Question about waves

[Almost there]

So, I was watching a very interesting series on Amazon Prime about light, and it resurrected a question I've had for some time, but had forgotten about it. It goes like this:

Light is a wave. The analogy that is used to explain it is ocean waves. The waves move and eventually break on shore. The "breaking" on shore is the equivalent of light reaching your eye, though it is a very large and "slow" wavelength compared to light. The ocean from which the wave is created is not really moving (at least for the purposes of this discussion).

And the same is true of sound and radio. They are waves. In the case of sound, it moves within other objects, like the ocean waves. i.e. through rock, air and water. It also moves faster through water than air, which is why it is difficult to tell where a sound is coming from underwater. You are not conditioned to interpret the time lag between ears yet. And there is no sound in space because there is nothing to apply a sound wave to.

So, here is the conundrum I have:

The wave breaking on shore is within water which is actually stationary.

The sound wave is within physical objects that are not, themselves really moving.

What stationary "thing" is a radio or light wave causing to vibrate? If there is nothing there to which to apply a wave, light can not travel any more than sound can travel without the existence of air, water, etc. Is there an "existence" in outer space and everywhere else that we can't measure, but it actually exists and carries these waves? Is this the "ether" with which people used to believe space was filled a hundred years ago?

 

[Darkhorse]

This is a highly imperfect answer, but remembering back to college physics, all electromagnetic waves exist as both an electric wave and a magnetic wave. These waves move forward together, but exist at right angles to each other (like one in a horizontal plane and the other in a vertical plane). They each "lay down" a respective field (electric or magnetic), propagate in that field, and move on. The field is where the "vibration" takes place; there is no need for any material medium in which to vibrate.

This is sort of analogous to the question: "How can an army tank drive over land where there is no road?" The tank lays down its track, runs on the track, then picks it up and continues on. In essence, it "carries its own road" with it.

Hope that helps...

 

[Saucy]

Well, there's no sound in space because there's no air. If a spaceship exploded, it would be completely silent. Think of sound like a shockwave. Whether it's a bomb going off or your set a plate down on the counter, it sends out a wave. Someone in the next room might not hear you setting down a plate, but you will.

With light, you can tell it's a wave, because of the shadow caused when something blocks the light. Think of an eclipse. The moon blocks the sun waves, so it gets dark out. If it wasn't a wave, then the light could filter around the object with no problem.

 

[Almost there]

This is a highly imperfect answer, but remembering back to college physics, all electromagnetic waves exist as both an electric wave and a magnetic wave. These waves move forward together, but exist at right angles to each other (like one in a horizontal plane and the other in a vertical plane). They each "lay down" a respective field (electric or magnetic), propagate in that field, and move on. The field is where the "vibration" takes place; there is no need for any material medium in which to vibrate.

This is sort of analogous to the question: "How can an army tank drive over land where there is no road?" The tank lays down its track, runs on the track, then picks it up and continues on. In essence, it "carries its own road" with it.

Hope that helps...

Pretty funny. As I was reading your first couple of sentences, I thought, "kind of like laying down your own road and then picking it up again".

That wave you describe is exactly the wave graphic video shown in the show I watched. I get the feeling that this is a subject that is not well understood, hence the "it creates and then destroys again its own medium" explanation. I'm not sure I buy that hypothesis. Not that I don't. I just think it's a "placeholder hypothesis" for now, until we know enough to say more.

And the recent discovery of gravity waves further complicates it.

The reason this subject is getting more and more important to me is that I've come up with my own hypothesis over the last couple of years regarding God. I know he's not some old guy in a white beard in the clouds, and I also believe his only human manifestation is Jesus. So what is he?

And I think the answer may be that he is "gravity". That is, just as the bible says he is everywhere and in everything, I believe it may be that God is the "thing" in which our universe exists. And light and radio are waves within that "thing", which is God. This gets into the whole thing about energy and how it applies to our universe.

This is a VERY ill defined hypothesis at this point, but you get the gist of where I'm going. It began when I read an article a couple of decades ago that made the argument that gravity does not pull, but pushes. It sounded absurd, until I read that article and others as a follow up. It demonstrated just how serious it is that gravity is still just a theory.

And just as a fish can't understand "wet", we can't understand this force in which we exist, wherever we go. And our senses can't see it, but only its affect on our reality.

And the kicker: It may be nothing more than God "thinking" the universe and everything in it into existence, and it can be destroyed just as easily.

Lots of high level points there, but you get where I'm going with this. I'll need a few more decades to work this out.

