The Nature of Light and how we study it.

[behavioralist]

Is light ever becoming a scatter effect, or is it uniform to the point of infinite dispersion?

If we want light to have a natural direction purely perpendicular to the tangent of the radiant body, how small a surface do we need to limit the emission to? Assuming it can actually be done.

If light is uniform to infinity, how can there be any area of radiant surface that is emitting light omnidirectionally?

And if it can’t be done, is any effort to direct light in the study of its physics too contrived to be reliable?

If we channel light to make it omnidirectional can it be quantified like channeled water, or have we altered it in the process? Is light less altered it is naturally emitted and the channel is simply blocking all light but the desired amount?

How dark can a shadow be by physical law, rather than in given circumstances? In a simple two-body problem in otherwise empty space with something a mile in diameter making a shadow a mile in diameter from sunlight, and to infinity, how much if any do we affect the shadow if we block all the sunlight but that coming through a variable centered hole over a mile in diameter?

[+joc]

Oh God...so now you are an expert on Light....what irony...when you are so in the dark.

EDIT: I think it is in the best interest of the forum that I refrain from any further communications regarding this specific poster...lest I be banned from the site and that would be the real irony ....so...adios...I ain't here no more

Edited January 18, 2014 by joc

[taniwha]

Nothing is visible without light. Strangely enough light itself is invisible.

[keithisco]

Is light ever becoming a scatter effect, or is it uniform to the point of infinite dispersion?

If we want light to have a natural direction purely perpendicular to the tangent of the radiant body, how small a surface do we need to limit the emission to? Assuming it can actually be done.

If light is uniform to infinity, how can there be any area of radiant surface that is emitting light omnidirectionally?

And if it can’t be done, is any effort to direct light in the study of its physics too contrived to be reliable?

If we channel light to make it omnidirectional can it be quantified like channeled water, or have we altered it in the process? Is light less altered it is naturally emitted and the channel is simply blocking all light but the desired amount?

How dark can a shadow be by physical law, rather than in given circumstances? In a simple two-body problem in otherwise empty space with something a mile in diameter making a shadow a mile in diameter from sunlight, and to infinity, how much if any do we affect the shadow if we block all the sunlight but that coming through a variable centered hole over a mile in diameter?

I think you are referring to "Rectilinear Propogation"? Light has a "tendency" to follow a straight line but that is not what occurs in the Natural Universe. Diffraction through different media will bend the light in different ways, and the source will almost certainly not be coherent.

[keithisco]

Oh God...so now you are an expert on Light....what irony...when you are so in the dark.

EDIT: I think it is in the best interest of the forum that I refrain from any further communications regarding this specific poster...lest I be banned from the site and that would be the real irony ....so...adios...I ain't here no more

Come on joc... stay with the game, for surely that is what it is?

[sepulchrave]

I recommend reading a textbook on geometric optics, then a textbook on electricity and magnetism, then a textbook on electromagnetic waves, then a textbook on quantum mechanics, then a textbook on quantum electrodynamics.

Or if you just want a qualitative pseudo-philosophical/scientific grasp of the subject read Feynman's short, accessible, and non-mathematical introduction to the subject of quantum electrodynamics.

[behavioralist]

I think you are referring to "Rectilinear Propogation"? Light has a "tendency" to follow a straight line but that is not what occurs in the Natural Universe. Diffraction through different media will bend the light in different ways, and the source will almost certainly not be coherent.

Which is why we have emptied space of all but two bodies; and something to wrap the star in so that we can keep most of its light away when we want.

c does seem to infer that you can't make dimensions without supplying them with a medium, so that "space" in many connotations is a misleading term. If I have something that appears to be nothing and pull it apart to make a frame that nothing is in the frame, and it isn't quite nothing.

Edited January 19, 2014 by behavioralist

[sepulchrave]

Which is why we have emptied space of all but two bodies; and something to wrap the star in so that we can keep most of its light away when we want.

Do you understand Fermat's principle? Most of what you are saying about light is just geometric optics, and that principle will adequately explain what will happen.

Fermat's principle is nice because it is basically the same as the principle of least action, which is important in quantum electrodynamics and helps connect the quantum realm to the macroscopic realm.

c does seem to infer that you can't make dimensions without supplying them with a medium, so that "space" in many connotations is a misleading term. If I have something that appears to be nothing and pull it apart to make a frame that nothing is in the frame, and it isn't quite nothing.

A dimension is just a degree of freedom. You can think of the speed of light as just a ``coupling constant'' between some of these degrees of freedom (namely space and time).

Other dimensions (like luminosity and inertial mass, say) are uncoupled (or if they are coupled, it is by many, many inter-related factors).