In the updated Computational Blackbody Radiation I point to a basic difference between
- wave propagation
and
- propagation of energy by waves,
which comes out of an analysis of a vibrating resonant string subject to damping representing
radiation. This model displays
- two-way wave propagation
together with
- one-way propagation of heat energy (from warm to cold).
In a particle model this distinction is not possible because heat energy is tied to particles.
Since particles may travel two-ways, this leads into an idea of two-way propagation of heat energy. Radiative heat transfer between two bodies will then be described as a two-way stream of particles (photons) with the warmer body spitting out more energetic photons than the colder, thus winning a two-way heat transfer contest.
This is the basic idea of climate alarmism with an absorbing atmospheric layer "backradiating" particles to the Earth surface in a two-way transfer of heat energy with a warming effect.
What to say about this? Is radiation waves or particles? Is there a two-way transfer of heat energy?
Well, one may say that the particle model is simpler than the wave model, since a distinction is not made between propagation of waves and propagation of energy. Is it too simple?
Probably, because the wave equation model is as simple as possible, and according to Einstein in the previous post, one should reject a model which is simpler.
An aspect of too simple, is that the particle model is unstable: Zero heat transfer between bodies of the same temperature would result from cancellation in heavy two-way transfer, which is not stable.
The basic idea of CO2 climate alarmism is thus based on unstable physics, and unstable physics
will collapse under perturbation, as can now be observed in the aftermath of climategate now beyond the tipping point of climate alarmism...
dont the air molecules move (i.e. show a sort of oscillatory behavior about a mean position without a 'net motion') when sound waves travel through air?
SvaraRaderaYes, they do, just like the beads of a vibrating string of beads.
SvaraRaderaClaes,
SvaraRaderaI think it is important not to make things complicated. The only thing one has to realize is that heat transfer by radiation is not qualitatively different from heat conduction and that is more or less the end of the story.
In the greenhouse business the radiative heat transfer acts as a heat pump counteracted by convection. Conduction would also counteract the greenhouse effect if it hadn't been neglected. But if heat radiation is essentially like heat conduction then the heat radiation would counteract the greenhouse effect, which is based on heat radiation and there we have the problem in a nutshell. The discussion about photons/waves is interesting in its own right but not really relevant here.
Moreover, we have to distinguish between heat transfer and energy transfer. If I through a ball up in the air i transfer energy to it. But I do not heat it.
I agree: thermodynamics sets the lapse rate, not radiation. Backradiation is based on particles, and one way to get rid of backradiation (as being unphysical) is to get rid of particles (as being unphysical).
SvaraRaderaClaes, You have question the existence of photons.
SvaraRaderaI found the following amongst my articles Thomas Marshal and Emilio Santos "The Myth of the Photon"
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9711046 (sorry if the link does on work -it works at my end)
I would be interested in your views.
regards
cementafriend
This is beyond my horizon, but I support the general idea of waves described by Maxwell's equations. And quantum mechanics is a wave field theory without any particles, as clearly stated by its inventor: Schrödinger,
SvaraRaderato whom particles represented primitive non-science.