On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 9:23 AM, Bob Higgins <[email protected]> wrote:
The photon cannot be stretched out too far, or an atom would be unable to > absorb its energy in an acceptable time. > I think this would be the case if the usual four dimensions were involved. If a further dimension came into play, it is possible to imagine the surface of the expanding wave having a large (and possibly increasing) area, while the energy of the photon is transmitted at a specific, point-like location. We already see evidence of photons of different energies having different cross-sectional areas to their wavefronts. High energy gamma rays interact with nucleons or even constituents of nucleons, but not atoms as a whole. Lower energy gamma rays interact with an entire nucleus but not individual nucleons. Yet lower energy photons interact with and eject electrons from atomic orbitals but are transparent to nucleuses and nucleons. Photons at even lower energies are transparent to atoms but interact with antennas and other macroscopic bodies. In this sense there is an ever-expanding area of interaction as the photon energy decreases, and vice versa as the energy increases. The limiting case are perhaps the photons involved in extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves [1]. Frequencies in the 3 Hz range correspond to wavelengths of 100,000 km. In my mind that entails a very large area wavefront. I doubt there is a point-like photon involved in this case. Eric [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency
