Rational Cosmology and Lasers

Errors of Post-Classical Fysics Series: Part V

G. Stolyarov II

Issue XLVI- January 9, 2006

 

 

 

 

Note: This is the fifth  article in Mr. Stolyarov’s “Errors of Post-Classical Fysics” series. The first four articles are “Modern Scientists’ Faulty Definitions of Matter,” “Light is not a Particle,” “Light is not a Wave,” and “Radio Signals are not Waves.”

            A laser device—named after an abbreviation for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”—is a specific type of light source; it releases light of only one measurable magnitude and only in one direction. Instead of normal light’s manifestation on all targets surrounding the light source, laser light appears as a concentrated beam, outside of which there is no light from the laser. Hence, laser light is unidirectional. The laser beam exhibits only one color; thus, laser light is said to be monochromatic.

            Post-Classical fysicists contend that the operation of a laser device can be explained only by viewing light as a simultaneous particle and wave. To demolish this view, we shall examine the operation of a simple laser device, a ruby laser. We will note where the modern scientists invoke the erroneous duality. Finally, we shall show that using it to explain the laser’s function is unnecessary. The behavior of the laser device can be understood just as well when light is recognized as a relationship at a distance between source and target—a view I had developed in A Rational Cosmology.

            A ruby laser is constructed thus: A container, a ruby rod, is filled with a crystal called ruby, with molecular formula CrAlO_3. Fysicist Dr. Jack Horgan describes ruby as “an aluminum oxide crystal in which some of the aluminum atoms have been replaced with chromium atoms.” The chromium atoms absorb blue and green light and reflect only red light of magnitude 694.3 on the electromagnetic spectrum (or 694.3 “nanometers of wavelength,” if the erroneous-duality-based unit of light is invoked).

            Two mirrors are placed at both ends of the ruby rod. The rear mirror is a full mirror; it is capable of reflecting nearly all the light which light sources send at its surface. The front mirror, however, is partially silvered, allowing some light to be transmitted through the mirror, rather than altogether reflected off of it. Above the ruby rod is placed a flash tube—the original source of light.

            That much is indisputable. In the actual operation of the laser device, however, even the simplest explanations in line with modern fysics cannot avoid invoking non-existent “fotons” and “waves of light.” This is the explanation of a ruby laser’s function from HowStuffWorks.com:

The flash tube fires and injects light into the ruby rod. The light excites atoms in the ruby. Some of these atoms emit photons. Some of these photons run in a direction parallel to the ruby's axis, so they bounce back and forth off the mirrors. As they pass through the crystal, they stimulate emission in other atoms. Monochromatic, single-phase, columnated light leaves the ruby through the half-silvered mirror -- laser light!... The light released is coherent. It is “organized” -- each photon moves in step with the others. This means that all of the photons have wave fronts that launch in unison.

The “foton” element of this description is entirely superfluous to explaining the function of the device. How a single “foton” particle can also have a “wave front”—which would require a coordinated vibration of multiple particles—is also not clarified: conveniently so, because this is impossible and contradictory. I shall now demonstrate how the same events can be accounted for without invoking a particulate or wave view of light.

            The flash tube is activated and transmits regular light to the ruby rod. The flash tube, the light source, interacts with the ruby rod, the target, via a direct relationship at a distance: light. No “particles” of light are passed between the two. The flash tube simply begins illuminating, and the ruby rod receives the illumination shortly afterward. Because of the intrinsic properties of the ruby crystal, its chromium atoms become the ultimate targets of part of this relationship; they absorb light of magnitudes that correspond to blue or green coloration when reflected off appropriate entities. Light of these magnitudes ceases to participate in the further operation of the laser. The only light that the ruby crystals do not absorb is light of magnitude 694.3—red light. The ruby crystals reflect this light, thus becoming its intermediate—not ultimate—targets.

            The reflection of light stimulates the ruby crystals to emit additional light of their own. The modern fysicists say that light from the flash tube stimulates “foton release” by ruby crystals, but this is wholly unnecessary for explaining what happens. The received and reflected light simply triggers a process whereby the ruby crystals themselves become sources of additional light. This light is directed toward the mirrors, which subsequently reflect it toward the crystals, to stimulate further emission of light. Every act of reflection is a direct transmission of the light relationship from the mirror to the crystal—and vice versa. Light is never found in the empty space between the mirrors and crystals.

            At some point in time, there is a sufficient quantity of light reflected by the rear mirror in a single direction: forward. The half-silvered mirror can only reflect so much light; it must transmit the rest. Light is transmitted through the half-silvered mirror in vast quantities, interacting with air molecules outside the laser device by imparting a vast quantity of the quality, luminosity, on each of them. (Luminosity is that quality, which enables a source entity to illuminate a target; it is the quality whose magnitudes are altered by the relationship of light).

            Laser light is in fact an indirect interaction of the flash tube with the air molecules; light is transmitted from the flash tube (the ultimate source) to the air molecules (the ultimate targets) through a series of intermediaries—the crystals and the mirrors—reflection off of which ultimately orients the light in only one direction. The laser light is seen as a concentrated “beam” because many trillions of air molecules in close proximity are rapidly illuminated. From a human perspective, the atoms and molecules are so close as to be seen as continuous—which explains the perceived continuity of the laser beam. 

            Every light source has a set amount of luminosity—the quality which enables it to illuminate. When it illuminates, it will always transfer the same overall amount of luminosity to accessible target entities—no matter whether these entities absorb, transmit, or reflect the light.

            The laser is so built as to restrict its relationship of light to only certain target entities, i.e., the target entities directly in front of it, extending forward for some distance. The source still has the same amount of luminosity as a source that would expend said luminosity on target entities all around it. However, it can only use this luminosity in a certain direction. Hence, more of the luminosity is channeled in that direction, thus creating a more precise and intense “beam” of light—which is actually the sum of all the light relationships occurring between the source and the trillions of target atoms and molecules. The light source’s luminosity does not disappear into nowhere: the ruby crystals and the mirrors, acting as a system, simply redirect nearly all of it toward its ultimate targets. The luminosity lost to the crystals’ absorption of the blue and green components of light is more than compensated for by the crystals’ emission of additional red light.  

            A laser is a particular observation, and rational cosmology would not have been able to deduce it solely from ubiquitous observations of light. However, rational cosmology’s explanation of light is compatible with all particular manifestations thereof. Thus, the particular observations of laser light do not contradict the view of light as a direct relationship at a distance between source and target; rather, they reaffirm it. Nowhere is the utilization of “fotons” and “waves” necessary to explain how a laser functions; rather, these terms are needless impediments to understanding. Lasers work because they follow actual principles existing in reality, not imaginary models of light as particles or waves.

G. Stolyarov II is a science fiction novelist, independent filosofical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician and composer, contributor to organizations such as Le Quebecois Libre, Enter Stage Right, and The Autonomist.  Mr. Stolyarov is the Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator and a Senior Writer for the Liberal Institute (http://www.liberalinstitute.com). He can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.

Read Mr. Stolyarov's new comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, at http://www.geocities.com/rational_argumentator/rc.html.