Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[Kwalish Kid]

Originally Posted by Farsight

I'm not the crackpot here. I don't peddle some my-theory tosh, and it isn't me who pimps SUSY and the multiverse. I'm telling you about Einstein and Newton, and giving the hard scientific evidence concerning the wave nature of matter. Guys like Perpetual Student say they've got overwhelming contrary evidence when they've got nothing of the sort. Guys like ben think mathematics is scientific evidence, and scientific evidence isn't. And guys like you give give nothing but ad-hominems. So you must seem like an incredible crackpot troll to anyone coming across this thread.

As I'm sure many people have pointed out to you, that I above pointed out your short-comings in terms of reasoning and honesty is not an ad hominem because it is not irrelevant to the topic of discussion.

You are acting like a crackpot because you are being unreasonable and dishonest. I am not merely asking for math, I am asking for the ability to test your hypotheses against observation. Since Newton, the standard for observation in physics has been detailed measurement. You have consistently avoided providing any details that we could compare to measurements. This is why you come off as a crackpot.

Again, I give you the opportunity to try some physics or to apologize.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by ben m

Fermion-antifermion pairs are created by exciting the fermion field. They didn't exist a moment ago, now they exist. That's what field theory is all about.

Oh, magic.

Originally Posted by ben m

It's not spycraft. You're not trying to follow some little agent around, keeping track of him as he transforms from Disguise A (photon) to Disguise B (electron) and Disguise C (electron with a hat and mustache). It's physics.

Oh, trash.

Originally Posted by ben m

Here's a classical field theory analogy for Farsight's "e made of photons" statement. You have some calm air and a calm ocean. Along comes a gust of wind. Suddenly the ocean isn't calm any more, but rather has a wave-train moving across it. Farsight, sitting on the beach, gets hit by a breaker and the gentle remains of a gust. "Clearly we've just seen the reaction (gust A ---> gust B + wave)", he says. "Therefore we conclude that the gust A had an ocean wave stored up inside it, probably wrapped up in a toroid, which it released." A physicist objects. "No; waves can be created or destroyed. They're just excitations. Here's a century's worth of textbooks explaining it mathematically." Farsight laughs. "Ha ha! What a joke. Nonsense. You can't explain where the wave came from, if it wasn't stored inside gust A? Next."

Oh, straw-man twaddle.

I've given the hard scientific evidence ben. Here it is again in case whoosh, it slipped your notice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro..._dipole_moment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstei...de_Haas_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_diffraction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro...n_annihilation

Where's yours? And where's your QED explanation of how gamma-gamma pair production works? Remember you're starting with two photons, and that's it. You're creating those fermions, OK?

[ctamblyn]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Oh no he hasn't! LOL! You flake! I made it crystal clear to ben. We're talking about the QED explanation of gamma-gamma pair production. You start with two photons. You haven't got any fermions yet. So ben's fermion field waffle cuts no ice.

You wanted the QED explanation, you got it. Your objections to it are a separate issue.

Originally Posted by Farsight

Blah blah carp carp ad-hominem ad-hominem,

My highlight. I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.

All I'm doing, and I see the same goes for everyone else here, is pointing out that Relativity+, judging by the exchanges visible in this thread (and repeated elsewhere), is utterly incapable of producing the goods. Or the bads, for that matter. Or anything.

Originally Posted by Farsight

...because you've got no evidence, you can't counter mine, and you've got no explanations. No, it's not my turn, it's your turn. Give us your QED "explanation" of gamma-gamma pair production, and I will shoot you down in flames again. BOOM! Crash and burn! Because we all know what your "explanations" are like. They're not explanations at all. They're just smoke and mirrors and Emperor's New Clothes.

No you won't, you flake. Because you know I'm going to nail you to the floor with it. That's why you've been avoiding it, and will continue to do so.

Grrrrrrrr. I'm off to bed.

Good heavens. Well. Like I said, you'll have to wait. I notice that ben m has posted an analogy involving gusts and waves, which conveys the central idea rather well.

In the meantime, perhaps you'll polish up your answers to the questions about scattering, the Lamb shift and anomalous magentic moment. There's still the chance of redeeming your theory, if those answers exist.

Pleasant dreams.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Oh, magic.

