Radio waves propagate spherically, how comes the photon moves in a straight line

[David Hess]

This further convinced me that some of the photons take "impossible" paths:

https://youtu.be/0ItWcNT2BWI?si=RECIIXATwyVYILZJ

What Quantum Uncertainty ACTUALLY Means

[radiolistener]

This further convinced me that some of the photons take "impossible" paths:

https://youtu.be/0ItWcNT2BWI?si=RECIIXATwyVYILZJ

What Quantum Uncertainty ACTUALLY Means

Once you stop treating a photon as a classical corpuscle moving along a trajectory through spacetime (which is a very common mistake), the whole notion of a photon's "path" becomes questionable. What looks like an "impossible path for a photon" can simply be an ordinary path of wave propagation.

[iMo]

Interestingly Huygens Optics (6m back) made an experiment with photon coincidence (2 detectors and Americium source of Xray/Gamma photons) and did not see coincidence with his setup. Does it mean the photons do not propagate spherically?

[radiolistener]

Interestingly Huygens Optics (6m back) made an experiment with photon coincidence (2 detectors and Americium source of Xray/Gamma photons) and did not see coincidence with his setup. Does it mean the photons do not propagate spherically?

The absence of coincidence does not mean that the quantum excitation cannot evolve into a spherical spatial distribution. A spatially distributed quantum excitation of the electromagnetic field does not imply that a single excitation should produce simultaneous detections at two detectors. The spatial evolution of the quantum electromagnetic field and the localized interaction during detection are two different things.

[MrAl]

If we have one quantum object behind the wall I think you would agree that it is in a superposition of states.

No, I don't agree with that.

If you throw a coin behind a wall and I cannot see whether it landed heads or tails, I don't think this means that the coin is in a quantum superposition. My knowledge of the coin's state is uncertain, and I can even construct a perfectly valid mathematical model with a probability distribution describing that uncertainty. But the fact that this model accurately describes my uncertainty does not mean that the coin itself physically exists in a superposition of states.

To claim that the coin is physically in a quantum superposition would require a physical mechanism and experimental evidence for such a state, not simply the fact that its state is unknown to me.


Someone mentioned above that perhaps the photon is in some sense spacetime itself. I can see why one might be tempted to think along those lines. After all, our operational notion of distance is closely related to the time it takes for an interaction to propagate between physical systems. So it is conceivable that what we perceive as spacetime could itself be an emergent description of some more fundamental process that we do not yet understand.

Hello again,

I had said:
"If we have one quantum object behind the wall I think you would agree that it is in a superposition of states."

Then you said:
"No, I don't agree with that.  If you throw a coin behind a wall and I cannot see whether it landed heads or tails, I don't think this means that the coin is in a quantum superposition."

Your reply this time does not make any sense after I provided a lot more detail, and in the context I was talking about, it MUST be in a superposition of states.
Also after the more detail, we can't talk about throwing a coin behind the wall anymore, we have to describe what it is we are 'throwing' in more detail, which I tried to do.

What surprises me the most though is that you did not recognize this 'experiment' that we originally started talking about.  This is a well-known property of superposition.  In other words, if it is not in superposition then we have nothing to talk about because then it's just like other common objects that we are all very familiar with.

You must agree with the following...
Superposition means we not only do not know what state it is in, even *it* does not have a definite state to be known, at least until we measure it.
Non-superposition means it can have a definite state even if we don't yet know what it is.

I think you misunderstand superposition and also the difference between the coin and Schroedinger's cat.

You may not be able to see the coin but this guy can.

If you don't like a certain definition of superposition (mine or anyone else's, either right or wrong) you'll have to show the math you are talking about.  But I actually think it is simpler than that because all I was showing was that if a quantum state is in superposition, then not only do WE not know what state it is in, but even the state itself is not determined yet.
I think quantum entanglement makes this very clear because it's been proven there are no hidden variables that can 'hide' the state.  It's not a hidden state, it's an indeterminant state, unknown even to itself.  So it's not like a coin that landed and we just can't see it, the analogy would be that the coin has never landed, but even that's not the full story.