 

[Darkhorse]

You probably know about the dual nature of light (and all electromagnetic radiation) regarding its wave - particle nature. For those who are unfamiliar with it, here's another highly imperfect description:

Back in the 1600s, scientists discussed whether light was a wave or a stream of particles.
Newton regarded light as a wave, and all evidence at the time confirmed his belief. Later, in 1900, Planck explained a previously-unresolved riddle by treating light as particles called quanta (singular: quantum). In some ways, light behaves like particles, but in other ways light behaves like waves...

So which is it? It's both.

When treating light as a wave works, you treat light as a wave.
When particle dynamics works, you treat light as a particle.

Light is both, all the time.
Can't God be at least as complex as light?

 

[Almost there]

You probably know about the dual nature of light (and all electromagnetic radiation) regarding its wave - particle nature. For those who are unfamiliar with it, here's another highly imperfect description:

Back in the 1600s, scientists discussed whether light was a wave or a stream of particles.
Newton regarded light as a wave, and all evidence at the time confirmed his belief. Later, in 1900, Planck explained a previously-unresolved riddle by treating light as particles called quanta (singular: quantum). In some ways, light behaves like particles, but in other ways light behaves like waves...

So which is it? It's both.

When treating light as a wave works, you treat light as a wave.
When particle dynamics works, you treat light as a particle.

Light is both, all the time.
Can't God be at least as complex as light?

That is actually how I do see it. Just as waves in water are both waves and water, light is both particles and waves. And in the situation of "water" waves, they are produced from solid water. Where there is no water, there can be no waves. So that "ether" thing I'm talking about could be seen as the particles. They are everywhere to us in the same way that water is everywhere to a fish in the ocean, but we don't see them until they hit our eyes in the form of a wave.

 

[Everybodyknows]

That is actually how I do see it. Just as waves in water are both waves and water, light is both particles and waves. And in the situation of "water" waves, they are produced from solid water. Where there is no water, there can be no waves. So that "ether" thing I'm talking about could be seen as the particles. They are everywhere to us in the same way that water is everywhere to a fish in the ocean, but we don't see them until they hit our eyes in the form of a wave.

I think you will find your answer in Quantum Field Theory.

 

[Radagast]

The wave breaking on shore is within water which is actually stationary.

With water waves and sound waves, the particles are actually moving back and forth.

What stationary "thing" is a radio or light wave causing to vibrate?

It is electric and magnetic fields that vibrate, but they are not "in" anything.

Is this the "ether" with which people used to believe space was filled a hundred years ago?

Pretty much. The "ether" idea came because people thought that the electric and magnetic fields needed to be "in" something.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Is this the "ether" with which people used to believe space was filled a hundred years ago?

Correct. It was believed (at one point) that all waves required a medium, and the 'luminiferous aether' was hypothesized as this medium.

The solutions to Maxwell's equations, however, showed that a wiggle in electric fields would cause a wiggle in magnetic fields, and vice versa, so that an 'electromagnetic wave' (i.e. light) could propagate on its own, without any need for a medium.

The nail in the coffin of the ether theory was the Michelson-Morley experiment, and the results of this led directly into Einstein's development of relativity.

 

[Almost there]

With water waves and sound waves, the particles are actually moving back and forth.

Yeah. When I worded it in my OP I almost stated that. Their back and forth movement is what makes up the wave.

It is electric and magnetic fields that vibrate, but they are not "in" anything.

Yes, I see them as the thing the wave is in. The fields exist everywhere at all times. Without them, there is nothing to form a wave from. Just as sound stops at the edge of gas, liquid or solid things to vibrate, light cannot pass through areas without electric and magnetic fields. I'm proposing that they exist everywhere in some sort of form.

One reason I propose this is that for the light from a star many light years away would have to have almost infinite energy to "create its own fields" in which the wave exists.

Pretty much. The "ether" idea came because people thought that the electric and magnetic fields needed to be "in" something.

Has anything been discovered to disprove that hypothesis? Thanks to the discovery of gravity waves, the same question can now be asked of gravity. And, interestingly, an article I read a couple of decades ago that suggested gravity pushes actually made that very claim: That gravity uses that "ether".

It's kinda funny. People always see science and scientific discoveries from a perspective of "modern times", as though "modern times" is some rosetta stone. Fact is, 1820 was modern times at the time. They were at the pinacle of scientific knowledge. Then came Einstein at the turn of the 20th century. We knew more. And 20 years ago we knew more yet.

But all of that is either disproved or refined by new discoveries. And some day, if the Lord waits, our current "modern times" scientific knowledge will be seen as just as "quaint". It seems that the more we know, the more we know we don't know. Do you think Darwin even imagined DNA as we understand it today?

