Posted: Nov 29, 2011 7:39 am
zaybu wrote:twistor59 wrote:
But, if you read the paragraph carefully:You could then, in principle, compute a modified propagator - an amplitude for propagation through glass. In this propagator, the photon would have a mass. It would be off-shell.
Are we talking about the same paper, the Zhang paper at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/110 ... 5783v3.pdf , ???
If we are, I can't find that sentence, "In this propagator, the photon would have a mass." Could you direct me to the page and paragraph? ( I did a search with MS-word, and that sentence is not in that paper.)
No, I'm talking about the paragraph that I wrote. I didn't copy it from a paper. I thought it up all by myself.
zaybu wrote:
As that paper maintains, off-shell is from the controversy that p = ℏk/n (Abraham) OR p = n ℏk (Minkowski). It has nothing to do with the speed of a photon, it doesn't slow down, or its mass, it doesn't acquire any mass.twistor59 wrote:
small in magnitude for opaque media
large in magnitude for transparent media
have a phase behaviour which is the same as you'd get by giving the photon a mass whilst it was in the medium
Never heard of such explanation and I don't think it's right. It's just based on your Feynman's speculation.
FIFY