Particulate, Wave, or Both?

[grain]

Hello again, sorry I'm late. An age-old question should be coming

close to a solution here in the 21st century. Namely: Is light

energy comprised of distinct particles, as we describe photons, or

is it more accurately termed a wave energy similar to radiant heat.

Or, and I am open to the idea, does it consist of elements of both

theory's?

 

The next paragraph is only for those who are curious why I asked.

Others may skip it as I hate long-winded posts myself.

 

I'm in the particulate camp, for romantic reasons admittedly. If we

consider light to be particulate, then chemical photography is in a

sense an actual capture of the light. Where I lead with this is that

a silver (or mercuric/what-have-you) photograph is somehow a part of

the scene/object/etc which it represents, by nature of it being

comprised, at least in part, of particulate photons which have

actually touched the subject.

 

I'm trying to get a better grip on why I feel more of a

real "presence" when looking at a photograph as opposed (very) to a

digital image.<div></div>

[marbing]

I suppose it could be 'waves' of 'particles'.

[hakon_soreide]

Whether it is particles or waves or both, whatever light is, it has been physically in contact with and affected the subject as well as the film and thus both subject and film become part of an unbreakable unity that reminds me of the old(?) scientific saying that it's impossible to measure something without affecting the outcome.<p>

Looking at the photos later on, there is no doubt that connection can be felt by those sensitive to that idea of energy exchange taking place.<p>

In a digital image, light starts out the same way, but the light that actually touched the subject stops at the CCD, and the image we get is no longer a physical capture of those particles or waves, but one step removed.

[will_perlis]

"In a digital image, light starts out the same way, but the light that actually touched the subject stops at the CCD, and the image we get is no longer a physical capture of those particles or waves, but one step removed."

 

It's not as if the photons (wave or particle) that bounced off or were emitted by a subject are visible directly in a "traditional" negative or print. Their energy has been transformed in several steps during the exposure, development, and printing processes, etc, and we only see that subject as the result of a large number of other physical, chemical, and electrical processes.

 

IMO the various attempts to differentiate digital photography from "real" photography are far more indicative of psychological insecurities than they are the result of any serious philosophical consideration.

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

Why do you think people refer to quantum wierdness? It is both wave and particle. And photons can tunnel through barriers. They aren't really in one place - they are smeared across space with some areas having greater probability densities than others.

 

Robert

[ellis_vener_photography]

One of my students once described the physical form of electromagnetic energy as being

"wavicles". <P>

After trying out a typewriter for a few weeks, The German writer Friedrich Nietzche wrote

to a colleague , ""Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts" . Which seems to my

ears and eyes to be a better expression of your underlying thoughts.<P.

<P>The physics of light being

compromised as being either discreet particles or waves has nothing at all to do with

your emotional perception of a printed image. That emotional perception has a name:

nostalgia which has nothing to do with physics. The extention of your argument is that

words aren't real unless the document you are reading is written by hand, using a quill

stylus in ink on handmade paper -- or perhaps more accurately, carved by hand on a

stone surface. . <P>if you want to get educated on all ofthis

relatively painlessly (tho' not without an expenditure of mental effort on your part) you

might want to read the short book "Q.E.D." by Richard Feynmann.<P>

Most images made with a digital camera and printed via a digital process (inkjet prints)

are, natch, made with low end quality imaging systems and capture technologies and

methods. This is compounded by people (the vast majority of us) doing work that

exaggerates the flaws i nthe process -- just as the quality of prints most conventional

darkroom workers do exaggerates the flaws in that process. In short your perception of a

"lack of presence" is due more to the humans driving the machines than the process itself.

<P> I wonder if yo uhave ever seen an Andreas Gursky print ( the real thing not a

reproduction in a book or magazine. Gursky shoots with 5x7 film in a large format view

camera. He hen has a very high quality scan of this image made. A negative is made from

this scan and A full size proof print is made y conventional methods. He then edits the

scanned image literally pixel by pixel and amakes adjustments as he sees fit. Another

negative is made from the edited scan and the process is repeated until he is satisfied , at

which point a final set of three prints is made. His prints are very, very large. Te results are

, whether you like hios iamgery or not, are stunning.

[stephen hazelton]

It is both. That is, it has properties of both; neither description is entirely accurate by itself.

