What Is The Shape Of Light?

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Is there any information about the nature of light that can be used to narrow down the limited shapes it could be, or logicaly dictate the shape it must be due to its known nature?

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@No0ne,

Besides being at one and the same time a wave and a particle? If you think about in four dimensions, with our normal three being contained within the photon, and the fourth--time--being the dimension of extension, light is a line; lots of light is lots of lines; lots of lines is indistinguishable from waves. There you have it.

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@No0ne,

Interesting Hammer. Light is both a wave and particle and technically, couldn't it very well be that everything in physical creation is nothing but light in different forms and under different pressures? Could you and I be light? Could an omnipresent God be the light within all creation?

Light is often thought of as an incandescent light which is different than the light of creation, IMHO. I tend to think that what we refer to as matter does not vary in substance but varies in state of motion, (Russell) thus being only one thing and that one thing being light. Light would thus have no shape and would not travel because light just is. Something to ponder.

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@Justin,

Justin wrote:

I tend to think that what we refer to as matter does not vary in substance but varies in state of motion

Well, if string theory proves to be correct, then all things are made of the same fundamental string, where different particles are represented by different oscillation states. So in that instance matter wouldn't differ in substance, just in state of motion. In fact, the entire universe would turn out to be one magnificent symphony! Smile

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@Justin,

Justin wrote:

Interesting Hammer. Light is both a wave and particle and technically, couldn't it very well be that everything in physical creation is nothing but light in different forms and under different pressures? Could you and I be light? Could an omnipresent God be the light within all creation?

Light is often thought of as an incandescent light which is different than the light of creation, IMHO. I tend to think that what we refer to as matter does not vary in substance but varies in state of motion, (Russell) thus being only one thing and that one thing being light. Light would thus have no shape and would not travel because light just is. Something to ponder.

Another way I think about it is that what we perceive as a particle is really a finite stretch of the infinite wave, in much the same way that phonemes (the basic units of words) relate to the wave of sound energy.

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@No0ne,

No0ne wrote:

Is there any information about the nature of light that can be used to narrow down the limited shapes it could be, or logicaly dictate the shape it must be due to its known nature?

Per quantum theory, 'light' is comprised of particles called photons. Photons are described by waves. These waves have a particular direction of propagation with amplitudes along that direction. As such, the basic 'shape' of light is that of a one-dimensional line.

Or is it? This view is based on the 'light moves in straight lines' assessment (or, generally, along geodesics, which are 'straight lines' that may actually be curved) which is empirically satisfactory. However, underlying theory is less happy with this view. In quantum field theory, the photon moves from the point of creation to the point of annihilation via every possible path. The contributions of these paths attenuate quickly with deviation from the straight line, so ignoring negligible terms, I guess the photon is kind of an elongated egg shape. (See attachment)

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@Bones-O,

Very well said, Bones-0!.

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@John W Kelly,

John W. Kelly wrote:

Very well said, Bones-0!.

Cheers John.

I'll add a caveat that the description above rather depends on your ontology. What I have described is the photon wavefunction which, if we're talking about particle shapes, is probably the best we've got, but few people would claim it has any actual reality. In truth, we never observe photons in situ: we destroy them or create them. There is no reason to claim that the photon exists in between its point of creation and its point of destruction, and so no reason to insist it has any shape at all. One atom de-excites, another excites. That's all you can really say.

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@Bones-O,

Light being believed to be an emission of energy, perceived by our sense of sight, could it be that light does not actually exist ? In which case it wolud have no shape, or shape would have no meaning in this context. Your thoughts, gentlemen?

Dennis

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What is the shape of light? it is my opinion, that 1 we are in the 4th dimension. and 2, the shape of light is a diamond. why? because if there wer any shape, that could connect in a puzzle piece formation, and move in essentially a straight line, sorry no i dont agree it would be a straight line. that light is made up of tiny straight lines, it just appears to be that. I feel the truth, is that light is made of diamond shapes.a diamond is an elongated square turned to the right or left.
This shape an theory of light being a diamond, also holds with it, they key to how to travel at the speed of light. I would love to make some diagrams and animations, but i feel a bit lazy to do so. although, i would like to share my opinions essentially. so maybe i should. This theory of light and shape travelling, is called the baxter theory. because it was discovered by chad baxter from seattle washington, usa.

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What Is The Shape Of Light?

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