X-Message-Number: 22122
From: "michaelprice" <>
References: <>
Subject: Physical infinities & Dick Marsh
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 02:07:05 +0100

Peter Merel writes:
 
> You've agreed we can obtain no apparatus sensitive enough to 
> register this infinity.
  [of photons emitted when an electric charge is shaken]
> Surely that relegates the claim to the realm of theory.

The label of infinity is justified since the number of photons 
detected will exceed any fixed finite number, if we increase 
the detector's sensitivity sufficiently.

> Light was particles. Then waves. Then quanta. 
> Then non-local quanta. 

The non-local adjective is not universally accepted.

> But let's pursue your popular theory further. If there are an 
> infinity of photons resulting from some event, then may we 
> say there an infinite number of ripples on the ocean? 

Let's stick to photons -- I know the theory for photons better
than for ripples!

> How about in a pond? A raindrop? A single water molecule? A 
> hydrogen atom? An electron? A quark? Are there an infinite 
> number of ripples inside the infimum of your popular 
> physical theory? Are there an infinite number of ripples inside 
> every ripple?

> You see the tortoise's point - there must be a physical question we 
> can't trouble ourselves to answer. An ambiguity. Including that 
> ambiguity in the framing of the elements of theory seems a relatively 
> untried method of physical representation.

I'm not interested in how you define "ripple", but photons
are well defined entities.  That's what Einstein's 1905 work
on the photoelectric effect demonstrated.  Electromagnetic
radiation of sufficiently high frequency would dislodge electrons
from a metal surface (reverse Bremsstrahlung).  The radiation 
was arriving in packets -- which we now call photons -- whose 
energy is proportional to their frequency.  Single photons dislodge
single electrons, so there is no ambiguity about their existence.

Changing the subject entirely, I was saddened by Paul Segal's death.
He was on the very first TV program I ever saw about cryonics 
(Everyman, 1979).  I recently re-watched it and was struck that every 
single person interviewed -- with the exception of Art Quaife -- is now 
dead or suspended.  Dick Marsh was one of those, but I don't ever 
remember hearing of his suspension.  Was he suspended?
 
Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

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