[MrAl]

This further convinced me that some of the photons take "impossible" paths:

https://youtu.be/0ItWcNT2BWI?si=RECIIXATwyVYILZJ

What Quantum Uncertainty ACTUALLY Means

Hi,

The way I think of it is that the 'paths' are histories of the field even though the function x(t) maps out a particular path.
A 'path' is interesting because paths are used to help solve some problems in math.  When you follow certain paths you can gain information along the way.  It does not mean that the photon is moving along that path though.

I guess with normal everyday paths we think of something moving.  If we walk to the store along a sidewalk, we are walking along a 'path', but the path was already there before we even left the house.  If we look at a map, we can see the street that led to the store, which is another path, but there may be no cars on it.
The function we are thinking of with the photon is a function that simply maps out all the trajectories that a small object COULD take, if it were to really take that path.  There's nothing to travel along any of the paths so this never happens.

Apparently, most of the histories cancel out which leaves a straight line which is what APPEARS to be a little photon dot going from one point to another along a perfectly straight line (in flat spacetime).

[radiolistener]

If you don't like a certain definition of superposition (mine or anyone else's, either right or wrong) you'll have to show the math you are talking about.  But I actually think it is simpler than that because all I was showing was that if a quantum state is in superposition, then not only do WE not know what state it is in, but even the state itself is not determined yet.
I think quantum entanglement makes this very clear because it's been proven there are no hidden variables that can 'hide' the state.  It's not a hidden state, it's an indeterminant state, unknown even to itself.  So it's not like a coin that landed and we just can't see it, the analogy would be that the coin has never landed, but even that's not the full story.

I think you're conflating superposition with indeterminacy. And to establish that such an indeterminate state actually exists in reality, you'd need experimental evidence, not merely an interpretation of the mathematical model.

The same applies to the coin analogy: a probabilistic model allowing heads or tails doesn't experimentally establish that the coin itself is in some "indeterminate state".

[MrAl]

You must agree with the following...
Superposition means we not only do not know what state it is in, even *it* does not have a definite state to be known, at least until we measure it.
Non-superposition means it can have a definite state even if we don't yet know what it is.

No, I don't agree with that, and I don't think I should.

This does not follow from the mathematical concept of superposition. In the mathematical model, a superposition is a state that can be expressed as a combination of multiple possible states, with the corresponding amplitudes determining measurement probabilities. Such a description can be used to predict the outcomes of measurements even when we cannot directly check the state of the system.

A mathematical description involving multiple possible outcomes can therefore also describe a perfectly deterministic coin whose actual state is simply unknown to you.

But this mathematical state is abstract and does not by itself tell us that the physical object has no definite state, or even that the object represented by the model is a fundamental physical entity rather than an emergent manifestation of something more fundamental.

I am not sure what you mean by superposition then.  Either that or you do not know what a 'definite' state is, and/or you do not understand the difference between a measurement of the "state", and a measurement of the "probability of a state".

A definite state is a definite state, not sure what else to say about that, except that means it is definitely in either state 0 or state 1.  If it is not in a definite state, it is in superposition and that means that it is like being in both states at the same time, and there is no way to determine that because that does not make sense to us classically.
If we measure probabilities we measure probabilities, but that does not tell us what state it is in.  That's because if it is in superposition we don't know yet.  The probabilities tell us how often each state will appear when we FINALLY do a measurement.  If we know that we will see state 0 for 50 percent of the time and state 1 for the other 50 percent, we still don't know the state.  Probabilities are statistical in nature, and can be used to measure classically defined things more accurately, but in quantum physics it's more about what we might measure over several very, very, carefully prepared experiments.

I guess the problem is, we want to know everything about nature, but we can't because nature will not let us.

[MrAl]

If you don't like a certain definition of superposition (mine or anyone else's, either right or wrong) you'll have to show the math you are talking about.  But I actually think it is simpler than that because all I was showing was that if a quantum state is in superposition, then not only do WE not know what state it is in, but even the state itself is not determined yet.
I think quantum entanglement makes this very clear because it's been proven there are no hidden variables that can 'hide' the state.  It's not a hidden state, it's an indeterminant state, unknown even to itself.  So it's not like a coin that landed and we just can't see it, the analogy would be that the coin has never landed, but even that's not the full story.

