. Entanglement. It happens instantaneously, but light doesn't travel between any two distances for it to happen. Why? Because it's a correlation of probability (which wavelength effects), and not a causation, which I thought you said yourself in another topic. The same goes for light, it also has probability, and a radio wave is more likely to be measured over a larger distance than a gamma ray. So, if there was no limit to the size of the probability of a photon being measured, it would extend infinitely and all photons would be measured instantaneously, but since that doesn't work that way it means there has to be finite parameters governmening how the probability of a photon spreads out, and one of these things I thought was wavelength, but since the wavelength before measurement is undetermined and wavelength should be relative anyway, there must be some other thing that governs the parameters while a photon is unmeasured otherwise we would measure the photon instantaneously.

 

When the hell did entanglement enter into this? There has been no mention of it at all, much less any discussion of how you could possibly entangle the "localization" of a photon.

 

And you still have not explained your reasoning behind an infinite-extent probability implying being measured instantaneously. Why do you think this is true?

[questionposter]

But we understand the Doppler shift.

Which only applies for measuring a photon.

 

 

 

Why would it? It still has a wavelength.

No, if it's wavelength was actually "known", it shouldn't have the properties it has while its unmeasured. It's possible we more likely know just a range of possible energies.

 

 

 

 

When the hell did entanglement enter into this? There has been no mention of it at all, much less any discussion of how you could possibly entangle the "localization" of a photon.

Because localization works the same way, it's about a correlation. If a photon is more localized, it's probability evolves over smaller 3 dimensional coordinates than a non-localized photon, which is what I'm asking about.

 

And you still have not explained your reasoning behind an infinite-extent probability implying being measured instantaneously. Why do you think this is true?

I've explained it more than once, this is why I brought entanglement up. An infinitely delocalized photon would have a probability that would extend to infinity, and thus it would be measured instantaneously after it's creation because it's probability would extend to many many things that would be able to measure it. But since photons don't do that, there has to be parameters for how localized they are. Entanglement could theoretically do this ame thing. If you separated entangled particles by infinite distance, their dis-entanglement would still happen instantaneously because thei'r probability would correlate to determined states.

Edited May 9, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

Which only applies for measuring a photon.

 

No, if it's wavelength was actually "known", it shouldn't have the properties it has while its unmeasured. It's possible we more likely know just a range of possible energies.

 

Because localization works the same way, it's about a correlation. If a photon is more localized, it's probability evolves over smaller 3 dimensional coordinates than a non-localized photon, which is what I'm asking about.

 

For some who is asking, you seem to be doing a lot of lecturing. And you're wrong about too much of that subject matter to be lecturing on it.

 

I've explained it more than once, this is why I brought entanglement up. An infinitely delocalized photon would have a probability that would extend to infinity, and thus it would be measured instantaneously after it's creation because it's probability would extend to many many things that would be able to measure it. But since photons don't do that, there has to be parameters for how localized they are.

 

The probability of being measured at any particular place is not 1; for a wave function with infinite extent in most places it's going to be very very small. It's only if you integrate over all space that you get a probability of 1, and you are not measuring everywhere. So your conclusion here is wrong.

 

Entanglement could theoretically do this ame thing. If you separated entangled particles by infinite distance, their dis-entanglement would still happen instantaneously because thei'r probability would correlate to determined states.

 

But this is a different scenario, so what's the connection other than some of the vocabulary? You have a photon. Where's the entanglement? With what is the photon entangled.

[questionposter]

For some who is asking, you seem to be doing a lot of lecturing. And you're wrong about too much of that subject matter to be lecturing on it.

That's why I'm posting this question, but your just saying "your changing the question, stop lecturing me" instead of answering the question directly regardless of if I changed it.

 

 

 

The probability of being measured at any particular place is not 1; for a wave function with infinite extent in most places it's going to be very very small. It's only if you integrate over all space that you get a probability of 1, and you are not measuring everywhere. So your conclusion here is wrong.

I don't see how what your saying disproves I'm saying, unless you were trying to say the correlation of probability doesn't exist. I'm not talking about normalization or anything like that, and regardless of if it's one, how likely you are to measure it at any given distance can obviously change. If a photon is as localized as a gamma-ray or delocalized as a radio wave, it is one, so let's just imagine its a REALLY REALLY low wavelength radio wave that spreads over light years. If a source emitted a photon like that, don't I logically have the ability to instantly measure it from light years away and wouldn't its probability still be 1? Unless your trying to say it's always one...until you get past a certain localization point? I'm not saying it's measured from "every" point. A radio wave spreads out over the length of a football field, yet cellphones still work.

 

 

 

But this is a different scenario, so what's the connection other than some of the vocabulary? You have a photon. Where's the entanglement? With what is the photon entangled.

I said it wasn't about entanglement, that was just to show that my statement isn't likely wrong unless maybe I didn't describe it clearly because it can be shown with experimental evidence that probability can correlate to large distances, and even over indefinite distance, and entanglement has already been done with photons, so the probability of a photon can expand over large distances, and delocalization does this. The probability of measuring a photon can theoretically be as large as light years.

 

And regardless, that's STILL not the point, I'm trying to figure out what determines the 3-deimnsional probability of measuring a photon before measurement since things like wavelength aren't actually known prior to measurement. There HAS to be parameters for delcalized a photon gets before measurement, because otherwise it's probability would spread out infinitely as there would be nothing to stop it from doing so without parameters, just like how scientists think a singularity is infinitely small because there is no parameter to limit how small it can get after a certain point.

