4 ms·
In the absence of charges, Maxwell's equations reduce to `\nabla^2 F = d^2/dt^2 F`, (where F is the electromagnetic field tensor) which has solutions given by s
by consilient 4y ago
In the absence of charges, Maxwell's equations reduce to `\nabla^2 F = d^2/dt^2 F`, (where F is the electromagnetic field tensor) which has solutions given by superpositions of traveling waves.
What I suspect you want, however, is some sort of substance or essential nature that makes the thing go. If that's the case, then the answer is that there are no such things. Not for light, not for ordinary classical mechanics, not for anything. Physical systems are what they do.
- anankaie 4y agoYou could say that the thing that makes light go is the distribution and motion of charges in the electric field. As they move, they generate waves in the amplitude of the EM field, and these waves are what we perceive as light.
- dools 4y agoRight that’s the point of my original post. I see lots of people trying to understand how QM “works” when it’s just a thing that’s works the way it does. I have never seen anyone trying to understand how light moves in a vacuum, which (at least to me) seems just as mysterious if you were to try and understand it in some sort of intuitive macro physical sense.
- heavenlyblue 4y ago> I have never seen anyone trying to understand how light moves in a vacuum People have been doing this since pre-helenics, "what is the medium where everything operates" or along the questions of "what is the medium that contains vacuum". It's not that anyone isn't trying to understand that, it's just that thinking about unprovable things is boring and uninteresting from science point of view. At that level we may as well accept we all live in the Rabbit's Hole with Magic.