I think you're conflating superposition with indeterminacy. And to establish that such an indeterminate state actually exists in reality, you'd need experimental evidence, not merely an interpretation of the mathematical model.

The same applies to the coin analogy: a probabilistic model allowing heads or tails doesn't experimentally establish that the coin itself is in some "indeterminate state".

Well sorry to say but, I think you are confusing the two.
Experimental evidence?  What do you think has been going on in the last 100 years.
Interpretation of the math model?  What do you think that is for?

It is starting to sound almost like you believe everything can be considered classical at it's root.  You aren't saying that are you?

I guess it is still possible you don't understand the context I am working under, it's quantum physics, quantum mechanics.  This happens a lot.
It may also be possible I do not understand the context you are working under, so it would help if you would elaborate as much as you can.

[studiot]

I guess the problem is, we want to know everything about nature, but we can't because nature will not let us.

Mr Al I do not seem to have a reply to my post # 148 addressing your version of probability and QM.

[MrAl]

I guess the problem is, we want to know everything about nature, but we can't because nature will not let us.

Mr Al I do not seem to have a reply to my post # 148 addressing your version of probability and QM.

Hi,

Thanks for point out the number because it can be hard to find certain posts sometimes.
I did reply in post #154.  Is that what you were looking for?

All I said was that maybe you should briefly state your definition of superposition, that's all. That will help me understand what you meant by your post #148.

[studiot]

I'm sorry if my response was somewhat lighthearted, but the discussion appeared to be getting rather heavy.

I was not discussing superposition, merely your claim that the coin is in a state of superposition just because we cannot see it.
Any interaction animate or inanimate on the far side of the wall will collapse the superposition a beetle could do it.
That is is you wish to consider QM in terms of superposition and waveform collapse, which I don't.

Your point about post numbering is well received.
I have fought loosing battles elsewhere against those idiots "Who Know Better"  as many discussions sites have dropped this blindingly obviously very useful facility.

Hi,

Thanks for point out the number because it can be hard to find certain posts sometimes.
I did reply in post #154.  Is that what you were looking for?

All I said was that maybe you should briefly state your definition of superposition, that's all. That will help me understand what you meant by your post #148.

[showman]

I guess it is still possible you don't understand the context I am working under, it's quantum physics, quantum mechanics.  This happens a lot.
It may also be possible I do not understand the context you are working under, so it would help if you would elaborate as much as you can.

Quantum mechanics does not mean every probability is quantum. The simplest example would be something like this. I measure the spin (up or down) of a stream of particles that are initially in superposition state. After my measurement the spin is perfectly determined and the particles are in the corresponding eigenstates. Now if I send this stream on to you to do exactly the same measurement, then similarly to me, you do not know whether each measurement will be up or down, but the particles are not in a superposition state any more and the only thing you can determine are the classical probabilities.

[MrAl]

I'm sorry if my response was somewhat lighthearted, but the discussion appeared to be getting rather heavy.

I was not discussing superposition, merely your claim that the coin is in a state of superposition just because we cannot see it.
Any interaction animate or inanimate on the far side of the wall will collapse the superposition a beetle could do it.
That is is you wish to consider QM in terms of superposition and waveform collapse, which I don't.

Your point about post numbering is well received.
I have fought loosing battles elsewhere against those idiots "Who Know Better"  as many discussions sites have dropped this blindingly obviously very useful facility.

Hi,

Thanks for point out the number because it can be hard to find certain posts sometimes.
I did reply in post #154.  Is that what you were looking for?

All I said was that maybe you should briefly state your definition of superposition, that's all. That will help me understand what you meant by your post #148.

Yes I know what you mean, on another site they do not use post numbers for PM's so it makes it hard to refer back to something that was already said.