This is just too much. We have a theory that makes quantitative predictions. In fact, we have a theory that makes quantitative predictions that are accurate to a greater degree than any other theory in the history of science, and you don't like it because you don't like the mechanism.

That's not how science works Farsight. The theory made predictions. Experimentalists tested those predictions quantitatively. For decades. Experimental results agree with the theoretical predictions.

You can call that magic if you want. I call it science.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Too bad the evidence is just a bump on a graph, and that the Higgs mechanism is said to be responsible for 1% of the mass of matter, and that the Higgs boson gets its mass from the kinetic energy given to the protons because E=mc˛.

Too bad that you cannot understand that the evidence for the Higgs particle is a bump on several graphs - just like the evidence for the existence of the electron !

Too bad that you cannot understand that the Higgs mechanism is expected to give 1% of the mass of the matter (the rest is basically binding energy).

Too bad that you end the sentence with gibberish and ignorance as is the rest of your post, Farsight.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Oh groan.

Read what I cited: Pair production

Quote:

Pair production refers to the creation of an elementary particle and its antiparticle, usually when a photon (or another neutral boson) interacts with a nucleus. For example an electron and its antiparticle, the positron, may be created.

We cannot make an electron and a positron out of two photons in gamma-gamma pair production.
Pair production makes an electron and a positron out of one photon and a nucleus.

Collisions of 2 ultra-violet, X ray, and even gamma ray photons is a different mechanism. They can also create electron/positron pairs. In fact many nuclear processes produce electron/positron pairs.

[Reality Check]

Farsight: Speaking of unanswered questions, you still haven't addressed this:
Farsight: What does Higgs mean by Lorentz-covariant and relativistic?
First asked 19 November 2012
183 days and counting, Farsight!

[ctamblyn]

OK, I'll post this now rather than wait until tomorrow, as my interlocutor is so eager.

If I had to explain the mechanics behind pair production without assuming too much mathematical ability or knowledge of physics, I think I'd try the following. Before continuing, though, I will emphasise that this is nothing more than a very crude analogy, and that it assumes you know what (classical) fields are.

Let's see how it goes.

To start with, imagine there are two fields, let's call them the A field and the B field, which permeate all of spacetime. These two fields contain excitations which we call A and B particles, somewhat like (but also rather unlike) ripples propagating on a lake, or vibrations through the interior of a very large, springy mattress. If you like, you can picture the fields as being either scalars or vectors at each point in spacetime. In fact it's a little more complicated than that, particularly in the case of fermions, but it doesn't matter for now.

Now, suppose the two fields are coupled. This means that at each point, each field is locally, somewhat weakly linked to the other. Thus, at any given point an excitation in one field can "tug" on the other field at the same point, and, if it tugs in the right way, actually produce new excitations in the other. (If you like, imagine two magically interleaved mattresses with soft springs coupling them at regular intervals. However, macroscopic analogies can be misleading so don't take the picture too seriously.)

With this set-up, it may be that you could start with excitations in the A-field, and have them interact in just the right way to transfer all their energy to the B-field:

A-particles ---> B-particles.

If so, then the reverse process must also be possible:

B-particles ---> A-particles.

There may also be more complex interactions, with mixtures of As and Bs on each side. If you know the precise nature of the fields and the coupling between them (and in QED, for example, we do), you can figure out every possible outcome of making a bunch of A and B particles interact, in exquisite detail, and calculate the chances for each outcome to occur to as much precision as you please.

In ridiculously simple terms, that is how processes involving annihilation and creation of particles work. Energy in one field (say, the electron/positron field) is transferred into another (say, the photon field) via their coupling. From the experimenter's point of view, particles of one type go in and particles of another type come out.

The mechanics described in outline above not only underpin the γγ --> e⁺e^- process you originally asked about, but also all the other QED processes. Vague though it is (of necessity, given the deliberate avoidance of mathematics), the same basic picture works for Compton scattering, electron-positron annihilation, and bremsstrahlung. It also works for Mřller scattering and Bhabha scattering. Perhaps, if your imagination is good, it also gives you an idea of why an electron is surrounded by a cloud of virtual particles (a constant, noisy dance of energy between fields), and hence why things like vacuum polarisation occur. It also applies beyond QED, to the electroweak theory and strong interactions, and indeed QFTs in general. It's not all bad, as analogies go.

