Not a photon in sight! [#shorts]

#shorts, my first one (and maybe my last!)
The video video illustrates how the Electromagnetic field inside a laser beam can locally be made virtually zero creating destructive interference. This is achieved by just placing a pinhole of the right size inside the beam. The size of the pinhole for this experiment is around 25 microns.

[Guido_XL]

The educational problem is that people in general seem to believe that photons rule the behaviour of light. That is a misconception. Photons show up in theoretical physics so as to fill the gap between Maxwellian electromagnetic waves and quantum-mechanics. The Maxwell world is not quantised, it does not consider the need for photons just yet. Electromagnetic waves can perfectly propagate without any photon whatsoever. It's when the waves are interacting with matter that photons pop up.

[Muonium]

Like practically everything in science, the (inverse) phenomenon of a blocking circle creating a bright point at the center has a specific name - the Arago spot (Dominique-François-Jean Arago) which forms at the center of an Airy disk (George Airy) of surrounding diffraction rings (Le Marquis de Yves-Calon-Ayvelles du Diffràctión)😉.

[fakestory]

For people that don't know yet, the light pattern is a actual image, not simulation.

[Luappy]

You really need to make more videos.

Your content is gold!

Many thanks,

PS

[TheEvertw]

Funny how there are so many experiments that disprove that photons are particles. What phenomenon required them again? I thought it was for how gravity affects light, but I think that is now explained by the curving of time-space by a gravitational field.

[hamdaniyusuf_dani]

Perhaps you'll be interested in investigation into diffraction by polarizing aperture, or non-diffractive edges by total internal reflection.

[fzigunov]

This is awesome!!! I love the short format, hope you get a larger reach!

[HALK]

Destructive interference is the word I'm looking for

[Tom-spgy]

This varying pattern of light and dark central fringe spots should also hold occur in the case of a single slit in the near field region. Just that instead of getting a circular shaped spot, it’s a straight line fringe we obtain.

[Molbrg]

Mm, this short is underrated, here we have potencial for DIY length mesuring device

[jeffborders]

That's just like how the brightest part of a shadow is the center. Any shadow. The center is brighter than some area between that and the edge.

[neodimium]

I wouldn't say there isn't a photon. There are still photon/wave but they hit detector out of phase and don't produce output.
That's why if you move further away you once again have photons.
And it repeats until coherence is lost.

[blueblimp]

I love all these weird optical diffraction demos.

[mrmotl]

That's the problem with the quantification of these things, it's mainly only useful for formulating problems and abstracting the solution. It's not a great idea for trying to actually understand intuitively what's taking place. Photons don't really exist it's just and abstraction of the continuity of a wave function into a quantifiable measure based upon a constant frame. When you teach people about photons and you imply that they're real instead of the abstraction that they are so that people can formulate a procedure of dissection, they neglect to recognize or clarify that reality doesn't necessarily work that way. A photon is basically a single wave cycle, but just like on the surface of the ocean you can't divide a single wave from the continuum of the whole except through some abstractive reflection, otherwise the moment you do in reality the wave function collapses and no longer exists.

[dominicesteban]

Wow! If light travels as a photon (aka 'particle') how does it destructively interfere? How can one 'bullet' cancel out another 'bullet' if they are traveling in same direction from the same source. I love how your 'How Big is a Photon' video showed that it doesn't travel as a photon; it travels as a wave and interacts as a photon!

[manu]

This is a double-edged weapon! Placing an optical element when the interference is constructive can generate very high power densities that affect the optical elements.

[MrArcheopteryx]

Not quite "not a single photon in sight" at the dark center. Reproduce the dual slit experiment at the surface of water. When your impending wave passes through the slits, it will create patterns of interferences. Some areas will stay level (destructive interference = cancelling each other), while other areas will constructively reinforce = double the amplitude positively and negatively. Looking at the destructive interference areas, you will observe no change in the water level. Is it because there is no water there? Nope. It's because the forces up and forces down cancel each other = no resultant motion. Photons are everywhere, including at the center of your laser. We can only detect photons when they are energized as a wave. But like water or air, they act as a dense (albeit massless) omnipresent medium. There is a common failure at connecting the dots with electromagnetic waves, their behavior and properties.
1) only photons are the exchange particles to anything that's electrical or magnetic in nature. If we have no energized photons hitting electrons, we have no current (induction and photoelectric effect).
2) How do photons move, or travel? Maxwell proposed a sine wave "wiggles" made of magnetic and electric waves, at right angles to each other, while Tesla said they were longitudinal. Either model gives a clue. How can we continuously see Vega at night? Not because discrete photons left Vega 45.5 years ago, and now Charlie photon finally enters you eye. NO! Charlie photon imparted its kinetic energy to Jane, who transmitted hers to Peter... What it means is that photons are everywhere around us and populate (not unlike air and H2O in oceans) the entire cosmos.
3. We detect electromagnetic waves (ranging from cosmic waves down to radio) as rhythmic ripples in the sea of photons. There is no "single photon" travelling like a baseball through space. It manifest itself always like a fluid. We detect air and water by applying pressure and feeling the backpressure (third law) but photons have no mass, so we rely on energized photons hitting a copper wire to impart a motion on electrons, best at right angle. This is a current, which is detected by instruments.
4. The dual slit experiment is in part faulty. Especially in its assumption that light is a particle and a wave (correct) but can be perceived selectively either/or. A single pulse through the slits will show a single impact on the screen, without interference bands, Conversely you can only see in the presence of interference bands, with a repeated pulse (which is a wave) . Thank you. The breakthrough you described in lasers is very interesting. Now that they know how to make a hollow laser tube, how soon will they come up with light sabers?

[LG-qzom]

There's photons there. They just out of phase -- but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
Sort of like two ocean waves canceling each other out at a location while the energy continues thru that space for all waves.
Black doesn't necessarily mean "Nothing There"

[abstract_ion]

Crazy to think that the human eye has a blindspot characteristic of the observed wave interference. So, if a low intensity laser were to shine it directly into an eye and create this type of interference chances are it overlays the start of the optic nerve.

[sean_vikoren]

You are the only Physicist that I have come across that does not regurgitate nonsense.

As a superfan, I am begging you to stick to the format of my screen.

#MayYouTubeShortsPerish