The Young/Einstein Paradox: Particle Waves in the Space-Time Waters — The Physics of Spirit — Chapter Six — Section 12

By Matthew Mossotti

The physics of spirit first began to emerge when Thomas Young believed he proved that light is a wave. Just over a hundred years later, Albert Einstein demonstrated that light is a subatomic force-carrier particle, known as a photon. From this disparity, as to whether light is a wave or a particle, the Young versus Einstein Paradox of Light was born. In the terrestrial sphere, contemporaneous to this writing, this paradox had remained unresolved until this Chapter of this work. This work humbly and confidently proceeds to unravel the confusion. Presently, speaking in general terms on the types of mathematical equations which have been utilized to handle light, above the atomic level, physicists conceptualize light as a wave and, below the atomic level, physicists conceptualize light as a zero-mass particle in quantum mechanics — i.e. light is handled as a wave as it relates to the spectral array in optical physics, and light is handled as particle in subatomic theorizations. However, as common sense quite seems to demand, as plainly as a piece of fruit may be an apple or an orange, but not both, light cannot be both a wave and a particle. A brief examination of the conundrum will set the conditions which help to expeditiously reach a sensible conclusion to the second physical paradox resolved by this Chapter. In 1801, English physicist Thomas Young performed what is known as the double-slit experiment where an unexpected finding strongly infers that light expresses itself in a wave-like nature. When a distinct beam of light is shone through a surface with one slit cut to allow the light to penetrate through and shine upon a screen behind it, a single pattern appears on the screen in a magnified shape of the slit in the surface (the important observation to note is that where there is only one slit in a surface through which light shines, only one slit-shaped pattern on the screen behind appears). However, if two slits are cut into surface next to one another and light is let to shine through, rather than two slit-shaped patterns appearing on the screen behind, three will distinctly appear (or more than three depending on the distance to the screen and the brightness of the light per focus: this simple experiment is replicable with a flashlight, a piece of heavier stock paper, and a wall). After passing through the two slits, the convergence of the two streams of light creates the emergence of multiple shapes of light on the wall which display the brightness of the spectrum of visible light that diminishes in its intensity as it moves away from the center. Observing the additional slit-patterns, Thomas Young noticed that such a phenomenon is consistent with the expressions of wave-interference patterns. The production of wave interference patters is naturally observable in tides rushing up the beach where two waves merge to produce additional “convergent waves.” Young reasoned that if wave-interference patterns are present where light is active, then the natural manifestation of light itself takes the form of waves.

To sustain his assertion that nothing traveling across distance in space could exceed the speed of light, Einstein needed to prove that light was a zero-mass particle (to hit the universal speed limit, Einstein reasoned that this velocity could not encumbered by any mass). However, if light were a wave, it would necessarily exhibit a demonstrable non-particle behavior in the outward spread from its trajectory across space as measured in the science of optics. According to Einstein’s equations in Special Relativity (1905), light, as a wave, could not exhibit the requisite behavior of the zero-mass particle which he postulated to travel at the speed limit of the universe (186,000 miles per second). Thus, Einstein set about proving that light is not a wave and endeavored to show that light is a zero-mass particle (a photon). To sustain the accuracy of his position that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light and that only a zero-mass particle can reach the speed of 186,000 miles per second, Einstein needed to show that light is carried in packets called “photons” (zero-mass particles) rather than waves. Einstein set out to prove that light is a zero-mass particle by showing that when light hits a metallic surface where it has been focused to charge a specific electron, photons can cause the specifically targeted electron to eject itself from the photon charge while not affecting other electrons near it. In showing the non-effect of light on the electrons surrounding the targeted electron, Einstein would show the impossibility of light behaving as a wave (at the subatomic level). If light behaved as a wave, so the reasoning goes, at the subatomic level, the wave would pass over multiple electrons and disperse its energy to each of electron as the wave passed over. A familiar means to envision this scenario is to imagine a wave of water rolling across a billiards table full of billiards balls. As the wave would roll across the surface, every ball would take on the energy of the wave and roll in the direction in which the wave was travelling. In this visual example of a wave rushing across the surface of a billiards table, the primary concept applied to the force-function of the nature of light on electrons is that a wave of water passing over a billiards table would move all the “electron-balls” in play, and not just one isolated “electron-ball.” However, with light, Einstein showed that this wave-like phenomenon which would move all “electron-balls” on the table is not what happens at the subatomic level. Rather, as Einstein would demonstrate, photons can charge specific electrons without charging other electrons around them. Under the operation of this billiards analogy, the great physicist of the terrestrial sphere proved that a well-aimed photon is not wave-like, but more like a well-aimed cue ball that can strike a single object ball without disturbing other balls on the table nearby. Through his theorizations under the title of the “Photoelectric Effect,” Einstein showed that light behaves as a particle, specifically, as a zero-mass force-carrier. In successfully completing these experiments, Einstein verified that light is carried in zero-mass force-carrier particles called photons, from the Greek “φῶς/phós: light” (Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 for “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”).