On the minus side, of course this analogy is imprecise and qualitative. It also has the horrible defect of obscuring the great naturalness of QED to which ben m alluded earlier. It turns out, for instance, that the electron/positron field is described by one of the simplest possible models that can realistically represent a "matter" particle (i.e. one that obeys the Pauli exclusion principle). It also turns out the photon field must exist and couple to the electron/positron in the way it does, once you demand that the electron/positron field has a certain very natural internal symmetry. The analogy also spectacularly fails to explain the quantised nature of the fields - excitations at a given frequency come in discrete amounts, unlike with classical fields, giving rise to their particle-like nature.

However, to really understand, you need to go beyond the type of explanation I've struggled to formulate above. You have to study QFT properly. It's as simple and as difficult as that.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Farsight

OK then, let's hear your explanation of gamma-gamma pair production.

Farsight, you are one asserting that photon-photon collisions producing electron/positron pairs (the Breit-Wheeler process) is explained by your theory. N.B. This is not pair production since there are two photons involved.
It is up to you to produce the full explanation (including the math!).

The irrelevant demand to see the standard explanation is a tactic we see from cranks all of the time so that the can hide the fact that their delusions are useless.
If the crank is answered they are usually too ignorant to understand the answer or just deny it. They usually then go off the rails entirely and claim their ignorance means that their delusion is correct because the standard science is wrong (the logical fallacy of false dichotomy).

That the Breit-Wheeler process means that electrons are photons in torsional paths is easily shown to be a delusion: How do these 2 photons produce particles with different charges?

However Farsight, you may have an answer to:
Farsight, How do 2 photons in the Breit-Wheeler process produce particles with different charges?
First asked 21 May 2012 - 0 days and counting.

According to the fantasy you are supporting, a photon can magically convert into an electron. But there is no mention of a photon magically converting into a positron as far as I recall.
Of course you can just drew imaginary, unphysical lines and get a positron !

Why does the Breit-Wheeler process not produce 2 electrons?
Why does the Breit-Wheeler process not produce 2 positrons?

[Kid Eager]

Okay, guys - help me out here. I've been trying to follow this argument, armed only with a partial 25-year-out-of-date 1st year knowledge of nuclear physics (supplemented by what I needed to know to run a decontamination team).

I've read the article on Pair Production. I understand it to say that it describes the situation where a photon collides with a nucleus to produce an electron and positron. There are conditions to this:

• the photon has to be a high energy one, otherwise there won't be enough energy to convert to mass to create the pair of particles
• it won't work if there's not a nucleus involved, otherwise the momentum of the photon won't be absorbed and this apparently breaks the rules re conservation of energy or something
• it always results in the creation of equal and opposite particles, otherwise it breaks the rules.

Okay, if I've got the above right, what does it mean to the arguments being made here?

Maybe I've missed a trick somewhere, but I can't see a model that allows for electrons being made up pf photons (or is it the other way around?) - and I can't follow the connection between this and Pair Production.

Please use small words...

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Gamma-gamma pair production, Steen.

Gamma-gamma pair production dies not exist, Farsight. Pair production is the production of a pair of particles from 1 photon.
The Breit-Wheeler process is what you are thinking of - the collision of photons producing pairs of particles.

It would be pretty much a waste of time explaining it to you until you understand that these are 2 different things !

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Farsight

I'm the one who understands it. You don't, ben doesn't, ctamblyn doesn't, and steen certainly doesn't.

So now you claim to understand the Breit-Wheeler process, Farsight !
So explain it to us, Farsight and show that every one here doe not understand it.

Start by explaining how it is not pair production (hint: it requires the ability to count!), , Farsight.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Perpetual Student: it's the dunce's corner for you. I asked you to give us your QED explanation of gamma-gamma pair production.

Sorry, Farsight, you remain in the dunce's corner !
Gamma-gamma pair production does not really exist. Pair production starts with one photon.
Gamma-gamma pair production is the production of pairs of gamma rays.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Kid Eager

Okay, guys - help me out here.
...
Please use small words...

The first problem is the Farsight essentially made up his own meaning for the term "gamma-gamma pair production".
The "pair production" part implies the actual pair production that he has been obsessed abut in other threads (thus the pair production answers).
The entire term means the production of pairs of gamma rays.