 

I was reading a while back of a most interesting experiment. If you have two narrow slits, and let phased light shine through, you get dark and light bands where the "waves" add to or cancel each other out, depending on the location from the slits. But if a series of single photons are fired, you still get that pattern- meaning that a single photon could pass through both slits and cancel itself out. But curiously, beams of subatomic particles do the same, and even up to molecules with 80-90 atoms do the same, even when fired one molecule at a time. Indicating that a molecule of that size still has enough "wavelike" properties to pass through both slits at once.

[steve_swinehart]

Quantum energy packets moving at different frequencies. Electromagnetic energy exhibits both wave and packet / particle characteristics. It has mass (light from stars is bent by planets, etc.) - but it also shows frequency characteristics (like a wave) as it is acted upon by optics such as polarizing filters.

 

To extrapolate the physics of a very complex subject into another digital versus analog debate is a waste of time.

 

The idea that a halide based photograph is somehow composed of photons that have "touched the subject" and a digital image isn't only shows your ignorance of either process.

 

Maybe you feel more of a "presence" because of personal predjudices and not any inherent, intrinsic value embodied in an image produced in a certain way. Your predjudiced - admit it, leave the attempted rationalizations out of it.

[shawngibson]

I guess the seemingly-correct objective answer of 'both' is not your intention.

 

I see all phenomena as waves when I can (though I am far from mathematically inclined, and literally imagine the dynamics, rather than even attempt to figure them on paper, mathematically). I also like to think of such things as dynamically warping gravitational fields, electricity, etc. - i.e., other various 'stuff' that seems to travel in space as a unified (sort of) entity. Some are forces, some are matter-seen-as-energy, obviously.

 

When I think of 'matter', I think of stuff-at-the-bounderies-of-other-stuff -- as separate stuff, lots of it. For some reason, the idea of a wave butting up against another wave, or indeed a region full of totally disparate waves, never makes sense in my head.

 

The crux is, I prefer to think of the universe as one big infinite thing, capable of being FELT as such by cognizant beings, instead of those beings looking (feeling themselves) like a bunch of separate entities that don't feel each other, don't care about each other (hey, it's not me! can I make it into a good goulash?), and don't even know if the other entities really exist (typical solipsism I guess, more easily nourished on a matter-view) - or when they do, they are often seem as 'bad not-me' stuff, and thereafter, as enemies.

 

In short: material views on the nature of light are bad, because people with this view are more apt to go around killing things with knives and whatnot, also material stuff, of a sharp or highly impactful sort. Those who see light as waves are usually much nicer, and often even cannonized (nikonized?) as Saints.

[William Kahn]

Being a native southern Californian, I have to vote for waves, dude! Particles are what we breathe......

[ken_hughes4]

I think it's made up of tiny volkswagon bugs.....

[vito]

I think its a wave. Even atoms are essentially condensed form of energy waves. So there realy is no such thing as a particle. Everything in the universe is made of light.

[ray robertson]

Of course, the correct answer is 'neither wave nor particle', but something else we don't have a word for because it's true nature is beyond our experience and comprehension.

 

We understand by analogy and metaphor, by cause and effect.

 

Quantum weirdness disturbed Einstein, not only because of the apparent randomness of events at the sub-atomic level, but also because one of his axioms (nothing is faster than the speed of light) appeared to be challenged.

 

Quantum weirdness and non-locality make it theoretically possible to have instant communication across light years of space.

 

I hope I live long enough to have a quantum computer on my desk.

[oceanphysics]

<i>Or, and I am open to the idea, does it consist of elements of both theory's?</i>

<p>

Glad you're open to the idea, since it's been an established fact for a century now.

<p>

<i>Quantum weirdness and non-locality make it theoretically possible to have instant communication across light years of space.

</i>

<p>

No, it doesn't. There's nothing to suggest that the sort of connection implied in the EPR "paradox" can be used to send information. It's weird, and was against Einstein's intuition, but it does not challenge relativity. Einstein's problem with quantum mechanics was its nondeterministic nature.

<p>

And no, everything in the universe is most definitely not made of light.

[ray robertson]

Ocean Physics,

 

Okay! I'll give you an example of instantaneous communication. Of course I'm talking about photon entanglement where a pair of photons can be produced in such a way that each photon has an opposite polarisation.

 

Let's say I'm at the other end of the universe (okay! lets be practical, say I'm one light year away).

 

I have a large number of containers holding a single photon, each one of a pair. I can label the boxes in order 1,2,3,4. etc. (they'll be very small boxes and I'l have millions of them). The folks back home have the same number of boxes each identically labelled and each containing the other twin.

