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Speed of Light and the "Rate of Propagation of Time" and The Paradox of Waves and Particles: Difference between pages

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<td align="center" style="padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px">Click [http://www.visual-physics.com/vpwiki/Simulations/TimePropagation/SpecialRelativityV2_5.ejss here] to download<br />the [http://fem.um.es/Ejs Ejs] xml source file for the applet.</td>
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Let's take the archetype of waves, sea-waves. What are they, waves or particles? And lo and behold, they are waves made of particles (water molecules). So if you have a volley ball floating on the surface of the sea, its behavior will be the behavior of a body that interacts with a wave. It is hit by millions of molecules of water, the behavior of which can only be determined on a statistical level, and described by wave-type theories.


== Introduction ==
However, if instead of a classical ball we consider a body of a size comparable to the size of water molecules (e.g. a molecule of carbon that floats in the sea), its behavior will be the behavior of a body that interacts with particles (the molecules of water). It will collide with individual molecules, and in this case we can determine its behavior by particle-type theories.
Proper Time Adjusted Special Relativity seems to suggest that there is such a thing as a "rate of propagation of time" along the space dimension, and that this is closely connected with the speed of light.
 
In a flat Galilean spacetime where the space dimension is a straight line perpendicular to the time axis, the speed of light can be considered infinite and the "rate of propagation of time" can also be considered infinite: that is, with the passage of time the whole length of the space dimension passes instantaneously from one time moment to the next.
 
In a curved spacetime, the speed of light is not infinite, and the rate of propagation of time is also not infinite. This suggests that the speed of light and the rate of propagation of time may be closely connected or even identical phenomena.
 
Please see the interactive simulation below for full treatment.
 
 
 
== The Simulation ==
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== Remarks ==
The speed of light c appears to be an insurmountable velocity barrier for matter. This may be due to the fact that it represents the rate of propagation of time. We may conjecture that if this rate was greater, the speed of light would be greater also. (An interesting hypothesis to be tested would be that the speed of light itself is in fact infinite, and we only "catch up" with it with the passage of our time.)


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So it seems that most if not all waves are waves and particles at the same time, or to be exact, are waves formed by particles. The particle-like "quantum" of a sea wave is a water molecule that moves up and down and that, together with its neighboring molecules that perform the same movement with a phase difference, constitute the wave. If a body of comparable size (the carbon molecule) encounters the "sea wave quantum", it will be knocked off its course by a particle-like collision, even though it interacts with a wave.
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== Note ==
So, is a sea wave a wave or a particle? The question becomes rather pointless. It is a wave formed by particles, and when the interaction is on a large scale it manifests as a wave, while if it is on a scale comparable to the size of the particles that form the wave, the existence of the particles becomes evident. Nothing mysterious or paradoxical here.
The above refer to the proper time that the Stationary Body attributes to the Moving Body, what we could call "attributed or perceived proper time". On the other hand, on the basis of this formulation, both the Stationary and the Moving Body have the same ''Polar Time T''. In other words, they measure the same age for the universe.


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Of course, this does not address other aspects of the wave-particle duality, such as what happens when elementary particles behave like waves. A first attempt to demystify this matter is the Single Slit Experiment Simulation.
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== See also ==
*[[The Proper Time of Photons and the Nature of Light]]


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Of course, this leaves us with the big question: what are the "particles" that form the electromagnetic waves?
 
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[[Category:Proper Time Adjusted Special Relativity]]
[[Category:Quanta, Wave-Particle Duality and the Uncertainty Principle]]
[[Category:Simulations]]

Revision as of 17:44, 23 December 2006

Let's take the archetype of waves, sea-waves. What are they, waves or particles? And lo and behold, they are waves made of particles (water molecules). So if you have a volley ball floating on the surface of the sea, its behavior will be the behavior of a body that interacts with a wave. It is hit by millions of molecules of water, the behavior of which can only be determined on a statistical level, and described by wave-type theories.

However, if instead of a classical ball we consider a body of a size comparable to the size of water molecules (e.g. a molecule of carbon that floats in the sea), its behavior will be the behavior of a body that interacts with particles (the molecules of water). It will collide with individual molecules, and in this case we can determine its behavior by particle-type theories.

So it seems that most if not all waves are waves and particles at the same time, or to be exact, are waves formed by particles. The particle-like "quantum" of a sea wave is a water molecule that moves up and down and that, together with its neighboring molecules that perform the same movement with a phase difference, constitute the wave. If a body of comparable size (the carbon molecule) encounters the "sea wave quantum", it will be knocked off its course by a particle-like collision, even though it interacts with a wave.

So, is a sea wave a wave or a particle? The question becomes rather pointless. It is a wave formed by particles, and when the interaction is on a large scale it manifests as a wave, while if it is on a scale comparable to the size of the particles that form the wave, the existence of the particles becomes evident. Nothing mysterious or paradoxical here.

Of course, this does not address other aspects of the wave-particle duality, such as what happens when elementary particles behave like waves. A first attempt to demystify this matter is the Single Slit Experiment Simulation.


Of course, this leaves us with the big question: what are the "particles" that form the electromagnetic waves?