I reject the concept of photons as redundant.  There is no need of an existent to move from a source electron to a receiving one.  This can be reduced to a symmetric, asynchronous two electron action-at-a-distance interaction (a la Newton) with finite time delays - hence NO need for any field mathematics - a la Maxwell.  See my classical  UET6.  

One of the outstanding questions concering a (classical) photon model is the Mach-Zehnder phenomenon (MZP). You mentioned this on page 35 of  UETP6.pdf

In

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299234932_SECRETS_BEHIND_THE_MACH-ZEHNDER_PHENOMENON_1A

it is sketched how MZP can be understood qualitatively in a classical manner provided some assumptions on the nature of the photon are made.

This indicates, at least to my point of view, that the concept and nature of the interacting photon, considered as a localized lump of energy and zero charge and zero mass, is far from being well described by contemporary physical theories.

Research SECRETS BEHIND THE MACH-ZEHNDER PHENOMENON

Dear Karl:  Alfred Lande was very strong on this throughout his career but was dumped on by Bohr/Heisenberg. 

So, yes linear action (linear momentum ->kinetic energy) and rotational action (angular momentum) are both quantized; this is why h is the quantum of ACTION, as Arnold Sommerfeld realized. 

These are key to my discrete model of the hydrogen atom.

I would say the uncertainty principle is important. The position of the edge

in the x direction say  is very well defined, so linear momentum in the same direction

has a wide range of values. This explains the propagation into the shadow región.

There is another one concering angular momentum angle, but do not

see clearly how to apply it here.

Sorry Juan:  But material 'edges' are NOT clearly defined (except as fictitious straight lines); neither is INSTANTANEOUS linear velocity (contra Newton); so neither is  momentum.  Please supply physical suggestions on how to defines these math concepts. 

The idea of the calculation I mentioned above, which reproduces a pattern on the screen which is qualitatively very similar to that which is observed in a diffraction experiment with an edge and a laser beam, is the following:

Assume that the diffraction phenomenon does not depend on the intensity of the beam, i.e. assume that the phenomenon occurs even in the case where single 'photons' hit the screen. Now consider a single particle ('photon') which approaches the spatial region of a scattering center (atom or molecule of the material of the edge) moving on an IN-trajectory (straight line) and which leaves this region moving on an OUT-trajectory. Then it can be shown by argueing in a pure geometrical manner that the angle between IN- and OUT-trajectory and the distance between the scattering center and the IN-trajectory and OUT-trajectory, respectively,  is related to the difference of change of the amount of angular momentum of the particle during the interaction. Assuming that the amount of the momentum of the particle does not change, and the amount of the angular momentum changes by some multiples of an angular momentum quantum the pattern on the screen can be calculated as a function of some geometrical parameters and the amount of the IN-momentum (i.e. the energy of the 'photon') and the amount of the discretized angular momentum transfer to the particle.

Herb

Of course edges are never perfect, if the edge is better defined than one wavelength

of light it will suffice. Im assuming you know something about physics and the uncertainty principle. (500 nano meters for visible say) It would not necesarily have to be that straight either..

The uncertainty principle does allow some uncertainty about where the edge is., thats

the point, it is physics and not math.

also,

The Bohr model with discrete quantization of angular momentum I believe has

been superseded by the modern Quantum treatment.of operators.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty 'Principle' is just a minimal least-squares result of trying to measure both a particle's location-deviations at one time (difficult) and the particle's momentum-deviations at the same instant.  This latter is impossible because its velocity at zero time separation is NOT defined.  [Newton cheated]. 

Do not undersstnd this ans very well

I will buy the first part., at least approximatly.

do you mean that in classical mechanics position and velocity do not exist at the same time? for the same particle?

Cannot define velocity over a zero time period?

 ( The ans would be the modern theory of limits and calculus, so you can) because trajectories supposedly do exist in classical mechanics.(as opposed to quantum)

Dear Juan:  Limits and calculus are just mathematics: inventions of human imaginations,  but physics is the study of nature (currently the material aspects).  Math is only useful if it maps to reality and there is no OPERATIONAL equivalent of the Limit Concept.  Thus, I say Newton cheated - he proposed a math concept that had no experimental validation [zero time separation].  Thus, Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle is void: only math.   

Yes, trajectories exist (at the quantum and classical levels) because Newton's dynamics can be formulated as finite mathematics with operational equivalents; thus, valid.  

