It's that damn Kenyan's fault

[vision]

...how does a twisting light beam cause dust to swirl on a desk if it is not exerting a mechanical force on the dust?

Photons of light have momentum. They do not create gravity. It has already been theorized we can displace dangerous asteroids by shining lasers on them. Given enough time and distance, the force of the laser will actually nudge the asteroid a couple millimeters. Those millimeters will translate into thousands of miles of trajectory over millions of miles of travel. We have yet to run an experiment that shows a photon with mass, thus, no gravity.

I believe you have been sucked in by this clever article here? It seems this Ronald Mallett guy is using mass-energy equivalence to create this light=energy=mass goofiness. His work has already been debunked. And from a practical standpoint that I'm sure you can understand, if you use a laser to move dust particles, how much more energy do your lungs have if you just blow the dust away? In short, it would take an unbelievable amount of light to create any measurable amount of gravity, let alone having a useful situation to use it.

If a storm has electromagnetic properties not seen by the naked eye, can you repel or attract it if you exert a mechanical force on it in the form of twisting light?

No, for the same reason I stated above. There isn't a laser big enough to move a storm system. If there were, it would just fry everything.

[flip]

Hehe, That's not what I asked. The guy who thinks he can distort the space-time continuum is not the same guy who made the dust dance . As far as something big enough, you still didn't read. It seems that through OAM light you can accomplish the very same thing. You don't need a huge laser. All you need is a Dual-Pol reference beam into which to fire another to make the light twist and create Orbital Angular Momentum.

[Top Gun]

Do you know what mechanical force is?

Yes, but you apparently don't, because mechanical force as you're thinking of it has NOTHING to do with gravity: it's the direct application of force between two objects that are in contact with each other. It's not even a rigorously-defined term: do a search for "mechanical force" on Wikipedia and you come up with bupkis. (And really, if you're going to source something, try doing better than a random Ask.com result.) Mechanical energy, on the other hand, is a very well-defined concept, as the sum of the kinetic and potential energies of an object.

EDIT: "According to Einstein's theory, light can also create gravity even though it is not made up of matter. It's just energy, but it can create gravity."

This is true in a certain sense, and I'll admit that what I stated earlier on this point is incorrect: a beam of light would produce a gravitational field. What I said about photons having no mass is true, but where I screwed up is in the fact that the term "mass" by itself refers to different concepts depending on the circumstances. A photon does not have any rest mass, which is defined as the mass of an object when it is not moving: this is the mass that appears in Einstein's famous equation, and gives an object its rest energy via the mass-energy equivalence described in that equation. Objects in motion will always have an energy above their rest energy, and so through that equivalence can be viewed as having a relativistic mass greater than their rest mass. Because photons move at the speed of light, they would exhibit relativistic mass as well. In the formulation of general relativity, there's a mathematical object called the stress-energy tensor that acts as the source of the gravitational field in the involved equations, and all forms of energy in a system contribute to it: that includes energy from light, so one could indeed say that light produces a gravitational effect. But this effect is so miniscule that it's barely noticeable: you'd need a RIDICULOUS level of light energy to produce the same effects as a given amount of matter. It wouldn't come into play in anything being discussed here.

Look, here's the thing: the reason I made this mistake in the first place is that general relativity is extremely heady stuff, well beyond the scope of my undergraduate degree. To fully understand its principles, you'd need to have at least a graduate-level background in physics, along with the corresponding higher math principles, or get someone with knowledge of both of those to break things down for you. I don't have either of those--I'm just able to grasp the bare general ideas of it--and I know you don't. This is exactly what I mean by you always trying to utilize topics that you have no real grasp of, which winds up with you attempting to use all sorts of concepts where they don't apply at all.

The problem here is that they told you light is massless, which is true, but then you ASSUME because it's massless it cannot affect atom's which do have mass. That's all you got. Truth is, if you twist it, it can actually trap and freeze atoms thereby exerting a mechanical force on them. Just go teach what you've been told, because insight you do not have.

Where exactly did I say that? Light has the property of momentum, so by definition it is capable of imparting a force on an object. The concept of radiation pressure is a well-understood one...hell, there's been a test version of a "solar sail" that uses the pressure of sunlight to propel a space probe. That's exactly what's going on with the dust motes in that experiment: the photons' angular momentum is imparted to them, which makes them spin. It's not any magical "freezing" or anything.

