Physicist, PLEASE answer this puzzle

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I think before any further conversation on issues regarding photons and the "thought-experiment" in the OP's question it may be useful to give some brief remarks on the nature of photons from actual physics literature rather than my personal explanations, partly so that I can refer to them if need be and/or explain what they mean. So I searched for some of the briefest, clearest explanations from technical literature in relevant fields on the non-existence of photons as they are described in the OP. Naturally, the result contained far too many short, concise summaries. So I just selected a handful:
“no photon can ever be regarded as entirely ‘real’”.
Andrews, D. L. (2015). A Photon Perspective. In D. L. Andrew (Ed.), Fundamentals of Photonics and Physics (Photonics: Scientific Foundations, Technology and Applications, Vol. I) (pp. 1-25). Wiley-Science.

"A free photon is an abstraction. Only during its interaction with matter (charged massive particle(s)) does the photon come to “existence” (can be registered)."
O. Keller (2014). Light: The Physics of the Photon (Series in Optics and Optoelectronics). CRC Press.

“where intuitively we have, say, an assembly of n photons each persisting in time, we really have only at each moment n photon stages (temporal slices), and there is no objectivity of any sort to the classification of one of these photon stages at time t belonging to the same photon as one or other of the stages at time t + d. A photon stage at a certain time is really no more than an event…”
C. van Fraasen, B. (1998). The Problem of Indistinguishable Particles. In E. Castellalni (Ed.) Interpreting Bodies: Classical and Quantum Objects in Modern Physics (pp. 73-92). Princeton University Press.

“The complete indistinguishability of photons directly follows...since they are not separate entities. Logically, photons hardly deserve the dignity of a noun. When you speak more correctly of different levels of excitation of the modes of the field the question of the identity of the photons becomes meaningless. They are truly faceless.”
Mills, R. (1993). Tutorial on Infinities in QED. In L. M. Brown (Ed.), Renormalization: From Lorentz to Landau (and Beyond) (pp. 59-85). Springer.

“there is no indication that, for instance, the idea of the ‘position of a light quantum’ (or the ‘probability for the position’) has any simple physical meaning…light quanta occur in the theory only as quantum numbers attached to the radiation oscillators. Two light quanta cannot therefore be distinguished from each other. Furthermore, the number of quanta attached to each oscillator is not limited.”
Heitler, W. (1954). The Quantum Theory of Radiation (3rd Ed.). Oxford University Press.

“since the initial and emergent states for each such interaction relate to quanta of excitation in different radiation modes, it is essentially meaningless to regard the input and output as the same photon. More correctly, one has to regard each scattering event as the annihilation of one photon and the creation of another.”
Andrews, D. L. (2015). A Photon Perspective. In D. L. Andrew (Ed.), Fundamentals of Photonics and Physics (Photonics: Scientific Foundations, Technology and Applications, Vol. I) (pp. 1-25). Wiley-Science.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

But we are talking about practice here

No, but even were we really discussing a meaningful question regarding photons in practice here we can't treat Planck's constant as negligible. In fact, the question in the OP reads like a kind of attempt at treating popular explanations of Einstein's 1905 light quanta, which means that "photon" here would mean not just that we can't treat Planck's constant as negligible but rather in terms of the first attempt to take quanta seriously.
More importantly, my point was that quantum uncertainty is different from when quantum effects are negligible. We can never neglect or disregard the uncertainty principle due to some size scale or magnitude because the uncertainty principle means plugging in quantum operators into a commutator and we will or will not find that the result is 0. We can treat a system classically or as semiclassical or in terms of non-relativistic quantum mechanics or even non-relativistic quantum field theory, but the uncertainty principle means plugging fundamentally quantum mechanical representations of observables into a commutator and whether or not a zero pops out.
In short, the magnitude of effects in the sense you refer to is about when and in what way it becomes necessary to use quantum theory rather than classical, while the uncertainty principle is a quantitative algebraic relationship between operator representations of quantum observables.

are we not, namely how a macroscopic image can be formed by reflected light? Or do you think the OP (who has not responded) meant to discuss only atomic scale blurring of the image?

