Xris:
First of all, for what it's worth, I think this is one of your more worthwile posts! You've talked coherently about some concrete issues in physics without going on about emperors' clothes and stuff. But, I don't know if it's just an unfortunate turn of phrase, but you seem to keep making the same mistakes about how scientific knowledge works over and over again, as demonstrated in this sentence:
Assumptions developed not conclusively proven but stated as if factual.
Physical models and theories are never conclusively proven. They fit existing observations, and predict subsequent observations, to a greater or lesser degree. Things tend to be stated as factual simply because the weight of evidence has reached a particular arbitrarily defined level. How else would you decide what is an "established fact" and what is not?
Light has no mass so should not be bent by gravity but it is.
What makes you think that only things with mass are affected by gravity? The only thing I can think of is Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. But this was superceded by General Relativity. It turns out to be an approximation.
Actually, the proposition that photons are massless is an empirical observations from experiments, so it might indeed not be true. Experiments so far have established that, if it does have mass, its mass is trillions of trillions of times smaller than that of an electron. If it did turn out to have mass it would be interesting. But there's no logical contradiction in the idea that it might not.
Why is it that EM radiation, light, can not be bent over a large area of space by another EM field but it can be assumed by gravity?
There are all kinds of reasons in the laws of electrodynamics, derived from the classical laws of electromagnetics as expressed in Maxwell's equations, why this is
expected to be true. And it is certainly
observed to be true. It's basically an expression of the fact that photons do not interact with each other. It's what allows you to be looking at your computer screen right now without the photons from that screen being interfered with by all the other photons that are crossing their paths.
You seem to think there is strong reason to think that this should not be the case because they are affected by gravity. What is that reason?
Another problem, photons are generated at the speed of light..So if they are travelling in one direction they must experience acceleration, so how can they start life at the speed of light?
Why would they have to experience acceleration? Why shouldn't they start life at the speed of light? Special Relativity predicts that anything that has no mass would have to travel at this speed for its entire existence and any body that has mass cannot reach this speed. The current model says that the photon is the particle which mediates the electromagnetic force. The fact that the photon is massless leads to the fact that the electromagnetic force has infinite range, whereas the particle that mediates the strong nuclear force, for example, has mass, with the consequence that the strong nuclear force has very short range.
But the thing to remember about these kinds of models is that they exist because they seem to accurately predict experimental results. That's why they're invented.
It has no logic but we simply have to accept it as a fact.
In what sense does it have no logic? You
don't have to accept it as a fact. You can examine the experimental evidence on which it is based and decide whether you agree that it's the best way to describe that evidence.
Expressing light as a particle when no particle exists muddies the reasoning. Is it EM wave or a particle with no mass?
What do you mean by "no particle exists"? Do you mean that the particle model is not useful in this case?
It is what it is. The word "wave" loosely encapsulates a set of mathematical rules. The word "particle" loosely encapsulates another set of mathematical rules. Photons appear experimentally to be describable by mathematical rules that are from both. The mathematical description of the way that polarization appears to behave is the same as the description of "spin" in other particles. The way that light ejects electrons from metals in the photoelectric effect is not describable using a wave model. And so on. If you want to reject the particle-like parts of the description of light you have to replace it with something that does at least the same job.
Just because the observations are not understood we invent particles but find waves.
Why would we do that? I don't know why you think someone would invent a model that isn't useful for describing the evidence when a perfectly good model already exists. If the wave model was perfectly adequate to describe all observations then obviously it would be used exclusively. There are all kinds of experimental observations that simply cannot be explained with just a wave model, starting, famously, with the photoelectric effect. I say again and again, if you have in mind a model that fits the evidence better then name it.
The quantum model can not predict, that is my problem. Using particles as a concept, it describes the quantum universe as unpredictable.
Quantum electrodynamics is the most accurate physical model ever invented so far.
It results in electrons that appear to travel but are in two places at the same time.
No it doesn't.
Steve did you read my reference to the slightly cranky Bill Gaede.
I did have a look, yes. It was a bit of work trawling through all the funny pictures and sensational headlines to find the substance. There's a lot of stuff there and it's interesting. But it all begs the question: what does he want to replace it all with? He seems to have a problem with the use of mathematical abstractions in attempting to model the world. And makes some good criticisms of it. But I couldn't find the part where he presents a better way. And I couldn't find the part where he points to the physical evidence that has been incorrectly predicted as a result of the use of mathematics.
Perhaps I didn't read it far enough. Does he, at some point, present his alternatives that are more successful at predicting observations than the current methods?
- By Thrylix
- By Pattern-chaser
- By Ajiferuke Ajibola