Ok folks...I'm turning off the lights....time to go home...why? Because I have this pain behind my left eyeball and I think my head is going to explode....
You know, I have tried my hand at understanding quantum mechanics, in a shaved chimp kinda way, but the closer I get to getting a handle on it, the rules change.... relatively speaking...
What put me over the edge this time? The Casimir effect, which wrapped up in a tidy bundle describes an effect whereby mirrors can and do produce their own light due to the interaction with virtual bits. Honest!
I was reading this article in IO9, that describes placing two mirrors close together (micro-meters and the wiki article calls for a vacuum) so that the virtual particles that "pop" into existence (you see now why my head hurts? virtual....existence? But if you are interested there is a nice article here on virtual particles. ) will force the two plates together. Now that is a rather badly explained Casimir-Polder force, much less than more. It's what happens when you accelerate this structure to relativistic speeds.
The first weird thing happens when you place your mirrors closer than the wave length of the virtual particle. First off, let me explain, in part, these virtual particles. Most importantly they came in pairs. A virtual particle and an anti-virtual particle. ( I know, ouch....) and when they come into existence they annihilate each other instantly. But as the plates are pushed harder and the speed becomes a goodly fraction of C it then becomes possible for the virtual particles to be separated by a plate so they can not annihilate and therefor become real and should said virtual particle be virtual photons.....? There, I give you light from ummm virtual light courtesy of the Dynamic Casimir Effect.
Really, I have done a poor job at describing a fascinating effect at the quantum level. Read the IO9 and the Wiki articles to get totally twisted.
(Good bye, good night, don't let the door hit you...I need to find my asprin)
You know, I have tried my hand at understanding quantum mechanics, in a shaved chimp kinda way, but the closer I get to getting a handle on it, the rules change.... relatively speaking...
What put me over the edge this time? The Casimir effect, which wrapped up in a tidy bundle describes an effect whereby mirrors can and do produce their own light due to the interaction with virtual bits. Honest!
I was reading this article in IO9, that describes placing two mirrors close together (micro-meters and the wiki article calls for a vacuum) so that the virtual particles that "pop" into existence (you see now why my head hurts? virtual....existence? But if you are interested there is a nice article here on virtual particles. ) will force the two plates together. Now that is a rather badly explained Casimir-Polder force, much less than more. It's what happens when you accelerate this structure to relativistic speeds.
The first weird thing happens when you place your mirrors closer than the wave length of the virtual particle. First off, let me explain, in part, these virtual particles. Most importantly they came in pairs. A virtual particle and an anti-virtual particle. ( I know, ouch....) and when they come into existence they annihilate each other instantly. But as the plates are pushed harder and the speed becomes a goodly fraction of C it then becomes possible for the virtual particles to be separated by a plate so they can not annihilate and therefor become real and should said virtual particle be virtual photons.....? There, I give you light from ummm virtual light courtesy of the Dynamic Casimir Effect.
Really, I have done a poor job at describing a fascinating effect at the quantum level. Read the IO9 and the Wiki articles to get totally twisted.
(Good bye, good night, don't let the door hit you...I need to find my asprin)
4 comments:
When it comes to understanding these kinds of quantum physics ideas, there always comes a point at which I just smile, nod, and say, "Wow, that's cool".
Ummmmm - Say what??? I think I may look forward to work tomorrow, at least I only have to deal with 0's and 1's!!!!
I knew I could count on you Josh to put the right spin on this. lol
I had to read the article on virtual particles and that just made it worse. This stuff IS weird science at a distance....
Homer ain't it the truth! After I got done reading the article, I went to bed with a migraine... anti virtual particles...ooooooooooook...yep
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