As to your comment about the beetle, this is why I mentioned "context".  That's because once another reader said something like you just did, I went into deeper detail, and I even mentioned that an interaction with the environment could easily cause it to decohere.  A beetle would be part of the environment, but even the atmosphere (air) could do that.  That's because the superposition state is very fragile so when it is still in a coherence state almost any reaction can cause it to break down.

To talk about what the consequences of coherence are though, we can't assume everything decoheres or we wouldn't have anything to talk about.  We have to start with a nice, fresh, state and go from there, and at some point we can then say that it interacted with something else and decohered.
This is where the hand waving comes into play and we start to create analogies to classical objects, and it always fails.  Somebody always jumps up and says, "Hey, wait a minute, we can always tell what state the coin is in once it lands."  From then on out, we have to get much more detailed about the experiment setup just like it was being done in a lab.

Maybe we should move on now and perhaps get back to the main title issue.
The short answer there is that the radiation pattern is dependent on the transmitter shape, and also if the radiation bounces off of anything.

[studiot]

Yes I know what you mean, on another site they do not use post numbers for PM's so it makes it hard to refer back to something that was already said.

As to your comment about the beetle, this is why I mentioned "context".  That's because once another reader said something like you just did, I went into deeper detail, and I even mentioned that an interaction with the environment could easily cause it to decohere.  A beetle would be part of the environment, but even the atmosphere (air) could do that.  That's because the superposition state is very fragile so when it is still in a coherence state almost any reaction can cause it to break down.

To talk about what the consequences of coherence are though, we can't assume everything decoheres or we wouldn't have anything to talk about.  We have to start with a nice, fresh, state and go from there, and at some point we can then say that it interacted with something else and decohered.
This is where the hand waving comes into play and we start to create analogies to classical objects, and it always fails.  Somebody always jumps up and says, "Hey, wait a minute, we can always tell what state the coin is in once it lands."  From then on out, we have to get much more detailed about the experiment setup just like it was being done in a lab.

Maybe we should move on now and perhaps get back to the main title issue.
The short answer there is that the radiation pattern is dependent on the transmitter shape, and also if the radiation bounces off of anything.

You missed the bit where I said you have to start by accepting the coherence/decoherence interpretation  -  which I do not.
As regards the coin toss over the wall this was described in the normal atmousphere, so yes you are right an air molecule is sufficient to cause collapse, but you should use the words would not could.

I have already said the proper place to discuss QM is in another thread.

So yes again the radiation pattern is heavily dependant on transmitter characteristics.
Since we are discussing antenna don't forget the possibility of a ground plane.

[studiot]

Yes I know what you mean, on another site they do not use post numbers for PM's so it makes it hard to refer back to something that was already said.

As to your comment about the beetle, this is why I mentioned "context".  That's because once another reader said something like you just did, I went into deeper detail, and I even mentioned that an interaction with the environment could easily cause it to decohere.  A beetle would be part of the environment, but even the atmosphere (air) could do that.  That's because the superposition state is very fragile so when it is still in a coherence state almost any reaction can cause it to break down.

To talk about what the consequences of coherence are though, we can't assume everything decoheres or we wouldn't have anything to talk about.  We have to start with a nice, fresh, state and go from there, and at some point we can then say that it interacted with something else and decohered.
This is where the hand waving comes into play and we start to create analogies to classical objects, and it always fails.  Somebody always jumps up and says, "Hey, wait a minute, we can always tell what state the coin is in once it lands."  From then on out, we have to get much more detailed about the experiment setup just like it was being done in a lab.

Maybe we should move on now and perhaps get back to the main title issue.
The short answer there is that the radiation pattern is dependent on the transmitter shape, and also if the radiation bounces off of anything.

You missed the bit where I said you have to start by accepting the coherence/decoherence interpretation  -  which I do not.
As regards the coin toss over the wall this was described in the normal atmousphere, so yes you are right an air molecule is sufficient to cause collapse, but you should use the words would not could.

I have already said the proper place to discuss QM is in another thread.

So yes again the radiation pattern is heavily dependant on transmitter characteristics.
Since we are discussing antenna don't forget the possibility of a ground plane.