Maybe you cannot experimentally measure instantaneous speed

that easily. However conceptually you cannot do science without proper interpretation (the math). Within such interpretation

trajectories exist in Classical Mechanics, but not in QM.(at least the Copenhagen interpretation, the most comon). By trajectory I mean the unique trajectory that does supposedly exist, not a sum over all asumed trajectories a la Feyman in QM.

Juan:  The point of math being introduced into physics around 1600, was to compare theory (math) with measurement, as both involve numbers.  If one cannot make the measurements on the basic concepts of theory then the ideas are flawed from the very start; we are not doing REAL but imaginary physics.  Sorry, but you (like thousands of other young people exhibiting a talent for math) have been sold a Bill of Goods.   Trajectories in classical mechanics (CM) are NOT evaluated either continuously or instantaneously but over long times to determine the cyclic periods (usually in years) so CM is a good enough APPROXIMATION. Quantum theory is about much higher accuracies.  

One of the problems with the physical notion of 'velocity' is that in classical mechanics (CM) it is ASSUMED that the object under consideration can be characterized by a 'position' which is considered to be UNIQUE at each 'instant' of 'time', and that this alleged unique  'position' can be expressed mathematically by a triple of cartesian coordinates which are assumed to have values out of R, i.e. rational AND irrational numbers. The machinery of Newtonian CM makes sense provided the 'force' (or potential) can be given as a function of the positions and velocities of the partner objects the object under consideration is 'interacting' with. With regard to predictions Newtonian CM is reasonably successful if large (macroscopic) extended objects (on earth or inside a region around the sun) are considered, which have a total charge of zero and an almost homogenous distribution of pos. and neg. charge entities (electrons,protons) inside the object such that it can be assumed that the ('observable') characteristic features of the 'motion' of the object under consideration do not depend on the existence of such a distribution of pos. and neg. charge. In such cases the 'position' of the extended object is usually identified with it's 'center of mass' and the interactions considered are gravitational interaction or 'artifical' interactions (springs and dampers) when the object under consideration is part of a 'mechanical device'. A 'center of charge' is usually considered as insignificant for the motion of such an object.

However, if a (strong) external e.m. 'field' is present in the region of interaction the situation changes drastically, because then due to the e.m. interaction (which is much stronger than grav. interaction) the 'center of charge' of the extended object becomes more important than it's 'center of mass', and in general it should be  assumed that the positions of the two 'centers' do not agree. Hence, the question arises which of these two 'centers' should be considered as the 'position' which is required by Newton's eq. of motion of CM. More generally speaking, is it reasonable to believe in Newtonian CM which is focused on 'point-like' objects if one is aware that all physical objects are principally 'extended' and carry a charge distribution? 

The same argument applies if an electron is considered and if it is assumed that the electron is a tiny extended object, i.e. NOT a 'wave', but a 'soliton' with a highly fluctuating chaotic structure which might be described mathematically by some NON-linear field equations, having solution(s) which allow for an approximation by solutions of linearized field eqs. when scattering processes are considered (similar to what physicists do in QFT).

A more reasonable way to define the notion of 'velocity' in a NON-operational manner would be to consider scattering phenomenons and experiments and to consider the (alleged) conservation law of energy and momentum (as stated in special relativity) to be a 'true', from which the notion of 'velocity' can be 'derived' as a quantity which characterizes 'free' particles when they are moving on the IN-trajectories and OUT-trajectories which are straight lines. Then, it is purely a matter of mathematical construction to extend this notion of 'velocity' to the motion of a particle following a alleged trajectory which is assumed to correspond to a smooth curve in R^3.

Therefore, the 'smooth' character of the 'true' motion of a physical object and the corresponding idea that at each 'instant' of 'time' the physical object is characterized uniquely by a 'velocity' is basically a mathematical artefact, which is mathematical handsome and convenient for some analytical calculations, but which does not guarantee that it can be applied successfully to all kind of physical phenomenons which are involved with 'some rate of change' or some 'progression' of something in 'space' and 'time'.

I understand that you begin with the most simple case - diffraction from an edge. But if your theory is right you better show it in the double slit experiment. Can the quantization of momentum exchange lead to the interference pattern while keeping the photon (electron) point like and ignoring de Broglie waves?

The idea that angular momentum transfered to a particle is quantized is one ingredient to understand qualitatively diffraction phenomenons on the basis of an 'extended' particle model.

The other two ingredients are:

(A) an alleged structure of the particle's energy density and charge density, AND  the density of some chaotically or 'quasi-stochastically'  fluctuating dipols around the energy 'core' (center) of an extended particle, and

(B) an alleged structure of the principally non-empty 'vacuum' which is considered to be filled with such fluctuating dipols (FD) too.