In the OP reference is made clearly to QED. QED is the best known and most thoroughly studied quantum field theory, it is relativistic, it is very concerned with the real nature of light, and it involves the highly nontrivial problems of quantizating electromagnetic fields and the issue of the uncertainty principle combined with the relativistic mass-energy equivalence.
Reference is also made to a single photon. Macroscopic treatments of light usually involve electromagnetic waves, not quanta, and certainly not single photons interacting with mirrors as if they were balls of light that we can track as they are reflected. We always have to treat quantum systems at the macroscopic level at some point in theory or experimental practice because we are macroscopic and so are our instruments. So even in QED, we have to somehow relate quantum dynamics and interactions to macroscopic registers/detectors/etc. But the reason that this is such a delicate issue (both technically, theoretically, and mathematically) is because this quantum-to-classical transition is highly nontrivial. We can't bypass it either by pretending that somehow questions regarding the uncertainty principle can be answered via reference to the magnitude of scale concern, and still less by pretending that questions confusing QM, QED, the uncertainty principle, and photons can be answered in any way other than by showing how they are ill-posed.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I should note note one rather vital issue at play when considering the uncertainty principle in the context of photons in QED. In QED, as in particle physics/HEP and QFT more generally, most of the processes relevant to any physical situation under consideration (from many-bodied collision processes to the just the vacuum state) are virtual. That is, if we seek to use QED to answer questions concerning e.g., an electron in some cavity or just the vacuum state over some arbitrarily small spacetime region, we have to take into consideration a vast number of processes that have some probability of occurring, such as (for the vacuum state) the creation and annihilation of virtual particles like virtual photons, positrons, etc.
In short, in QED even the physical situation of "nothing" (i.e., the vacuum state) is a many-body problem. The uncertainty principle is not only partly the manner in which we are able to understand the creation and annihilation of quantum particles like electrons and positrons (i.e., the uncertainty principle + relativistic mass-energy equivalent= creation/annihilation). It is also one way in which we are able to conceptually differentiate virtual processes and particles from "real". Basically, violations of fundamental conservation laws like mass-energy conservation can be and are violated constantly in QED (as in particle physics more generally), but these violations are all virtual exchanges/particles. The uncertainty principle can be and is used to tell us e.g., how much energy conservation can be violated by a particular physical system/interaction for how long a duration/extent. But even though we must include such violations of fundamental conservation laws in any use of QED, we can consider such violations as due to virtual particles/processes. The problem is that even though we can use the uncertainty principle to tell us how and why certain processes that we must take into account can violate conservation laws by being virtual, neither this principle nor QED nor anything else can really tell us what "being real" means here, particularly when it comes to photons.
Electrons are less problematic, as at least there isn't any theory which tells us that there is no difference between locating a single electron at a particular place at a particular time vs. locating 100 electrons (quite the opposite, actually). But even here things are far from clear as can be somewhat appreciated by an amusing anecdote told by a founder of QED (Feynman) during his Nobel prize speech:

"I received a telephone call one day at the graduate college at Princeton from Professor Wheeler, in which he said, "Feynman, I know why all electrons have the same charge and the same mass" "Why?" "Because, they are all the same electron!"... "But, Professor", I said, "there aren't as many positrons as electrons." "Well, maybe they are hidden in the protons or something", he said. I did not take the idea that all the electrons were the same one from him as seriously as I took the observation that positrons could simply be represented as electrons going from the future to the past in a back section of their world lines. That, I stole!"
Richard P. Feynman - Nobel Lecture: The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics

 

[Unes]

Dear LegionOnomaMoi,

Thank you for all your efforts trying to answer my question. However, reading your posts I am not clear whether my question has been answered. For clarity of my question I am referring to Dr. Feynman’s lectures at University of Auckland 1979.

Reading your posts I think you are agreeing with the following two statements

1. According to Feynman we do not know the details of how photon behaves, but QED does acknowledge the detection of a SINGLE photon by detecting equipment.

2. In his lecture Dr. Feynman explained the path integral approach (Feynman’s all-path method) to be QED’s answer for the mirror reflection (the Optic Law for mirror reflection).

Now, I express my third statement as follow: Regarding the emission of photon by an energized electron, QED expresses such emission falls in the domain of uncertainty rule and the diagram of the direction of the emitted phone is provided by QED models.

I do understand that there might be many finer complexities regarding each of these statements, however those finer details should not dismiss the validity of these statements.

If you agree with these 3 statements, then for the energized electron at the surface of the mirror, statement #2 and statement #3 contradicts each other. We need to explain at the surface of the mirror what causes to OVER-RIDE the random direction of the emitted photon, and instead the emitted photon is directed to the specific direction that gives us the Optic Law.