 

I have no idea of the polarity of a particular photon but I know after I've observed it, its twin a light year away is going to have its opposite polarisation.

 

Before I leave earth on my epic voyage, I make a pact that in one years' time I'll start collapsing the individual photons (by obseving their polarity) starting from box '1'.

 

The agreement is a code consisting of, 3 consecutive identical polarities followed by 2 consecutive non-identical followed by 5 consecutive identical (whatever) indicates 'I'm all right'. I just have to continue observing each photon in each box until I get that pattern. Then I stop.

 

I've just communicated the fact I'm all right, virtually instantaneously.

[graham john miles]

Well, not being too bright in the realm of science, I can't offer an intelligent opinion on this one. But I can say that having read a little about Quantum Physics

I am totally enthralled by the concept that we might exist in just one of countless parallel universes. Being an atheist it's almost a comfort to have the possibility that death is simply a transition from this to another dimension of existence. I figure it has to be true, what else could explain why the dead don't know they are dead.

[ray robertson]

Oops! I think I've had too many glasses of wine. There's a flaw in my thought experiment. I can't communicate the point where I've stopped observing photons. Hhmm! You're probably right Ocean Physics, but it's an intriguing concept.

[will_perlis]

"Oops! I think I've had too many glasses of wine."

 

That's not possible when contemplating the farther realms of modern physics. The more I drink the clearer it all becomes. The only problem is remembering the insights the next day.

[graham john miles]

Based on my recent readings on the web, I think perhaps a dose of Salvia Divinorum might take one to a state of consciousness where such metaphysical complexities will become crystal clear.

[shawngibson]

>>Einstein's problem with quantum mechanics was its nondeterministic nature.

 

This has always intrigued me. I know the gist of AE's disgust, God Does Not Play Dice etc., but I've never been able to figure out the relationship HERE, between determinism (quantum-world) and fate (big world). Is it the seemingly-ultimate inability to calculate the future because of uncertainty, or some other thing? Such an element of randomness, on a very surface level, it would seem, does nothing more than make our lives...free. I know the math happens (or in fact I suppose can only partially happen because of an experiment's causing change, i.e., position, or velocity, but not both can be measured, in capturing a true state of Nature) at a subatomic level, and that near as I have read, the macroscopic world is not affected by it, is deterministic still (if it ever was) so I still till this day do not understand Einstein's worries here. If it does mean a universe that can not be determined, ultimately, that only gives rise to (human sense of) freewill; if it is something that happens only at a level that does not ever really affect the Big World, then it's moot...and the universe is, or is not, what it always was, deterministic in human terms...or not deterministic if such is the case...neither of which position I can image as 'worrying' a thinker like Einstein, who brought God into the equation, so to speak, not because it (uncertainty) made for ugly math, but for HUMAN concerns. So obviously I've missed something fundamental.

 

Shawn

[shawngibson]

If uncertainly is a state tied to human knowledge, it means nothing more, if true, than an epistemological hole...i.e., if it is only somthing of concern when human beings are trying to discover the Truth of Nature through experiments, that we can not predict the future because we can not measure Nature without affecting it. But if uncertainty is itself BUILT INTO the function of Nature, left alone, the results of which DO determine change/state in the Big world, well, that is something obviously totally different, and of much more concern.

 

Reality vs. human knowledge of reality - a much more immediate ontological concern, whether it is something we can know, or not. Whether uncertainty IS built into Nature, outside of our experiments, or not.

 

I have a feeling I only made what I am trying to say more confused. Sorry.

 

Shawn

[grain]

Will: No not "insecure" but curious. That part of my question was just the way I feel about it, nothing more. I'm over the arguement of Digital vs. Chemical and know which side I fall on. Good point about transformation via chemical changes.

Robert: wow, whatthebleepdoweknowanyway, and a precursor to where this thread headed.

Ellis: Very true. as to the worker that scans 5X7 negs and then prints them, I'd probably print from them myself.

Stephen H: thank you, Sir. that's just what I was looking for.

Mr. Swinehart:Already admitted my predjudice in the original query.

Shawn G.:Yes, actually, it's beginning to look like both is the consensus. But objectivity is all but impossible when dealing with the enormity of a universe, only a point of which we can percieve at any given moment. Tough one.

Ocean Physics: Thanks for putting that to bed.

And now the discussion does what all good threads do, and the tangents that are coming down are too deep for the questor. Thank you all, A.

[ray robertson]

This is such an interesting topic I'd like to continue, if that's OK with the moderators, but I'll keep a connection with photography.