Edited May 10, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

I don't see how what your saying disproves I'm saying, unless you were trying to say the correlation of probability doesn't exist. I'm not talking about normalization or anything like that, and regardless of if it's one, how likely you are to measure it at any given distance can obviously change. If a photon is as localized as a gamma-ray or delocalized as a radio wave, it is one, so let's just imagine its a REALLY REALLY low wavelength radio wave that spreads over light years. If a source emitted a photon like that, don't I logically have the ability to measure it from light years away and wouldn't its probability still be 1? Unless your trying to say it's always one...until you get past a certain localization point?

 

If we had a wave function that had a probability of 0.00001 in a certain region, we would only have a 0.00001 chance of detecting the photon there. If you had 10 regions with detectors, then your probability is 0.0001. You would need to be making measurements everywhere in order to instantly detect a particle whose wave function had an infinite spatial extent. But in your scenario, you don't. You have 1 observer. The probability of him seeing the photon is whatever the probability is where he is. It's not 1.

[questionposter]

If we had a wave function that had a probability of 0.00001 in a certain region, we would only have a 0.00001 chance of detecting the photon there. If you had 10 regions with detectors, then your probability is 0.0001. You would need to be making measurements everywhere in order to instantly detect a particle whose wave function had an infinite spatial extent. But in your scenario, you don't. You have 1 observer. The probability of him seeing the photon is whatever the probability is where he is. It's not 1.

I'm not saying the single observer will automatically measure it, I'm saying in my scenario it's theoretically possible to have a photon that you can measure from light years away instantaneously because of how delocalized it is, and besides, doesn't it only add up to "1" considering infinite distance? Like the summation of y/x with the upper limit as infinity or something?

However, this infinite delocalization doesn't happen, at least not very often enough to be known to happen, so there has to be some kind of parameter, and since the wavelength is unknown, we can't say it's the wavelength.

Edited May 10, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

I'm not saying the single observer will automatically measure it, I'm saying in my scenario it's theoretically possible to have a photon that you can measure from light years away instantaneously because of how delocalized it is, and besides, doesn't it only add up to "1" considering infinite distance? Like the summation of y/x with the upper limit as infinity or something?

However, this infinite delocalization doesn't happen, at least not very often enough to be known to happen, so there has to be some kind of parameter, and since the wavelength is unknown, we can't say it's the wavelength.

 

But the wavelength is not an unknown if you know it in one frame.

[questionposter]

But the wavelength is not an unknown if you know it in one frame.

 

What does that have to do with every other frame? And if something like wavelength was "known" or measured wouldn't it collapse the photon's probability anyway? All we really know for sure is that neutrons can decay, and when they decay they tend to emit some kind of gamma-ray. Theoretically if I can know something like that, I should be able to know the DeBroglie "wave-length" of an electron in the double slit experiment and have it still make the pattern on the backboard.

Edited May 10, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

What does that have to do with every other frame?

 

Because we have a way of transforming these quantities from one frame to another.

 

And if something like wavelength was "known" or measured wouldn't it collapse the photon's probability anyway?

 

No. We know the energy of a photon. That doesn't tell us exactly where it will hit. If the photon is visible, the wavelength is around a half a micron. I have a target made up of atoms. Atoms are around 0.1 nm in size, perhaps with bond lengths (if I have a lattice) with a lattice length perhaps a few times that, so let's say 1 atom per nm. A 1 micron x 1 micron area has of order a million atoms it could hit, but it's only going to hit one. How has the probability "collapsed" by knowing the wavelength?

 

All we really know for sure is that neutrons can decay, and when they decay they tend to emit some kind of gamma-ray. Theoretically if I can know something like that, I should be able to know the DeBroglie "wave-length" of an electron in the double slit experiment and have it still make the pattern on the backboard.

 

I don't know where you're getting this. I've done electron Bragg diffraction experiments — you know the accelerating potential, so you know the wavelength. What you can't know is the path it took. That's what kills the interference pattern in the double-slit experiment.

[questionposter]

Because we have a way of transforming these quantities from one frame to another.

Wavelength is relative though, but the 3-dimensional probability coordinates don't seem to be, that's why even if I travel away from a gamma-ray at 99.99% the sped of light, it will still have a small area of atoms it would be likely to hit even if I measure it's wavelength as a radio-wave? Whereas if it started out as a radio wave, it would have very large areas of atoms it could hit.

 

 

 

No. We know the energy of a photon. That doesn't tell us exactly where it will hit. If the photon is visible, the wavelength is around a half a micron. I have a target made up of atoms. Atoms are around 0.1 nm in size, perhaps with bond lengths (if I have a lattice) with a lattice length perhaps a few times that, so let's say 1 atom per nm. A 1 micron x 1 micron area has of order a million atoms it could hit, but it's only going to hit one. How has the probability "collapsed" by knowing the wavelength?

Well doesn't the photon's probability collapse when the atom interacts with a specific wavelength photon? If we know the wavelength, doesn't that mean we're measuring it?

Edited May 10, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

Wavelength is relative though, but the 3-dimensional probability coordinates don't seem to be,

 

How do you come to this conclusion?

 

that's why even if I travel away from a gamma-ray at 99.99% the sped of light, it will still have a small area of atoms it would be likely to hit even if I measure it's wavelength as a radio-wave? Whereas if it started out as a radio wave, it would have very large areas of atoms it could hit.

 

No. If you measure its wavelength as a radio wave, it has the wavelength of a radio wave. Exactly the same as if it had been emitted in your frame as a radio wave. You cannot tell the difference between the two cases.

 

 

Well doesn't the photon's probability collapse when the atom interacts with a specific wavelength photon? If we know the wavelength, doesn't that mean we're measuring it?

 

Yes it collapses. That's a measurement. But it doesn't collapse until then, even though we know the wavelength.