 

[Milton Platt]

I’m not a physicist, but this is an interesting topic.

I wonder
1) how many actual physicists post on this forum
2) wether the observations made so long ago may have been superceded by later observations and more understanding

 

[Unes]

Mirror Image Reflection

On this site I have seen many complex subjects of physics have been explained by highly educated physicists, and yet this very common phenomenon of physics on this thread has remained unanswered! Perhaps the Physicists do not have any plausible answer for this peculiar puzzle, because how else we should have asked them to answer this puzzle for this very common phenomenon which we observe it numerous times in our daily lives? I feel, for what it worth, I am obligated to express my own humble analysis, on this extremely baffling phenomenon.

Following at the foot step of Prof. Feynman I analyze the mirror reflection phenomenon for a SINGLE photon. Since we assume every photon interacts in a similar way, then this analysis will be valid for EACH photon in the reflected image from the surface of a mirror.

Prof. Feynman in his lectures at University of Auckland 1979, mentioned that according to QED if there is no surface then there no reflection (this is very logical statement), then the reflection of a photon from a reflective surface is mostly the interaction of a photon with an electron from the material that is constructed that image reflective surface. For the mirror reflection the incoming photon to the surface of a mirror, it gets absorbed by an electron, and then this energized electron emits the reflected photon. He commented that the reflected photon is not the same photon that hit to the surface of the mirror, but rather it is a new photon, that it is emitted by the energized electron. (These comments are made in lecture #1 at 55:50 minutes and at 1:10 minutes of the video, and also in lecture #2 at 1:20 minutes of the video, and also in lecture #3 at 1:01 minutes of the video.)

Regarding the subject of the mirror reflection QED offers us three statements, as follow:

1. According to Feynman we do not know the details of how a photon gets reflected by two surfaces, but QED does acknowledge the detection of ONE photon by a detecting device. This process enables us to count the number of the reflected photons, and we express this data by the probability of the reflection from that surface.

2. In his lecture Prof. Feynman explained QED all-path integral approach (Feynman’s all-path method) to be QED’s answer for the mirror reflection, and the same is true for QED wave function method.
These two QED methods harmonize the result from the QED theory with the result from the Optic Law for the mirror reflection. These two QED methods define a precise direction for the reflected photon from the surface of a mirror, and we are told that the reflected photon has been generated by an energized photon.

3. Regarding the emission of photon by an energized electron, QED expresses such emission falls in the domain of the uncertainty rule, and the direction of the emitted photon can only be expressed by a probabilistic method, which means we can never predict the direction that an energized electron emits its photon.

All these three statements from QED Theory are taught at physics departments at all universities all over the world. As you see for an energized electron at the surface of a mirror in the process of a mirror reflecting a photon, the Statement #2 and the Statement #3 are contradicting with each other. How can such a glaring contradiction exist within our Mighty and Beloved QED Theory? How can the explanations for such a common phenomenon of nature, that we are observing it so routinely in our daily lives, generate such a glaring contradiction in our most successful theory? It seems in this peculiar case our beloved QED Theory has deceived us big time!

QED theory has invented two faulty methods of “All-Path integral approach” and the “Wave-Function method” to hush up its failure from answering the puzzle of the mirror image reflection. QED Theory has designed these two methods to produce exactly the same result as it is produced by the Optic Law. In order to achieve this goal, right from the beginning the correct result from the Optic Law has been implemented into these QED configurations, as a result this is only natural that, regardless of any faulty arguments, these two QED methods to produce the same result as that from the Optic Law! Duh!

In all-path integral method, QED calculates the summation of the amplitude vectors for all the possible paths that a photon can take from the photon source to the surface of the mirror, and from the surface of the mirror to the photon detector. Directing the reflected paths from the surface of the mirror toward the photon detector is absolutely a false assumption, and this is where the QED all-path integral approach makes its mistake. This is absolutely a wrong assumption, because QED had discovered that the emitted photon by an energized electron is a multi-directional probabilistic process, then the probability of the emitted photon from any point on the surface of the mirror to reach to the photon detector is very slim, and almost negligible, so, this negligible probability does not contribute any significance value to the related amplitude vector from that point on the surface of the mirror to the photon detector, and this makes the process of the “all-path integral approach” faulty and wrong. Of course when QED has made this wrong assumption in its configuration it is only natural that it causes to produce that glaring contradiction between statement #2 and statement #3.

