White light

[petrushka.googol]

If we imagine light as composed of 7 native colors, each with a discrete "colored" photon, could we then visualize white light as the product of entanglement of these native photons? (each of which exist at different energy levels.)

Edited September 11, 2015 by petrushka.googol

[Strange]

There are not 7 colours (Newton just invented that number for mystical purposes). White light is a continuous spectrum of frequencies/colours.

[swansont]

If we imagine light as composed of 7 native colors, each with a discrete "colored" photon, could we then visualize white light as the product of entanglement of these native photons? (each of which exist at different energy levels.)

 

What property of the photons would be entangled, the color? How does that entanglement happen?

[petrushka.googol]

 

What property of the photons would be entangled, the color? How does that entanglement happen?

 

I wish to define a particle as _MP^c where M = mass of the particle and c = color of particle. P -> particle = photon. Integration of a continuous spectrum of discrete colors on subscript (mass) yields zero and integration of superscript (color) over the same yields white color. This is perceived as a wave. (transverse waves).

[Mordred]

 

I wish to define a particle as _MP^c where M = mass of the particle and c = color of particle. P -> particle = photon. Integration of a continuous spectrum of discrete colors on subscript (mass) yields zero and integration of superscript (color) over the same yields white color. This is perceived as a wave. (transverse waves).

If I were you I would look at what the term wavelength means and how it relates to color of light.

http://scienceprimer.com/electromagnetic-spectrum

[Sensei]

Total energy of n photons is given by:

 

[math]\sum\limits_{i=0}^{i<n}{h*f_i}[/math]

 

or

 

[math]\sum\limits_{i=0}^{i<n}{\frac{h*c}{\lambda_i}}[/math]

 

For visible light:

[math]400nm\leqslant\lambda_i\leqslant700nm[/math]

 

For pretty monochromatic laser light with peak at 532nm (+-10nm):

[math]522nm\leqslant\lambda_i\leqslant542nm[/math]

 

Do you see light.. ?

Edited September 12, 2015 by Sensei

[petrushka.googol]

 

I wish to define a particle as _MP^c where M = mass of the particle and c = color of particle. P -> particle = photon. Integration of a continuous spectrum of discrete colors on subscript (mass) yields zero and integration of superscript (color) over the same yields white color. This is perceived as a wave. (transverse waves).

 

Integration of photons in my illustration = integration of entangled photons at discrete energy levels (frequencies) ....

[Klaynos]

Could you please answer the question, what is colour?

 

There are several possible answers to this as it's not really a scientific term and I want to know what definition your using, don't just use a dictionary that won't help us here.

[swansont]

 

I wish to define a particle as _MP^c where M = mass of the particle and c = color of particle. P -> particle = photon. Integration of a continuous spectrum of discrete colors on subscript (mass) yields zero and integration of superscript (color) over the same yields white color. This is perceived as a wave. (transverse waves).

 

I'm not seeing how this works. That's not the math of entanglement.

 

For two particles to be entangled they have to have a shared property that's conserved somehow, and be indistinguishable until measured. If we had a thermal source that only emitted the seven colors I don't see how you would have entanglement. If you have lots of colors, you don't have that "conservation". If you detect a green photon, you don't know what color some other photon would be, if it could be R,O,Y, B, I, or V. If you have lots of photons, you still have the possibility of green, since there are multiple green photons flying around. So I don;t see how that's entangled.

 

 

So instead of seven, let's consider just two colors, red and blue (of specific wavelengths)

 

How do you get these photons? Maybe you have an atom or molecule that decays in a cascade, emitting a red photon and then a blue photon. But those won't be entangled, because one happens before the other. You know that the red photon is emitted first. This is why people use parametric downconversion to entangle photons. The photon come out at the same time, and along two specific direction, you get both colors. But only those photons are entangled — ones going in other directions are distinguishable, so they can't be entangled.

 

Now, it's possible that you have several of these molecules, and you might get a red and a blue emitted at he same time, so they could be entangled. But you won't know that, because you would have a whole bunch of photons from other decays flying around. That fails to work with your "vision" that white light is the result of entanglement.

[John Cuthber]

If we imagine light as composed of 7 native colors, each with a discrete "colored" photon, could we then visualize white light as the product of entanglement of these native photons? (each of which exist at different energy levels.)