[MrAl]

Yes I know what you mean, on another site they do not use post numbers for PM's so it makes it hard to refer back to something that was already said.

As to your comment about the beetle, this is why I mentioned "context".  That's because once another reader said something like you just did, I went into deeper detail, and I even mentioned that an interaction with the environment could easily cause it to decohere.  A beetle would be part of the environment, but even the atmosphere (air) could do that.  That's because the superposition state is very fragile so when it is still in a coherence state almost any reaction can cause it to break down.

To talk about what the consequences of coherence are though, we can't assume everything decoheres or we wouldn't have anything to talk about.  We have to start with a nice, fresh, state and go from there, and at some point we can then say that it interacted with something else and decohered.
This is where the hand waving comes into play and we start to create analogies to classical objects, and it always fails.  Somebody always jumps up and says, "Hey, wait a minute, we can always tell what state the coin is in once it lands."  From then on out, we have to get much more detailed about the experiment setup just like it was being done in a lab.

Maybe we should move on now and perhaps get back to the main title issue.
The short answer there is that the radiation pattern is dependent on the transmitter shape, and also if the radiation bounces off of anything.

You missed the bit where I said you have to start by accepting the coherence/decoherence interpretation  -  which I do not.
As regards the coin toss over the wall this was described in the normal atmousphere, so yes you are right an air molecule is sufficient to cause collapse, but you should use the words would not could.

I have already said the proper place to discuss QM is in another thread.

So yes again the radiation pattern is heavily dependant on transmitter characteristics.
Since we are discussing antenna don't forget the possibility of a ground plane.

Hi again,

Yes no problem in the other thread, that makes sense now.

In this thread, I don't know why you would not accept the decoherence and related terminology and/or theories.
I am not saying that you absolutely should, but it does seem to help, and it seems to have helped a lot of scientists with various experiments and equipment building.

If you don't agree with the decoherence phenomenon, then you should at least have a replacement theory on hand.  Since I ALSO explore other solutions to many problems even in cosmology (to some extent, more casually) I am always interested to hear a new idea or an old one given more (or even less) support.  As long as it is not too "hand wavy" as they say.  Maybe you even know of a way that you can possibly disprove those ideas.

[paulca]

Reminds me of a rather frustrating question in digital communications in uni.

They told us we can consider lasers as "ideal" and perfectly parallel.  Later they asked us, what the attenutation would be if the laser was pointed at jupiter at X distance.

I wrote 0.

It was wrong, they wanted the inverse square radial disipation value.  But they just told us they were "ideal" and "perfectly parallel".

[studiot]

Reminds me of a rather frustrating question in digital communications in uni.

They told us we can consider lasers as "ideal" and perfectly parallel.  Later they asked us, what the attenutation would be if the laser was pointed at jupiter at X distance.

I wrote 0.

It was wrong, they wanted the inverse square radial disipation value.  But they just told us they were "ideal" and "perfectly parallel".

Hello Paula,
Interesting flag you are flying, I thought the CA stood for California.

I am surprised at your college question since laser beam divergence was known a long time ago.

Google : "beam divergence for laser distance measuring equipment"

I Wild giving a figure of approx 1.5 degrees for their 1968 Distomat.
I also measured later Geodimeter beams because I wanted a line in a tunnel to measure off.
The beam is not exactly parallel but not divergent either.
It is a bit like Lecher Lines with nodes and antinodes.
Where the beam intersects a target you get a disc of light, not a point spot.
This disc varies in diameter as the target is moved along the beam , growing larger and smaller at various positions, (hence the analogy with Lecher Lines).
So not a truly divergent beam, nor yet a parallel one.
So you always measure top and bottom of the spot and split the difference.

Another interesting laser phenomen.
The Americans have a laser distance measuring set up in New Mexico, measuring the distance to the Moon.
The average distance is 375,000 km and light travels at about 300,000 km /second.
If this were a spinning laser we could calculate the rotation speed for the laser tip linear speed across the Moon which exceeds the speed of light.