What he is actually talking about is the Breit-Wheeler process which is the collision of photons in high intensity laser beams than produce electron/positron pairs.

There is no connection between this process or pair production and Farsight's model which is the Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology? paper which came up over 3 years ago and is fundamentally flawed. This was explained to Farsight in the Relativity+ / Farsight's thread, e.g. OK, I've read the Williamson and van der Mark
paper again. (they should have got a charge of zero for an electron).
Farsight has been blindly denying the science for over three years now !

The paper mentions pair production. The authors and Farsight have no real mechanism where a toroidal topology magically appears and traps a photon. They do draw pretty pictures though!

The first problem with the model is above - it predicts that an electron has no charge. So we can shop there!
The next problem is that their pair production does not need a nucleus and so does not conserve momentum. In fact the paper does not mention the need to interact with a nucleus to conserve momentum at all.
And if we ignore that problem then we have pair production happening spontaneously whenever there are photons with enough energy. This is not observed.

[Turgor]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

The first problem is the Farsight essentially made up his own meaning for the term "gamma-gamma pair production".
The "pair production" part implies the actual pair production that he has been obsessed abut in other threads (thus the pair production answers).
The entire term means the production of pairs of gamma rays.

What he is actually talking about is the Breit-Wheeler process which is the collision of photons in high intensity laser beams than produce electron/positron pairs.

There is no connection between this process or pair production and Farsight's model which is the Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology? paper which came up over 3 years ago and is fundamentally flawed. This was explained to Farsight in the Relativity+ / Farsight's thread, e.g. OK, I've read the Williamson and van der Mark
paper again. (they should have got a charge of zero for an electron).
Farsight has been blindly denying the science for over three years now !

The paper mentions pair production. The authors and Farsight have no real mechanism where a toroidal topology magically appears and traps a photon. They do draw pretty pictures though!

The first problem with the model is above - it predicts that an electron has no charge. So we can shop there!
The next problem is that their pair production does not need a nucleus and so does not conserve momentum. In fact the paper does not mention the need to interact with a nucleus to conserve momentum at all.
And if we ignore that problem then we have pair production happening spontaneously whenever there are photons with enough energy. This is not observed.

I have a very limited knowledge of physics. But I think what I highlighted is something everyone with a high school education can grasp. If an electron is a loopy photon, where does it get its charge? Photons don't have a charge of their own.

I have tried to find a satisfactory answer among Farsight's posts, but that only made me slightly angry. So that's indeed where I shop. I mean stop.

[ben m]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

Read what I cited: Pair production

We cannot make an electron and a positron out of two photons in gamma-gamma pair production.
Pair production makes an electron and a positron out of one photon and a nucleus.

Collisions of 2 ultra-violet, X ray, and even gamma ray photons is a different mechanism. They can also create electron/positron pairs. In fact many nuclear processes produce electron/positron pairs.

Sorry, RC, this is just a matter of terminology, and you're mistaken. Gamma-gamma pair production (two "real" photons) is indeed a real process, albeit a fairly uncommon one in laboratory circumstances. It's most commonly dealt with in astrophysics, where you get collisions between high-energy blazar photons and low-energy starlight photons, which in practice you observe as energy-dependent attenuation of blazar light. If we ever build the International Linear Collider, there's a simple modification which turns it into a photon-photon collider.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by ben m

Sorry, RC, this is just a matter of terminology, and you're mistaken.

My point (as I emphasis in later posts) is that it is a matter of terminology.
The model that Farsight is using (Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology?) is based on actual pair production. So when he went on about gamma-gamma pair production in this thread, the context was actual pair production making him wrong.
Now we know that this gamma-gamma pair production is actually the Breit-Wheeler process. So the usage of the term is correct - the idea that this process means that electrons and positrons are photons remains a fantasy.

ETA: Whoops - I obviously do not memorize invalid crackpot papers!
The paper actually is talking about gamma-gamma pair production but never actually uses that term or the Breit-Wheeler process. Equation 2 is electron/positron annihilation with an arrow back from the photons to the particles (the Breit-Wheeler process).
Thus it looks like it is pair production that the paper implies is impossible (no extra photon is available).