Is that anything but word salad?

[swansont]

Is that anything but word salad?

 

It's wrong, but not to the level of being word salad IMO. Having light be comprised of just 7 colors is a (possibly) interesting thought experiment, and entanglement is a real phenomenon

[petrushka.googol]

As an extension could we apply axiomatic built in symmetries aka Bell's theorem to the entangled photons. Photons of color have a built in symmetry and the collapse of the wave function in the absence of a frequency differentiator viz. a prism always yields white light.

[Klaynos]

Could you please answer the question, what is colour?

 

There are several possible answers to this as it's not really a scientific term and I want to know what definition your using, don't just use a dictionary that won't help us here.

Again.

[swansont]

As an extension could we apply axiomatic built in symmetries aka Bell's theorem to the entangled photons. Photons of color have a built in symmetry and the collapse of the wave function in the absence of a frequency differentiator viz. a prism always yields white light.

 

But you have to have entangled photons in order to apply Bell's theorem, and you don't, in general. You get white light without entangled photons. I can combine spatially distinct sources of colored light to get white light; I know where the R, G and B (etc.) photons are coming from. They aren't entangled.

[petrushka.googol]

Photons have zero rest mass. Splitting of light produces photons of different colors. You can't get something out of nothing. Then where did these photons come from? Photons can't divide.So they must preexist. (entangled).

[Klaynos]

Photons have zero rest mass. Splitting of light produces photons of different colors. You can't get something out of nothing. Then where did these photons come from? Photons can't divide.So they must preexist. (entangled).

Your final word doesn't follow from the others.

[Strange]

Having light be comprised of just 7 colors is a (possibly) interesting thought experiment, and entanglement is a real phenomenon

 

If we had 7 different colour sensors in our eyes, would we need to use 7 primary colours to reproduce the gamut of colours we would see? Or could we still get away with RGB? (I don't know...)

Photons have zero rest mass. Splitting of light produces photons of different colors.

 

It doesn't produce photons of different colours/frequencies/energies; it just separates them.

[John Cuthber]

Photons have zero rest mass. Splitting of light produces photons of different colors. You can't get something out of nothing. Then where did these photons come from? Photons can't divide.So they must preexist. (entangled).

The word "Entangled" has a specific meaning and I don't think it applied here.

The different coloured photons in white light are not entangled, they just happen to be following more or less the same path as each other.

[Klaynos]

 

If we had 7 different colour sensors in our eyes, would we need to use 7 primary colours to reproduce the gamut of colours we would see? Or could we still get away with RGB? (I don't know...)

 

That would depend on the spectral response of those 7. If each one only overlapped substantially with its neighbours in frequency space then you would need 7.

[petrushka.googol]

The word "Entangled" has a specific meaning and I don't think it applied here.

The different coloured photons in white light are not entangled, they just happen to be following more or less the same path as each other.

 

Is this statistically possible ? Energy of a photon depends on it's frequency (which also determines it's color) so photons of different colors are more likely to be dissociated (rather than following the same path).

[John Cuthber]

 

Is this statistically possible ? Energy of a photon depends on it's frequency (which also determines it's color) so photons of different colors are more likely to be dissociated (rather than following the same path).

Of course it's possible. It happens.

Why do you imagine that photons are "dissociated"?

What do you mean by that?

 

If I see white light from the sun that's because photons of different colours reach my eye and they both got to my eye after travelling 93 million miles so that's pretty close to the same path.

[Strange]

 

Is this statistically possible ? Energy of a photon depends on it's frequency (which also determines it's color) so photons of different colors are more likely to be dissociated (rather than following the same path).

 

What do you mean by dissociated?

And why shouldn't photons with different energies follow "more or less the same path"?

[swansont]

 

Is this statistically possible ? Energy of a photon depends on it's frequency (which also determines it's color) so photons of different colors are more likely to be dissociated (rather than following the same path).

 

Why?

 

You wouldn't have white light if the colors separated on their own, rather than having to send through a dispersive medium or element to do that.

[petrushka.googol]

Why would the end product be white? If I used a prism and then an inverted prism what would happen to the photons?

[John Cuthber]

You are asking the wrong question.

The end product is white because that's what we call it. What else could it be?

 

if you arrange the two prisms correctly, the effects cancel out and the photons go pretty much straight through.