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- From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
- Newsgroups: sci.physics
- Subject: Re: Massive Photons Tomorrow (was Scientists Plan...)
- Message-ID: <mcirvin.721097078@husc8>
- Date: 7 Nov 92 00:44:38 GMT
- Article-I.D.: husc8.mcirvin.721097078
- References: <4NOV199214241699@csa1.lbl.gov> <Bx8y2F.3wD@brunel.ac.uk> <1992Nov5.221946.4516@galois.mit.edu> <1dcovgINNb93@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca>
- Lines: 23
- Nntp-Posting-Host: husc8.harvard.edu
-
- ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay) writes:
-
- >The possibility of ordinary radiation becoming impossible was not
- >mentioned in the article. I suspect that "the length of interaction of
- >electromagnetism" mentined here means something like the distance two
- >static charges can be from each other and still exert appreciable
- >forces on each other, rather than, say, "electromagnetic waves don't
- >carry farther than 1 meter". Of course, I haven't worked any of this
- >out for myself.
-
- All of this is right. The idea is that the photon would gain a mass,
- thereby obeying Proca's equation rather than Maxwell's. Radiation
- would gain a dispersion relation in free space; light would travel at
- a speed less than c and dependent upon frequency, but it could carry
- arbitrarily far. Static electric and magnetic forces, on the other
- hand, would be exponentially damped with distance.
-
- The dispersion relation could scramble radio signals by delaying
- different-frequency components by varying amounts. Sunshine would
- survive intact if it managed to get produced in the first place.
-
- --
- Matt McIrvin
-