 

This indeterminancy, Shawn, which Eistein objected to, is of great concern to manufacturers of imaging devices (digital cameras). As we know, noise is a major problem with digicams. The smaller the format and the smaller the photodetectors, the greater the noise, especially at high ISO's. Cameras that produce relatively low noise images at high ISO's, such as the Canon DSLRs, have a competitive advantage. The new Canon 5D has amazingly low noise at ISO 3200, helped greatly by its relatively large pixels.

 

Would it ever be possible to produce a small P&S camera with such low noise? Where are the limits resulting from the fundamental laws of Physics?

 

As I understand it, there's a phenomenon called 'photonic noise' or 'photon shot noise' which seems to present a barrier to lowering noise as insurmountable as the effects of diffraction on lens performance.

 

Essentially, for a given exposure and a constant light source, we can calculate how many photons will impinge upon a single photodetector on the camera's sensor, EXCEPT as a result of indeterminancy (photons misbehaving and arriving at different times) there will be an error equal to (on average) the square root of the number of photons. If exposure predicts there should be 16 photons impinging upon a particular photodetector, in practice 4 of them will in all probability represent noise. They might arrive too late or too early.

 

I think I can appreciate Einstein's concern with qantum theory. As I understand, his view of God was not the anthropomorphic God of Jewish tradition, but more like that of an ordering principle behind the world of the senses; an odering principle that we mortal humans could explore through disciplines such as Physics (including Photography, why not).

 

The notion that, at the most fundamental level his discipline of Physics could explore, there appeared to be a degree of chaos, an apparent lack of order that could only be dealt with in probabilistic terms, must have been disturbing.

[shawngibson]

Unfortunately, I can't really comment on the technologies and physical properties/relationships of photographic equipment, much as I would like to find such things 'easy' to understand. I still grapple with the main principles of physics themselves, and probably always will. I'm reading, currently, Heisenberg's Physics & Philosophy, and am revisiting The Dancing Wu Li Masters (nice, light way back in LOL), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn), and whatever I happen to grab from my small library of the History and Philosophy of Science, and Philosophy proper (currently revelling in my utter disgust for existential thought...as far from philosophy as one can possibly get...however that's another story, and one not necessarily acceptable to an 'artistic' community).

I'm trying very hard to find meaning, again, after a decade of falling apart. So, these concerns, indeterminate vs. determinate universe, etc., are very important to me, if for no other reason than their meditative value. It seems we can't deny the relativistic nature of the world; no can we precisely determine any future event because we influence it by measuring it, nor can we even know if, when microwaving our cat, if it is cooked enough or not without opening the door (sorry) - without opening the door, the cat doesn't even exist.

 

EVERYTHING excluding future events is a past event in the modern view as it can at all be considered by a subject - because for example when looking at a close star, we are seeing it as it was X years ago, because of the speed of light (which took X years to reach us), and we therefore have no idea whatsoever as to the current state of that star (this is I believe common knowledge)...the same holds true for every event in life. If I watch something happen a dozen meters away, to be extreme here, I am looking at the past, very barely so, but still. Where is the present moment then? That long-held epiphany of especially Eastern thought, that one should embrace the present, as it is the only moment that truly exists, seems no longer valid. So where do we live, in our heads, and hearts? In the past, future? Do we make some analytic leap and trick outselves into believing we can live outside any reference to time? Do we just say what the heck, and go on believing in The Moment (important for a photographer) or do we go on resolved to the fact that, in our current 'ultimate' view, everything to do with the present is nonsense outside some theoretical point which would be the centre of our thoughts as they are happening? Where in time do we exist, at any given point in our lives? Can we even measure it in a meaningful way, PRESENTLY? If not, what sense does it make to even think about it? And then...what do we think of instead?

 

Purely for the sake of fun, these questions, but if material causality take on the tenets of relativistic and quantum physics, it seems much of the History of Philosophy has become meaningless. The concepts themselves are no longer even valid. The moment doesn't exist, and if it does, we can't predict with certainty what it (a future event) would be, and therefore, wasn't Henri Cartier Bresson really just some guy in a banana suit with a Leica?

[will_perlis]

" And then...what do we think of instead?"

 

If we're really "thinking". If one contemplates the "Brains in Vats" (that one goes back far before Neo in The Matrix) and "Chinese Room" arguments for a while, the idea that Truth resides at the bottom of a vodka bottle becomes very attractive.