Let me show the falsehood of the QED “all-path approach” in another way. Consider a mirror is placed flatly on the surface of a table, and a photon source is placed at the left side of the mirror, and a photon detector is placed on the right side. The photon source sends ONE photon to the surface of the mirror and according to the Optic Law the detector detects the reflected photon. Optic Law defines the point that the photon gets reflected from the surface of the mirror. Let us label this point on the surface of the mirror as point A. I cut out a circle from the mirror, centered at point A with a radius of one millimeter. Optic Law predicts, no matter what is the value of the summation of the amplitude vectors for the rest of the mirror, the photon detector no longer detects any photon. The critique would charge that the little gap in the mirror has eliminated the significant part of the amplitude vectors which were lining up in the same direction, and they were contributing a major value to the summation of the amplitude vectors. My answer to this critique is, still the strips of the mirror which run from the left side to right side of the mirror, and the gap in the mirror has not affected these strips at all, and their amplitude vectors are lining up at their midpoints, and their contributions are as significance as before.

Actually, with that gap in the mirror, the incoming photon to the point A will never get reflected, no matter how we manipulate the value of the summation of the amplitude vectors for the rest of the mirror! The value of the summation amplitude vectors for this case is a bogus value, and it represents nothing. We reach to this conclusion because of the result by the Optic Law. And the Optic Law for mirror reflection was realized by examining the mirror reflection numerous times. And even QED all-path integral approach is designed to be in harmony with this stated result from the Optic Law.

The rest of this article is posted in the next post.

 

[Unes]

Mirror Image Reflection
Continuation

Now, that I have shown the falsehood of these QED methods, then still the mechanics of the Mirror Image Reflection remains unanswered. So far, we have learnt that the phenomenon of mirror image reflection materializes from the interaction between photons and the electrons at the smooth surfaces (because as far as we know these are the only particles which are involved in that process), and the smooth and flat surfaces reflect the incoming images without a noticeable distortion. This is a very plausible assumption that we have discovered through QED Theory.

QED theory tells us that the photons in the incoming image are absorbed by the electrons at the surface of the mirror, and then these energized electrons emit their photons. QED also tells us that an energized electron emits its photon in all probabilistic directions, and this behavior is not in harmony with what is happening at the surface of a mirror, and instead we have the Optic Law. This is a peculiar behavior by the energized electrons at the surface of the mirror that it produces the Optic Law. The energized electrons at the surface of a mirror do the image reflection with an amazing integrity and accuracy, for all the incoming images from all directions that are in front of the mirror. How could these electrons know that they are at the surface of a mirror, that they are supposed to emit their photons in a specific direction? These electrons are registering the directions of the incoming photons, not based on their own internal coordinates, but rather based on the coordinates that it is related to the surface of the mirror, that these electrons are located on top of it. This peculiar behavior it gets even more bizarre; the probability of the reflection increases as the angle of the incident increases! (For glass the probability of the reflection at 0 degree angle of incident is 4%, and at 70 degree angle of incident is about 33%, and these probabilities of the reflections are acquired by counting the reflected photons, and the result of this counting fluctuates between different studies, which we have no clue why this empirical data fluctuates. The length of the amplitude vector is designed to be the square root of these empirical results. By averaging these empirical results, we are overlooking another puzzle within these statistical results.) For sure these complex behaviors of electron indicate that the surface of the mirror plays the paramount role in the mirror image reflection, and of course QED all-path integral methods tried to create a relation between the surface of the mirror and the reflected photon, but as I showed QED all-path integral approach by using a wrong assumption, it has tried to fudge its result to reach to the same result by the Optic Law. We should not deceive ourselves by fudging our argument trying to reach to the desired result. This is totally forbidden in our scientific studies. Deception has no place in our scientific analyses.

Then how can we grasp any notion of the mechanics for the interaction between a photon and an electron for the mirror image reflection? This is abundantly clear that the mirror image reflection phenomenon does not fit within QED theory at all. And we do not think that an energized electron possesses the awareness to differentiate between different situations; to emit its photon in random directions, versus to emit its photon in a specific direction when it is located on the surface of a mirror. This change of behavior by the energized electrons at the surface of the mirrors presents a conscious act. The evidence of such conscious behavior is undeniable. This conscious characteristic differentiates this phenomenon from all the other established scientific analyses, this conscious behavior is so foreign to our current scientific studies.