The radial velocity dθ/dt  = 300/375  rads /sec  =  300/ (375*2π)  revs / sec  =  7.7 revs/min.

[Marco]

If a disturbance in the electric field propagates as a sphere, then how comes that a single photon propagates in a single direction

Because the ballistic photon likely simply doesn't exist. A spherical wavepacket can be a single photon, a highly angular constrained wavepacket from a single photon laser source can be a photon too. They can both create a blip at a detector, but that's a consequence of "second" quantisation ... so where was the particle? (The "first" quantisation.)

As a simplification particles are extremely necessary most of the time in physics, as a fundamental probably not needed at all.

[TimFox]

Back to basics:
Waves and particles are analogies from macroscopic physics, using similar mathematics to waves on water and collisions of billiard balls.
With light, the wave equations are used to calculate the behavior of light en masse, including diffraction and other wavy phenomena.
When light hits something and interacts therewith (photographic film, photocathode, photodiode, etc.) or ionization by higher energy EM radiation (x rays, etc.) QM tells us that the interaction energy is discrete, leading to treating the interaction by photons.  Evidence of such discrete interactions includes the statistical noise from discrete energy transfer.  The Poisson statistics are very evident in x-ray interactions, since the photon energy is much higher than for visible light.  At radio frequencies (e.g. 100 MHz), the photon energy is so small that discrete effects usually can be neglected.  An important textbook on QM had a homework question about the photon energy at 98.7 MHz, since Prof. Sakurai wrote it while at the University of Chicago.

[showman]

Back to basics:
Waves and particles are analogies from macroscopic physics, using similar mathematics to waves on water and collisions of billiard balls.

Yes, and that's what ultimately creates all the confusion. If someone says light behaves like particles, there is some truth to it, but then without understanding where this behaviour exactly/to our best knowledge comes from, it is easy to extrapolate that therefore all the properties of classical particles must also somehow apply to light. But then it is immediately refuted by interference, which is easy to extrapolate to classical waves, but it is obviously wrong again, because how can the delocalized energy in a classical wave suddenly disappear to a localized region.

So actually for better understanding it is necessary to study the underlying theory, not be side-tracked too much about those analogies.

[MrAl]

Back to basics:
Waves and particles are analogies from macroscopic physics, using similar mathematics to waves on water and collisions of billiard balls.

Yes, and that's what ultimately creates all the confusion. If someone says light behaves like particles, there is some truth to it, but then without understanding where this behaviour exactly/to our best knowledge comes from, it is easy to extrapolate that therefore all the properties of classical particles must also somehow apply to light. But then it is immediately refuted by interference, which is easy to extrapolate to classical waves, but it is obviously wrong again, because how can the delocalized energy in a classical wave suddenly disappear to a localized region.

So actually for better understanding it is necessary to study the underlying theory, not be side-tracked too much about those analogies.

From what I have read over the years the progress has gone from:
(1) not knowing what light was, to (2) the classical wave analogy, to (3) thinking of it as a quanta (which gets confused with a particle), to (4) being both a wave and a particle, to (5) a quantum object that has some nonclassical behavior.

So the poor light thing gets a bad rap all along the way
Maybe it is hinting at us: "you don't know what the heck I am so forget about it", ha ha.

Which brings me to the question, Does anyone actually know what light actually is?  We just have our human understanding of something we just happened to run across in our history and that means we are always using some kind of heuristic whether we like it or not.

Maybe the most amazing thing about it is that it can transfer a lot of energy from one place to another.  We are accustomed to using flashlights and candles, which provide a very gentle blanket of light on the subject.  But look at the light from a star, or the light from a supernova, which can mean either long life or quick death.

The universe is an amazing place, but also very deadly.  We have been lucky so far.

Here's a little question: We can feel light as heat, we can certainly see light of certain frequencies, but does light have any unique taste?  I think the secondary senses would come from the interaction of light with objects, creating sound, taste, smell, etc.

[paulca]

Here's a little question: We can feel light as heat, we can certainly see light of certain frequencies, but does light have any unique taste?  I think the secondary senses would come from the interaction of light with objects, creating sound, taste, smell, etc.