[Perpetual Student]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Here's my evidence again. Overwhelming, isn't it? So where's yours?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro..._dipole_moment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstei...de_Haas_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_diffraction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro...n_annihilation

Grrrrrrrr. I'm off to bed.

Overwhelming evidence? Just another bold-faced bluff -- as are all your posts.
I have examined each of those links; there is no connection to the crackpot notion that an electron is a photon in some kind of a loop.
So, for the third time, show us the QF equation that describes the electron as a photon in a loop. You can't -- just admit it; you have no idea how to structure a QF equation -- a pretend one -- or real one, for that matter. Go take your pretend physics to some ignorant jungle bush man, where you can light a firecracker and make them believe your a god. Everyone here is laughing at you!
Grrrrr -- indeed!

[Perpetual Student]

Originally Posted by ben m

Sorry, RC, this is just a matter of terminology, and you're mistaken. Gamma-gamma pair production (two "real" photons) is indeed a real process, albeit a fairly uncommon one in laboratory circumstances. It's most commonly dealt with in astrophysics, where you get collisions between high-energy blazar photons and low-energy starlight photons, which in practice you observe as energy-dependent attenuation of blazar light. If we ever build the International Linear Collider, there's a simple modification which turns it into a photon-photon collider.

My understanding has been that any process like e− + e+ → γ + γ that can be rendered in a Feynman diagram is reversible by virtue of anti-particles. Is that not true?
(Farsight, this question is for those here who really understand physics, like ben m and RC. Please do not pretend to answer it.)

[edd]

Originally Posted by Farsight

And ct does a runner. We'll have your "explanation" of gamma-gamma pair production tomorrow, won't we?

It seems rather rude to say ctamblyn wanted to 'do a runner' given the number of times you've posted 'look at the time', doesn't it?

Quote:

It may have escaped your notice, edd, but magic isn't science. And it may also have escaped your notice that this is a skeptics forum. Skeptics don't believe in magic. So maybe you'd feel more at home here.

I don't think I need to respond greatly given previous posts have it covered, but call it what you want. Mislabelling it is not an argument against it. I rather like the place you suggest though. I drop in on it now and again but that is due to an unrelated interest.

[Kid Eager]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

The first problem is the Farsight essentially made up his own meaning for the term "gamma-gamma pair production".
The "pair production" part implies the actual pair production that he has been obsessed abut in other threads (thus the pair production answers).
The entire term means the production of pairs of gamma rays.

What he is actually talking about is the Breit-Wheeler process which is the collision of photons in high intensity laser beams than produce electron/positron pairs.

There is no connection between this process or pair production and Farsight's model which is the Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology? paper which came up over 3 years ago and is fundamentally flawed. This was explained to Farsight in the Relativity+ / Farsight's thread, e.g. OK, I've read the Williamson and van der Mark
paper again. (they should have got a charge of zero for an electron).
Farsight has been blindly denying the science for over three years now !

The paper mentions pair production. The authors and Farsight have no real mechanism where a toroidal topology magically appears and traps a photon. They do draw pretty pictures though!

The first problem with the model is above - it predicts that an electron has no charge. So we can shop there!
The next problem is that their pair production does not need a nucleus and so does not conserve momentum. In fact the paper does not mention the need to interact with a nucleus to conserve momentum at all.
And if we ignore that problem then we have pair production happening spontaneously whenever there are photons with enough energy. This is not observed.

Okay - thanks! Saw the subsequent digression into the photons colliding bit, but from what I looked up, that's not what Pair Production typically refers to.

Interestingly (or perhaps not for you boffins) I also came across a paper where they broke down an electron into two particles, neither of which was a photon. This would appear to kill the loopy photon hypothesis of the electron. See here:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture10974.html

[edd]

Originally Posted by Kid Eager

Okay - thanks! Saw the subsequent digression into the photons colliding bit, but from what I looked up, that's not what Pair Production typically refers to.

Interestingly (or perhaps not for you boffins) I also came across a paper where they broke down an electron into two particles, neither of which was a photon. This would appear to kill the loopy photon hypothesis of the electron. See here:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture10974.html

Well that's talking about quasi particles, so it's not quite the same kind of thing. A better point would be that the electron engages in weak interactions, so you can have electrons turning into a neutrino and W- particle, or interacting with Z bosons rather than photons (subject to the usual conservation laws).