The second slid  of a double-slid device being open means that there is a spatial region where no atoms of the material of the double-slid device are present. This gap of atoms might influence the density of the FDs in the spatial region of the first slid, and thereby might influence the interaction of the photons/electrons/neutrons/huge-molecules passing through the first slid, and which probably react in a non-linear sensitive manner to such distortions of the 'field' of FDs, which surrounds the material of the double-slid. 

Following this reasoning one NEVER should expect that the diffraction pattern of a double slid is simply the 'sum' of the diffraction patterns where only one slid is open, because the structure of the vacuum differs in the cases where only one slid is open or both slids are open. If the alleged fluctuations of such dipoles are highly chaotic, then a 'velocity' cannot be attached to an individual fluctuating dipole, because the 'lifetime' of the 'micro-states' (i.e. being 'collapsed' or being 'extended')  of an individual FD is to short to apply the notion of 'velocity' in a reasonable physical (operational) manner. Therefore, various arguments, which might be stated similar to what is known from discussions about the sense or non-sense of an 'aether' as a carrier of e.m. radiation, are inapproriate. Because of the highly chaotic or quasi-stochastic character of FDs, the question of velocity of a particle 'relative' to FDs filling the 'vacuum' cannot be considered as a question which can be proved or disproved by some physical operations in experiments.

It seems that efforts to setup a particle theory (beyond QM and QFT), which includes the idea and an appropriate mathematical description of the existence of vacuum filling FDs at the very beginning of the theory, is missed in the mainstream of theoretical physics.

Hi Karl: 

Mathematicians since Euler have obsessed about space (because, they too, like most other people are scared of personal death - thus, they ignore time).  This reaction happened again after Newton's revolutionary suggestions about motion, which returned time implicitly into the discussion.  The 'solution' was to invent the concept of "potential energy" which replaces the dynamic interaction between remote objects with a timeless function only of space.  This worked well enough in the CM approximation but has failed miserably in QM, where time effects are critical.  

Anyway, carry on with your 'Edge Ideas' and see how they work out.  

Good luck, Herb 

 Either you, either myself, or maybe both, are completely wrong.

You are still stuck in corpuscular ideations.

http://jacques.lavau.deonto-ethique.eu/Physique/15postulates.pdf

Dear Jaques:  Yes, I plead guilty.  I am totally committed to the particle concept, first launched by Democritus (c. 500 BC), revived by Newton, and resisted by most theologians throughout history as encouraging atheism.  Such spatially dominated (timeless types) cannot face up to their own inevitable death. Hence, the obsession with continuous fluids (or aethers). 

This problem of diffraction of any photon by an edge was solved by Augustin Fresnel in 1819. So what ?

Its not compñetely wrong, my belief is that with enough patience and skill

all such problems may eventually be solved both ways, particle and wave.

Linus Pauling and bright Wilson Jr. thought too, in 1935 explain the Bragg Law by a corpuscular way. I have reproduced their miserable failure at pages 116-118 / 325.

The version on researchgate.net is from 3 feb. 2017. Follows the up to date version.

http://jacques.lavau.deonto-ethique.eu/Physique/Microphysique_contee_juillet2017.pdf

Note that this diffraction phenomenon occurs for electrons too, and even in the case where the electron beam is weak enough such that hits of single electrons at the screen can be registrated. Pictures of the diffraction patterns can be found, for example, in the textbook "Optics" ch. 10.3.9 by Eugene Hecht.

Of course, by thinking in categories of "waves", as it is usually done, arguments can be given to "explain" the diffraction patterns. But this is in contradiction to the fact that whenever a photon (considered as a localized lump of energy moving at c) or an electron hits a screen or any detector device these individual hits are highly localized processes  ('events') in space and time.

To assume that a "wave model"  for a single photon or electron or any other particle which shows similar diffraction patterns reflects a part of 'reality' of such localized objects (particles) in a reasonable way, seems to be, in my point of view,  one of the greatest fallcies of phyiscs.

@Karl G. Kreuzer. You still do not distinguish individual waves from collectives of individual waves. So no hope of reasoning right in microphysics.

Karl:  I told you about Alfred Lande's theory of diffraction at an edge as quantized interaction (exchange) of momentum between the source of the results and the electrons in the edge.  Did you not check it out further? 

