Attention to detail lacking

mmotyka at lsil.com mmotyka at lsil.com
Wed Jul 25 10:18:59 PDT 2001


Tim,

>>I think the reflected beam has the same wavelength as the incident beam.
>
>Photons hitting a surface most definitely do not "lose some energy" 
>and get "re-emitted." There are some very particular configurations 
>that can act as wavelength doublers, but this is a particular, and 
>hard to set up, configuration.
>
>Photons hitting a mirror either are re-emitted with the same energy 
>as before or interact via the photoelectric effect and are 
>thermalized (converted to phonons).
>
>That colors are preserved in mirrors, absent tints (special 
>absorbers), is a Physics 1 clue that mirrors do not downshift photon 
>energies!.
>
The reason for the weak statement "I think" is that I imagine you might
make an argument that the momentum transfer from the photon to the
"mirror" results in a very small doppler shift...I'm just not positive
about it at the smallest level of interaction. 

>I think Choate is much like this tech of mine: lacking a solid 
>grounding and overly reliant on his own private notions of what 
>"mass" and "energy" and "group velocity" and so on are. All the best 
>cranks view the world this way.
>
>I don't know Choate's educational background, but I would not be at 
>all surprised if he is self-taught and moved into computers out of 
>some technician training school.
>
I've reached the same conclusion. I've known some very bright people who
lacked access to a formal education. The results were some startling
levels of understanding mixed right in with some mind blowing
misconceptions and some outright gaps.

Mike





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