 

[Almost there]

Correct. It was believed (at one point) that all waves required a medium, and the 'luminiferous aether' was hypothesized as this medium.

The solutions to Maxwell's equations, however, showed that a wiggle in electric fields would cause a wiggle in magnetic fields, and vice versa, so that an 'electromagnetic wave' (i.e. light) could propagate on its own, without any need for a medium.

The nail in the coffin of the ether theory was the Michelson-Morley experiment, and the results of this led directly into Einstein's development of relativity.

But the experiment was based on assumptions that may not be true. To me, the argument that it would be like "wind" is a huge assumption. It may have completely different properties than anything else we are aware of, especially if it is the actual presence of God, himself, that we are talking about.

To me, it's a little like trying to explain certain discrepancies by coming up with "dark matter", or "light waves creating their own particles to move.

There is much yet to be learned.

BTW, that show I saw on light, used great graphics to show the experiment you discuss, using a train. A picture really is worth a thousand years.

I'm not trying to say I know anything. Rather, I think a lot of what we "know" is almost certainly wrong.

 

[Speedwell]

That wave you describe is exactly the wave graphic video shown in the show I watched. I get the feeling that this is a subject that is not well understood, hence the "it creates and then destroys again its own medium" explanation. I'm not sure I buy that hypothesis. Not that I don't. I just think it's a "placeholder hypothesis" for now, until we know enough to say more.

No, the concept is quite sound, worked out mathematically by a physicist named Maxwell in the 19th century. The problem is, that like a lot of scientific phenomena, it is not reducible to "common sense" visualization. Our mental images of "wave" and "particle" are really only metaphors.

 

[Radagast]

Yes, I see them as the thing the wave is in. The fields exist everywhere at all times. Without them, there is nothing to form a wave from. Just as sound stops at the edge of gas, liquid or solid things to vibrate, light cannot pass through areas without electric and magnetic fields. I'm proposing that they exist everywhere in some sort of form.

It's not that light passes through electric and magnetic fields, but that it is composed of electric and magnetic fields, like this:

 

[Almost there]

It's not that light passes through electric and magnetic fields, but that it is composed of electric and magnetic fields, like this:

Yes, I'm using the phrase "passes through" in the same way as I would say sound "passes through" air or water. It's actually composed of air or water vibrating. And that is what I'm trying to argue here: That what is happening is that otherwise stationary electric and magnetic fields are what it is "exciting/vibrating".

 

[Radagast]

Yes, I'm using the phrase "passes through" in the same way as I would say sound "passes through" air or water. It's actually composed of air or water vibrating. And that is what I'm trying to argue here: That what is happening is that otherwise stationary electric and magnetic fields are what it is "exciting/vibrating".

OK, clearly we have no "question" here, but an eccentric theory of your own.

Count me out.

 

[Almost there]

OK, clearly we have no "question" here, but an eccentric theory of your own.

Count me out.

Actually, I'm finding that I'm forming that "theory" as we discuss.

Thing is, I form opinions by discussing observations with others. I'm literally searching for answers. It's all I'm doing.

 

[Almost there]

OK, clearly we have no "question" here, but an eccentric theory of your own.

Count me out.

What did I post that sounds nutty? I'm being sincere here.

I think the answer is that this is the wrong place to ask these questions. I really appreciate the responses I've gotten. I need to study this more, which is what I'm going to do.

 

[chilehed]

So, I was watching a very interesting series on Amazon Prime about light, and it resurrected a question I've had for some time, but had forgotten about it. It goes like this:

Light is a wave. ..

That's where you start to go off track. In fact we have no clue what light actually is, all we have are models that provide a decent explanation of how it behaves but that result in some very strange paradoxes (which are, in fact, observed). You can think of light as either waves or particle streams, but in reality it's most probably something we can't really grasp.

In the past the medium that was thought to support light waves was called aether, and there were a number of very clever experiments done to try to detect it, all of which failed. Which makes sense to me, because if light isn't really a wave in a medium then there's no reason to think that such a medium exists.

 

[Almost there]

That's where you start to go off track. In fact we have no clue what light actually is, all we have are models that provide a decent explanation of how it behaves but that result in some very strange paradoxes (which are, in fact, observed). You can think of light as either waves or particle streams, but in reality it's most probably something we can't really grasp.

That paragraph nails why this so fascinates me. I want to be the next Einstein, but I'm 64 and have no college, so I'm off to a late start.

 

[chilehed]

That paragraph nails why this so fascinates me. I want to be the next Einstein, but I'm 64 and have no college, so I'm off to a late start.

Yeah, I'm quite content to let other people give themselves a headache trying to figure it out. I'd rather work on trying to be the next Hank Mobley (which will also never happen).