Until this Section of this Chapter of this work, the Young versus Einstein Paradox of Light had been persisting as a biproduct of a flaw in the fundamental approach taken by the physics community in the conceptualization of the energetic substance of space-time. After reaching a resolution of light waves and particles (a conclusion which is certain to seem glaringly obvious in hindsight), from the same ideational approach on the fluidic nature of the energetic substance of space-time which had been stifling efforts to resolve the paradox of aerodynamic lift, the problem of mass, the mysteries of radiant energy, the negative charge in the ground, lightning, and magnetic currents will all also dissipate quite naturally. At present, to measure the spectrum of light, equations which treat light as a wave are utilized and, to measure light at the subatomic level, equations which treat light as a zero-mass photon particle are utilized. Unable to resolve the paradox, the physicists of the terrestrial sphere were living with puzzling paradox that light is somehow both a wave and a particle. To proceed to put an end to all of this confusion, it is fitting for this work to borrow words from the most esteemed apologist: “We cannot see light; but by light we can see things…” (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves). To conceptualize the phenomenon of photons which causes light waves, it is useful to visualize the phenomenon caused by wind blowing across the surface of water whereby rippled waves form upon the water’s surface. Although the wind itself is not a visible phenomenon, the effects of the wind are seen on the water, such that although the waves are not the wind itself, the effects on the water reveal the existence of the wind. Likewise, as light flows in an array of zero-mass particles which collide with the surfaces of material energies, it forms waves on the waters of space-time. When photons strike the surface of material energies, the event creates reflected waves on the fluidic fabric to make light become optically available. As the waves on the waters of the lake are distinct from the wind itself, so too are the waves on the waters of space-time distinct from the light itself. As the waves on the lake water are the effect of the wind (but not the wind itself), so too are the light-waves upon the space-time waters the effect of the light (though they are not the light itself). As the wind can be visually detected in its interaction with the water as waves upon the surface, so too can zero-mass light particles only be visually detected in their interaction with the space-time water as reflected waves from their collisions with material energies. Thomas Young’s double slit experiment which seemed to suggest that the outbound flow of light created waves that proceed forward until they reach the surface which they illuminate, but the reverse is true: photons flow upon a surface and create waves in the space-time waters that ripple in reverse of the photon’s trajectory. Hence, in the expressed effect of photons colliding with a surface of material energy, the reverse waves create the optical illusion that multiple slits of light are reaching the wall when, in reality, two distinct quadrants of photons are flowing against the surface to produce a wave-interference pattern in a reverse reverberation through the fluidic space-time substance to the optical lens.

Looking for more to read? Check out the previous section The Resolution of the Paradox of Lift: Projection in the S-T Waters or start at the beginning of this chapter with Mythos & Scientific Inquiry in the Human Experiment, read all of the released sections from Chapter VI: The Physics of Spirit — the Life Force in the Waters of Space-Time sequentially, learn more about Matthew Mossotti’s philosophical masterpiece Physics of Spirit: On The Phenomenology of Heaven & Hell, or explore SpeciMen Trilogy and join The Resilience to receive a digital copy of Episode Zero of SpeciMen Trilogy and access to the secret Resilience Portal — an exclusive collection of letters and previews to Episodes I, II, & III.