Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ttidcb.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!philabs!ttidca!ttidcb!jackson From: jackson@ttidcb.UUCP (Dick Jackson) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Reality of Electric Field versus the Photon Heterodyne Message-ID: <405@ttidcb.UUCP> Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 12:14:52 EDT Article-I.D.: ttidcb.405 Posted: Tue Jul 9 12:14:52 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 04:18:49 EDT Organization: TTI, Santa Monica, CA. Lines: 21 Somebody beat me to it but I was going to protest that the electric field seems awfully real when I hook up a sensitive, dynamic voltmeter (read radio receiver) to a piece of wire. After all, radio is the same as light, but slowed down. Consider the superhet receiver. Using a local oscillator to beat the incoming carrier down to a lower frequency for filtering and amplification, it is well known to have a signal to noise ratio several times that of a power detecting diode. Nobody thinks photons with radio (or even television). Somewhere between microwaves and the visible spectrum it becomes useful to think photon (for some kinds of problem). I believe (someone can contradict) that quantum/photon noise is stronger than thermal noise for diode detection of light (in fiber optic systems for example). The optical version of the superhet is under development. I for one find it dificult to imagine it working at low levels, when photons are coming in (in phase!) in dribs and drabs. Can anyone throw any light (hah!) onto this curiosity? How about a gamma ray superhet? Neutron beams?