derek w

Question.Would not the drift velocity increase with an increase in voltage or resistance? For example in the filament of an electric light bulb,would there be a higher drift velocity? Or is it that the filament reaches maximum flow capacity.

You have answered your own question a very thin wire with just a single line of electrons,an input of 1 electron at one end produces an output of 1 electron at other end.But a wire that is 1 million times thicker will allow an input of 1 million electrons at 1 end and an output of 1 million electrons at other end. 1 coulomb being a flow 6.241 x 10^18 electrons per second past a point in an electric circuit.

Its a bit like a stationary train as soon as the front end moves the back end moves.Electrons input at one end of wire causes an electron output at other end.A battery creates free electrons by chemical reaction.

So if I say that a photon with a frequency of 10^14 travels as a wave,with matter and anti-matter popping in & out of existence in 10^14 different places per second,but once absorbed by an atom then matter & anti-matter is then popping in and out of existence 10^14 times per second in the same place,thereby adding mass to the atom.Would I be thinking correct?

Please do not try this at home.

yes.Greater number of nodes in smaller area.

yes.But would I be right in thinking that the field of the photons that go through the slits shrinks?

yeh,from an observers point of view its a solid sheet with 2 slits in it. from a photons point of view its a forest of atoms with a gap.The photon is not going to make the forest of atoms move,but the forest of atoms force the photon/field to shrink through the gap.Where as glass would not make the photon go through a slit.

I was not meaning to imply that the observer interferes. If the 2 slits were in a sheet of glass,its the atomic structure of the glass that changes the path photons would take from emitter to detector.When the photon reaches the detector,it is absorbed by 1 of the atoms in the detector. Why does the photon go through the slits,because its being forced to by atoms.

yes.but if the results change when you observe then something you did must have interfered.

You cant observe something that small without interfering with it.

ok.thanks. so i have to compare all actions(at atomic scale) in the same time frame,1 second. I could only compare actions of 10^-14 seconds if I could analyse a single cycle of a photon.

I have a problem in understanding energy and frequency. If a photon adds to the mass of an atom,in what time frame does it do so,10^-14 seconds,which gives me h/c^2 or 1 second which gives me h/c^2 x 10^14.My question,how do I think about mass per time?Unless my mass is constantly changing.

sorry typo there it should be:- h/c^2 = 7.37249493 x 10^-51 kg/s so if a photon has a frequency of 10^14 does an atom gain 7.37249493 x 10^-37 kg/s.

Thanks,for that link,so the photon is massless but adds to the mass of atom,that extra mass must be thought of as travelling in the direction of the photon,so its momentum is the mass it adds to the atom x c. f x h/c^2 h/c^2 = 7.37249493 X 10^-15 kg/s

ok.I'll take a stab at it and say,that if the photon is massless it has zero momentum,and therefore does not effect the atoms velocity or direction of travel,only its internal structure.yes/no?

OK.thanks just one other point,does all the energy get absorbed by the atom internally.Or is the atoms velocity or direction of travel effected?In other words if the photon is massless does the atom react as if it had been hit.

question.When an atom absorbs a photon is there an increase in the atoms mass?

Yes you say practically zero,but never zero,which means the probability of particle entanglement is greater the smaller the distance of separation,and lesser the greater the distance of separation. But if 2 particles are separated by a large distance with nothing else to interact or effect them,then they are only effected by each other.(but the probability of that is practically zero)

In a sense all particles within the universe are entangled,as they must interact with and be effected by each other.The only way to completely disentangle a particle is to take it outside the universe.

So should I be thinking of the wave function of a particle as a wave that expands out from an epicentre to a limit then rebounds back to an energy spike at the epicentre,oscillating in and out?

The reason I have trouble with thinking in terms of particles,is that if particles are travelling through a nothingness,then there should be no limit to the speed at which they can travel. Therefore I come back to thinking in terms of waves travelling through a medium,with a finite speed c. And as you suggest I will look into quantum field theory,it seems sensible. Does a gauge boson not have to be thought of as a wave function that transfers energy from one field of energy to another field of energy? Where the term "field of energy" is another way of describing a particle.

I see that i can have 2 ways of thinking about this. (1) A particle e.g. a photon can be thought of as a force carrying particle which has a property of duality,it can be a particle and a wave. or:- (2)The vacuum has the property of duality,the vacuum can be distorted,that distortion can be condensed so it appears as a point like particle,or that distortion can be spread out so it appears as a field/wave.That distortion being the creation(separation) and annihilation(togetherness) of matter/anti-matter.

thanks -questionposter- for your thought provoking reply.I will do as you say and look into quantum field theory.

annihilation of matter/anti-matter = an output of energy creation of matter/anti-matter = an input of energy to conserve energy annihilation in one place = creation at same rate in another place:- therefore energy can be transferred from one place to another as a wave.