[Top Gun]

Here's my only assertion throughout this whole thread. If you can take a twisting laser beam and cause the dust on the desk to swirl, then you can also do it on a large scale. TG, tell me, how does a twisting light beam cause dust to swirl on a desk if it is not exerting a mechanical force on the dust?

EDIT: If you can tell me, I have wasted all this time reading these studies when all the while I could have just asked you.

As I said in the first post, the dust motes swirl because of the momentum imparted on them by the radiation pressure of the "twisted" light. However, the pressure produced by radiation is very small, and only noticeable on objects of very low mass, such as those dust motes, or on a cosmic scale when you're talking about the huge radiation output of stars. (For example, the Voyager probes had to account for the effects of the Sun's radiation pressure in order to maintain a correct course to Mars.)

Actually 2 questions. Answer them if you can. If a storm has electromagnetic properties not seen by the naked eye, can you repel or attract it if you exert a mechanical force on it in the form of twisting light? Kind of like 2 magnets pushed apart or pulled together.

A light source wouldn't affect the electromagnetic field produced by a thunderstorm, but you could conceivably apply radiation pressure to the actual water droplets and air molecules that comprise it...you'd just need a ridiculously-strong light source, one that would do a hell of a lot more damage than the storm ever could. Now if you wanted to point a really bigass magnet at a thunderstorm, I'm not sure what that would do to its actual structure, but again the magnet you'd be talking about would be waaaay outside anything you could actually create.

[flip]

it's the direct application of force between two objects that are in contact with each other

A more accurate definition of mechanical force is:

"Mechanical force is an energy that requires a medium for it to travel. When this force is applied on an object, it can cause it to bend, scratch it, or break"

Now were getting somewhere. So to call it gravity would be a premature assumption as of yet, but with powerful enough energy sources, you agree that imparting orbital angular momentum on a large scale is possible? Also, your confusing the 2 concepts although they are directly related. They use twisted light from laser beams to freeze atoms so that they can more closely study them. That is a much smaller scale than what I'm talking about. I'm just saying that this can be done on a much larger scale as long as you have a Dual-Pol reference beam somewhere that you can fire another beam into. This would cause the same optical vortex as we see on the desk, but much larger. Which is all I've said. I would also disagree with you on having to have a degree to understand this stuff. That's a lie. All you need is Google and a mind that can retain all the information. Then you just have to compute it. I believe they can and already are. It's easy enough to bounce a large amount of energy of the ionosphere, or from a satellite down into a Dual-Pol radar site. I would argue that if you did, you would see the same effect on a weather system as you did the dust on the desk.

EDIT:We'll get back to whether you can exert forces on the electromagnetic properties of a storm later, I just want to make sure you understand that the concept can be as large as the imagination. We'll talk about current capabilities then.

EDIT: My wife always tells me I need to slow down, of course I assumed you knew we were talking about Euclidean space.

[vision]

I'm just saying that this can be done on a much larger scale as long as you have a Dual-Pol reference beam somewhere that you can fire another beam into.

Probably not. You see, not everything that happens on a small scale can happen on a large scale. This is why we have different mathematical models for classical physics and quantum physics. Also, many things in our physical universe scale exponentially. You might be able to hold a few atoms in a laser beam, but the amount of laser energy needed to move 10^20 atoms would take an impossibly large laser.

I would also disagree with you on having to have a degree to understand this stuff. That's a lie. All you need is Google and a mind that can retain all the information.

Umm... the problem here is that you need to have the critical thinking skills necessary to understand why a site like this is valuable and this is not. From what I've seen you can't tell the difference.

[flip]

Honestly, you do not possess altruism, so instead of trying to build or contribute, you do nothing but discredit. That puts you in the 99%. I have given you all I will. Most of those links I gave were from universities and the technology is spread across the internet. The others were soundings . I suggest you go and do much more study.

EDIT: Wanna know how I know, your still talking about lasers!

[Jeff250]

I would also disagree with you on having to have a degree to understand this stuff. That's a lie. All you need is Google and a mind that can retain all the information. Then you just have to compute it.

Is a degree necessary? It's not even adequate. Come back when you've finished your postdoc.

