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Current physics calls a photon a massless particle that is also a wave, but can’t explain how it is so. It is said to be a particle because it hits a screen point, so how a photon arrives is known, but how it got there is an assumption tacked onto the facts. According to quantum theory, a photon travels as a wave that collapses to a point at the screen, and its critics couldn’t fault this logic because it has no fault. The evidence, as usual, supports quantum theory but physics, also as usual, prefers particles.

In this model, quantum theory describes a process that spreads on a network like a wave until it restarts at a point like a particle, and that is why it works. But if a photon is a cloud of instances that travel through two slits at once, which one is the photon? The question betrays our bias that it is a particle in one place, but according to quantum theory, it isn’t. To say a photon has wave function assumes it is thing a with a wave property, which is impossible. Rather than having a wave function, the photon is the wave function, or more exactly, what generates it.

What is at stake here isn’t the evidence but how it is interpreted. In physical terms, a particle seen at a point must have always been so but in processing terms, what restarts at a point needn’t remain so. As quantum theory describes it, a photon is never a particle, even when it hits a screen. Likewise, a process is never a particle, as its events have no substance apart from their network host. Quantum events cause physical events but neither abide because it isn’t in their nature to do so. 

For the photon, what carries on isn’t its physical or quantum states but the process behind them. Quantum waves never stop because they rise again from the ashes of quantum collapse, like the phoenix. All the matter we see, as the next chapter shows, came from light, so it is immortal in our terms. That light never dies and space always abides was Act 1 of the drama of our universe, so if all the world’s a stage (As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII, Line 139), classical mechanics describes what we see but quantum mechanics describes the backstage events that make it happen.

 But what then is this process that causes everything?

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How can a process spread on a network? The proposed way is instantiation, an object orientated design method that lets one source class direct many objects. For example, screen buttons often look and act the same, so instead of duplicating the code for each, programmers define one class to direct all of them. This saves time and lets them change all the buttons of a class in one place. Instantiation works for any screen object, like a pop-up or a drop-down menu, and local differences like color can be a parameter. Computing calls such buttons instances of a source class.  

A quantum wave can then be a spreading cloud of instances from a server source with a frequency parameter. Why then does the wave weaken as it spreads? If a network server instantiates many buttons on different screens, feeding them sequentially might give some screens a button but others not, at any moment. It is better to feed them all one instruction, then repeat, to keep every screen busy, so if a server supports its instances equally, as their number increases, that support will weaken.

If quantum instantiation is the same, more photon instances will be fed equally but each will get fewer up-down instructions, reducing its amplitude. A quantum wave will then weaken as it spreads, just as a water wave does, because the quantum flux also follows Gauss’s law. As the wave spreads, to create more instances, each will get fewer up-down instructions, which reduces amplitude but not frequency. The frequency of a processing wave depends on its wavelength, while its amplitude depends on how much it spreads. But what then is a photon, if it is just a spreading cloud of instances? 

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Light is a quantum wave whose many wave lengths give the electro-magnetic spectrum (3.3.1). In this model, quantum waves are processing waves that run slower when distributed more, and every photon is the same process distributed more or less over its wave length. Quantum waves spread at the speed of light in three dimensions because each quantum network point passes its processing to its neighbors every cycle. The result is a wave spreading, not a particle ray as Newton thought, so one photon can go through two slits at once to interfere with itself in Young’s experiment.

Why then does this wave travel forward, rather than spreading equally in all directions? Huygen’s Principle is that light is a wave that moves forward because each point is a new wave source. Each wave point spreads in all directions, but the front starts after the back, so they are out of phase. As a result, the spread behind the wave front mostly cancels out, but the spread forward doesn’t, so the wave moves forward. Light thus moves forward because if a wave front starts after its rear, what is behind the wave front cancels out. Newton’s particle theory of light was simpler but Huygen’s theory is better because light does act like a wave. Light as a processing wave on a network that passes what it does in all directions also supports Huygens waves rather than Newton’s particles.

A process distributed over a wave length runs slower but what happens as it spreads? Gauss noted that a pebble dropped in a pool creates ripples that decrease strength because the initial activity is divided more. In his words, the flux per ripple is constant but for friction. In Figure 3.12, each ripple spreads the same energy over a larger circle, so it weakens proportionally.

Applying this principle to photon waves, light weakens as it spreads but doesn’t change its frequency. Water waves lose energy as they spread by friction, and so fade away, but quantum waves spread without friction until they restart anew in a physical event. It follows that distributing a quantum wave reduces its frequency, but doesn’t weaken it, while spreading on a network weakens it, but doesn’t alter its frequency.