Of course we can build devices that they act in a conscious way, things like a sensor switch that turns on the light when it gets dark, but none of the scientific analyses of nature presents us with this kind of peculiar behavior. Since an energized electron cannot possibly be aware of its position at the surface of a mirror, then, we are FORCED TO RECOGNIZE the existence of an intelligent conscious being within the fabric of the Nature, who in this peculiar case neutralizes QED’s uncertainty rule and instead, deliberately produces the fabulous phenomenon of the mirror reflection, which we express it by Optic Law, where the direction of the emission is precisely defined. Knowledge of QED for the energized electron was needed in order that we recognize the existence of this agent in this peculiar process of Nature. This essential influence should have been recognized from the moment that we had discovered the pattern of the emission of a photon by an energized electron.

Since the early time that Man reached to some sophisticated intelligence he intuitively recognized the existence of a supreme powerful force who was dominating his environment, and now, at least for this peculiar phenomenon, our advanced scientific studies is pointing to the same conclusion! This is the kind of the evidence that we have been searching for, trying to prove the influence of a dominating intelligent being within our environment that is influencing our existence in minute details.

 

[Revoltingest]

As a matter of style, using claims like.....
"...has invented two faulty methods of “All-Path integral approach”
and the “Wave-Function method” to hush up its failure from answering..."
....suggest a conspiracy.
Some will stop reading when things begin to look that way.
You'll get a broader audience by eschewing such accusations.

 

[Milton Platt]

That’s a really large post. I suspect that if the answer is not to be found in current physics papers, or is not known by those practicing in the field today, there may not yet be an answer.
But that is where you should look for an answer
Good luck

 

[Unes]

Let us make an observation, turn off the pumps of a fish tank, then we can observe the reflection of the content of the fish tank from the calm surface water of the fish tank. This calm surface water reflects the image of the fish which they are swimming in the fish tank. I do not know the percentage of this reflection. This observation shows that the surface of water possesses the property of reflection from both sides.

This is very puzzling, what is it at the surface of the water that it reflects the photons that are hitting to the surface water from the inside of the water? How does the photon from inside of the water recognize the water surface, that it gets reflected from it?

 

[james blunt]

Let us make an observation, turn off the pumps of a fish tank, then we can observe the reflection of the content of the fish tank from the calm surface water of the fish tank. This calm surface water reflects the image of the fish which they are swimming in the fish tank. I do not know the percentage of this reflection. This observation shows that the surface of water possesses the property of reflection from both sides.

This is very puzzling, what is it at the surface of the water that it reflects the photons that are hitting to the surface water from the inside of the water? How does the photon from inside of the water recognize the water surface, that it gets reflected from it?

Permeability

 

[exchemist]

Let us make an observation, turn off the pumps of a fish tank, then we can observe the reflection of the content of the fish tank from the calm surface water of the fish tank. This calm surface water reflects the image of the fish which they are swimming in the fish tank. I do not know the percentage of this reflection. This observation shows that the surface of water possesses the property of reflection from both sides.

This is very puzzling, what is it at the surface of the water that it reflects the photons that are hitting to the surface water from the inside of the water? How does the photon from inside of the water recognize the water surface, that it gets reflected from it?

You mean what is called "total internal reflection"? It's what you get when the bending of the light ray at the surface due to refraction is such that the ray is bent too much to emerge from the optically denser medium. Theres a Wiki article about it here: Total internal reflection - Wikipedia

This explains it as a wave phenomenon. How exactly one accounts for it in terms of individual wave packets, i.e. photons, I am not sure. Maybe a real physicist can help, as I'm really only a chemist.

 

[james blunt]

Let us make an observation, turn off the pumps of a fish tank, then we can observe the reflection of the content of the fish tank from the calm surface water of the fish tank. This calm surface water reflects the image of the fish which they are swimming in the fish tank. I do not know the percentage of this reflection. This observation shows that the surface of water possesses the property of reflection from both sides.

This is very puzzling, what is it at the surface of the water that it reflects the photons that are hitting to the surface water from the inside of the water? How does the photon from inside of the water recognize the water surface, that it gets reflected from it?

I will add to this , the photon doesn't recognise the surface. You do