Well consider when you pick up a flower and touch it petals and sniff it's fragrance... that nothing every "touches" the flower.  The replulse of the electron concentrations at the surface of the flower and your hand repel so completely you can never actually touch the flower.  The particles of things you smell, dont really "touch" anything either.  They get molecularly bonded via electrons of molcules in your sense organs which creates a chemical signal by it's presence which signals your brain.

A more interesting question is ... if you put 1000V across the brain and slam every electrical potential into the extreme, distrupting every electrical circuit that exists in there for a breif period...  the brain simply reboots as if nothing happened.  The electro-chemical balance is fascinating how that works.  It leaves you wondering if the other way around is possible.  Not with disrupted electric fields, but with temporarily removed chemical constructs.  Can it ... ie. you... be even termporarily "operated" outside of the brain.

[studiot]

Here's a little question: We can feel light as heat, we can certainly see light of certain frequencies, but does light have any unique taste?  I think the secondary senses would come from the interaction of light with objects, creating sound, taste, smell, etc.

Well consider when you pick up a flower and touch it petals and sniff it's fragrance... that nothing every "touches" the flower.  The replulse of the electron concentrations at the surface of the flower and your hand repel so completely you can never actually touch the flower.  The particles of things you smell, dont really "touch" anything either.  They get molecularly bonded via electrons of molcules in your sense organs which creates a chemical signal by it's presence which signals your brain.

A more interesting question is ... if you put 1000V across the brain and slam every electrical potential into the extreme, distrupting every electrical circuit that exists in there for a breif period...  the brain simply reboots as if nothing happened.  The electro-chemical balance is fascinating how that works.  It leaves you wondering if the other way around is possible.  Not with disrupted electric fields, but with temporarily removed chemical constructs.  Can it ... ie. you... be even termporarily "operated" outside of the brain.

Looking more carefully this morning with my eyes open I see I owe you an apology.
I addressed you as Paula not Paul.
The fault was entirely mine, I hope you weren't offended.
Procedures on this site are far more tricky than I am used to.

Back to basics:
Waves and particles are analogies from macroscopic physics, using similar mathematics to waves on water and collisions of billiard balls.

Yes, and that's what ultimately creates all the confusion. If someone says light behaves like particles, there is some truth to it, but then without understanding where this behaviour exactly/to our best knowledge comes from, it is easy to extrapolate that therefore all the properties of classical particles must also somehow apply to light. But then it is immediately refuted by interference, which is easy to extrapolate to classical waves, but it is obviously wrong again, because how can the delocalized energy in a classical wave suddenly disappear to a localized region.

So actually for better understanding it is necessary to study the underlying theory, not be side-tracked too much about those analogies.

From what I have read over the years the progress has gone from:
(1) not knowing what light was, to (2) the classical wave analogy, to (3) thinking of it as a quanta (which gets confused with a particle), to (4) being both a wave and a particle, to (5) a quantum object that has some nonclassical behavior.

So the poor light thing gets a bad rap all along the way
Maybe it is hinting at us: "you don't know what the heck I am so forget about it", ha ha.

Which brings me to the question, Does anyone actually know what light actually is?  We just have our human understanding of something we just happened to run across in our history and that means we are always using some kind of heuristic whether we like it or not.

Maybe the most amazing thing about it is that it can transfer a lot of energy from one place to another.  We are accustomed to using flashlights and candles, which provide a very gentle blanket of light on the subject.  But look at the light from a star, or the light from a supernova, which can mean either long life or quick death.

The universe is an amazing place, but also very deadly.  We have been lucky so far.

Here's a little question: We can feel light as heat, we can certainly see light of certain frequencies, but does light have any unique taste?  I think the secondary senses would come from the interaction of light with objects, creating sound, taste, smell, etc.

In electronics we use many techniques that we know refer to incorrect models because they actually yield the correct answer.
For instance
In circuit theory maxwells mesh currents.
In magnetic and other theory virtual work.
In magnetics and electrostatics the method of virtual images.

The last one is really the only one that has relevance to this thread.