Herb : A copy of  Lande's textbook "New Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" (1965) has been ordered. I am going to reorganize and to complete and to translate my unpublished paper "ZUR INTERPRETATION VON TEILCHENBEUGUNGSPHAENOMENEN"  ( on the interpretation of particle diffraction phenomenons ) which I was working on in 2013.  The revised  English version will be available soon at RG.

@ Jacques Lavau: It is absolutely clear to me that one must distinguish between physical properties of 'individuals' and properties of ensembles of 'individuals' and properties a system of many 'individuals' ('collectives' of individuals, 'beams' in scattering experiments, etc.).

It seems to me that you do not want to accept that there might be some ancient ways in understanding quantum physical phenomenons, which had not been explored completely in all respects, including those respects which are fairly new and which are not known to everybody. So I must return your compliment: no hope of reasoning right in microphysics.

These ancient ways can not account for the Bragg law in crystallography, nor for the Scherrer law on the size of the crystallites, nor for the transparency Ramsauer-Townsend effect (1921) (carefully hidden from the students), nor for any interference phenomenon, nor for any spectral absorption, nor for the antennas and their directivity, nor for the anti-reflective coatings, nor for the interferential colors, nor for the quarter-wave plates, nor for many fine effects in polazized light...

So they deserve the garbage can.

Jacques:  You reflect the over-confidence of the over-educated.  There is much value in the original Bohr/Sommerfeld approach as I will show shortly.

Also, de Broglie's original ideas were misunderstood, as Bohm eventually realized. 

Provided that you still believe in the corpuscles of de Broglie and of Bohr, Born, Heisenberg... But the interferences still exist, even when only one photon or only one electron is in flight in the interferometer.

@ Jacques Lavau :

"But the interferences still exist, even when only one photon or only one electron is in flight in the interferometer." 

That there is absolutely nothing but one photon in the "interferometer", is merely    an assumption ! 

In the case where "interferometers" of Mach-Zehnder type are considered the observed "interference" pattern does not necessarily require to think in categories of 'waves' in order to understand the Mach-Zehnder phenomenon (MZP) !

In contrast to what is widely believed the MZP can be understood qualitatively in terms of a 'classical' model which considers particles, including photons, as tiny 'extended' objects which are 'wrapped' by a cloud of fluctuating (massless) dipoles, which can separate from the photon during an interaction with a photon, and thereby in a MZ-device moves along 'the other way', and then at the second half-mirror 'recombines' (interacts) with the polarized photon again, but in such a way that, due to the ordinary Lorentz force of classical electrodynamics, a tiny momentum transfer occurs which in both two cases results in preventing the photon from moving in the direction  of that detector which never clicks.

More details cf.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299234932_SECRETS_BEHIND_THE_MACH-ZEHNDER_PHENOMENON_1A

Research SECRETS BEHIND THE MACH-ZEHNDER PHENOMENON

You still have to account for the interferential astronomy with large bases.

You still have to account for the directivity of antennas.

You still have to account for the laws of the radiocrystallography...

My concept to success is going "step by step".

"All truth goes through three steps.

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed,

and finally it is accepted as self-evident."

Arthur Schopenhauer

Geman Philosopher

Lots and lots of kranks have already repeated these sentences.

One of them was Florian N*ch*n who pretended that the Earth was bloating in expansion, due to the "inflating neutrinos". Because he could not understand the subductions.

http://impostures.deontologic.org/index.php?board=21.0

http://impostures.deontologic.org/index.php?board=21.0

Erwin Schrödinger 1952 :

"Dieses Bild der materiellen Wirklichkeit ist heute so schwankend und unsicher wie es schon lange nicht gewesen ist. Wir wissen sehr viele interessante Details und wir erfahren sozusagen jede Woche neue, aber es ist ein Ding der Unmöglichkeit, aus den Grundvorstellungen solche herauszusuchen, die wirklich feststehen und daraus ein klares, leicht fassliches Gerüst für unsere Vorstellung von der Materie aufzubauen. Ein Gerüst, von dem man sagen könnte: so ist es ganz bestimmt, das glauben wir heute alle. Das ist leider unmöglich."

"This image of material reality is now so vacillating and uncertain as it has not been for a long time. We know a lot of interesting details, and we learn new things every week, so to speak, but it is a matter of the impossibility of finding out from the basic conceptions that really stand firm and build a clear, easy-to-grasp framework for our concept of matter. A framework of which one could say: it is quite certain, we all believe that today. This is unfortunately impossible."

http://www.zbp.univie.ac.at/schrodinger/sounds/ot2a.wav

Erwin Schrödinger's opinion about physicists insights about the very nature of matter is probably shared by many others, even today.