[flip]

I would say that retention is a lot more important. It's like saying that mathematics is a science, no it's not, it's a tool. Physics is applied mathematics and you guys do not know me at all, yet wave your degrees around like a hard-on too. Hehe, you would not only lose the battle, but also the war. Your mind is cluttered with can'ts and that's a shame. Your the type of person who sits around and thinks "this guy thinks he's smarter than us." when those kind of thoughts never even cross my mind

EDIT: Wanna know how I know? Instead of talking about how firing one dual-polarized beam into another makes the light twist, something that obviously eludes the most of you, we are talking about degrees! LOL!

[Jeff250]

My only physics credentials are taking two semesters of it in college, so I don't have a whole lot of authority to be talking about it either. (And that's why I'm not.)

[flip]

Who told you that you couldn't? I just find the stuff fascinating and I have no arrogance to get in the way and I feel absolutely inferior to no one. I remember everything. That makes it easier to make conclusions because as you think about it, each piece pops in your head. That's what I don't understand about you guys. What is so unbelievable about being able to make light twist and then exert a mechanical force on the atoms and molecules around it? I didn't discover it or invent it. I just find it fascinating that they can do it, but there are implications. You can no longer confine all weather anomalies to just Global Warming or Climate Change, you have to factor in the ability to man-ipulate too now. Otherwise, these should be fun and interesting conversations, not beyond the ability of any single person on this board, if not for the inferiority complexes that abound here.

[callmeslick]

My only physics credentials are taking two semesters of it in college, so I don't have a whole lot of authority to be talking about it either. (And that's why I'm not.)

I'm in your boat, Jeff.....in fact, one semester I spent at least two lab sessions and a couple lectures attending Red Sox games that were playing in the class time frame. I barely passed that semester at all. I did study the physics of biological and chemical reactions, but that's a completely irrelevant subspeciality here. I find the discussion and links sort of a fun read and diversion, though, so thanks for all who have ventured in!

[vision]

What is so unbelievable about being able to make light twist and then exert a mechanical force on the atoms and molecules around it?

No one is doubting that. We know all about lasers, polarization, and momentum.

...there are implications. You can no longer confine all weather anomalies to just Global Warming or Climate Change, you have to factor in the ability to man-ipulate too now.

This is the scalability problem I mentioned. Just because you can do it on a small scale in a lab doesn't mean you can recreate the same conditions on a scale billions of times more massive. If you can, please show us. And by that I mean, make an actual weather machine with your enlightened knowledge of the universe and make the weather perfect in Chicago everyday.

[flip]

Hah, If I had the resources and money I sure would.

[snoopy]

Here's my only assertion throughout this whole thread. If you can take a twisting laser beam and cause the dust on the desk to swirl, then you can also do it on a large scale. TG, tell me, how does a twisting light beam cause dust to swirl on a desk if it is not exerting a mechanical force on the dust?

EDIT: If you can tell me, I have wasted all this time reading these studies when all the while I could have just asked you.

I suspect it's because the dust particles carry charge....

Flip, here's the thing, I think: The devil is in the details. Here's a simple example that's related to a class that I'm taking right now: Transistors exhibit current gain, so they make these really handy little amplifiers, right? So, may you think, let's scale it up and do some really cool things with that.... but the problem is that transistors have a breakdown point at which their behavior gets all wacky, so you can't just "scale it up" at the drop of a hat... it takes a lot of concerted work just to be able to scale these things up by even a little bit.

I'm all about simplifying things and dreaming big... but I also realize that implementing simple concepts is often a lot more difficult than you bargain for.

By the way... if you want to talk electromagnetics and wave propagation I know enough to be dangerous... I'm just finishing my masters in Electrical Engineering with a focus on telecommunications and have been working in the RF/EM world for ~8 years now.... I don't know the photonic stuff very well, but I can talk a bit about waves in the microwave region.

[flip]

Don't get me wrong, I do not claim to be an expert, and details are definitely not my strong suit. I wonder though and posted this in another thread. The concept of twisting light is not a theory anymore, it is a realization. From the many sources I've read, they say if you fire one electromagnetic beam into a dual polarized beam, that the light will begin to twist, creating an optical vortex. Clouds and storms systems carry charges just like the dust on the desk, so we are really only talking about a limitation of power, but I think HAARP can already generate enough power. So if the concept is sound and the only limitation is scalability, then really all you need to try it on a large scale is one big friggin antenna. Which will just get bigger and bigger over time. That one antenna with a matching transformer can be efficient on any part on the spectrum. That's one thing I learned from Lew McCoy. Make a antenna as long as possible then just match impedance.