Note that waves spreading in three dimensions, in an expanding sphere, weaken as an inverse square of distance. Chapter 5 uses Gauss’s principle to deduce the inverse square laws of electricity, magnetism, and gravity, to replace all the fields of physics with one quantum field. But first, how exactly does processing spread on a network?

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We know how physical waves spread but how do quantum waves on a network spread? Quantum theory says they spread, but not what spreads or why it does so. We expect processing waves to spread at one network point per cycle, which is the speed of light, but how can processing spread? The method now proposed is instantiation, which in computing is how a server can delegate a process to run independently at many locations. The quantum no-cloning theorem (Wootters & Zurek, 1982) doesn’t let us copy quantum states, but what generates them can duplicate processes at will.

3.4.1 Light Spreads.

3.4.2 Instantiation.

3.4.3 What is a Photon?

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To recap, Planck’s constant is the smallest unit of energy because a Planck process is the smallest unit of network operation. This simplest network process also represents the simplest physical entity, which is one photon. Planck’s constant then represents the energy of one photon.

In the last chapter, Plank’s constant defined the smallest unit of space, as if it was smaller, atoms would be smaller, and if it was larger, quantum effects would be larger. Why then does the smallest energy also define the smallest space? Current physics doesn’t say why this is so.

In a physical world, energy could get smaller and smaller, but a processing world it can’t, because there is a smallest process. This process was earlier described as a circular rotation (3.3.1) that let light vibrate in a transverse circle at right angles to our space. If the size of this circle depends on the number of transverse neighbors a point has, then Plank’s constant is defined by that number.

In the last chapter, a planar circle of neighbors in our space defined how a photon can move. This circle has a circumference whose radius is the distance between adjacent network points, which by definition is the smallest distance of our space. The Planck length of our space then depends on the number of neighbor points in a planar circle. 

Given the size of a transverse circle defines the unit of energy, and the size of a planar circle defines the unit of space, if the quantum network is symmetric, both circles will have the same size. If Planck’s constant reflects the number of points in a transverse circle, it will also reflect the number of points in a planar circle. The basic units of energy and space then both depend on the same network feature, namely how many neighbors a point has around it. Planck’s constant defines the limits of both space and energy because both reflect the connectivity of the quantum network.

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Planck’s constant is the smallest possible unit of energy. Energy, like space and time, is a key concept of physics that was initially thought to be continuous. It was defined in the nineteenth century as the ability to move matter around, which was called work, so burning coal in a steam engine produced work by converting coal energy to the kinetic energy of the moving train. This idea, that energy allows work that transfers energy, explained how engines operate, but there was a problem.

The problem was that light waves didn’t follow the rules. The furnaces of the time gave off light at many frequencies, so as they got hotter, all the frequencies should increase, but they didn’t. Hot furnaces didn’t give off lethal doses of x-rays that killed their workers. Physics then called that fact the ultraviolet catastrophe because for them, it was a disaster that their laws didn’t apply. 

The law in question was that a physical wave’s energy increased as its frequency squared, so twice the frequency gave four times the energy. It followed that heating a furnace should increase all its light frequencies, including the dangerous ones. Why it didn’t was a puzzle, until Planck proposed that atoms emit light energy in multiples of a basic amount, later called Planck’s constant, by the equation:

Light Energy = Plank’s constant x Frequency

That the energy of light varied directly with frequency predicted the observed result, but no-one knew why. In theory, waves are continuous, so adding energy to high frequency light should just increase it, but heating a furnace didn’t increase all frequencies equally. Einstein then showed that light comes in little packets, called photons, based on the photo-electric effect. Heating a furnace doesn’t produce as many high frequency photons because they are less likely to happen, so the ultraviolet catastrophe didn’t happen.

It followed that energy isn’t continuous but comes in basic units represented by Planck’s constant, the smallest unit of energy. But why light comes in little indivisible units called photons remains a mystery of physics to this day.

A processing approach answers this question. Processing waves aren’t continuous because there is always a core process that can’t be divided further. Planck’s constant then represents what will now be called a Planck process, which is the basic unit of quantum network operation. Light then comes in little packets because each photon is one Planck process. Photons are the indivisible units of light because the processing behind them has an indivisible unit, so Planck’s constant is the smallest energy transfer because one Planck process is the smallest network transfer.

What then is energy in processing terms? Let it be the processing transfer rate. If every photon is the same process distributed, shorter wavelength light transfers processing faster, as each point has more to pass on. In contrast, a long wavelength divides the same process over more points, so each point has less to pass on. It follows that the energy of a photon depends directly on its wavelength, and hence its frequency, just as Planck described. By this logic, the equation that Planck assumed can be derived from processing principles (Note 1).

To recap, one photon is one Planck process divided over its network wave length, which can’t increase or decrease by less than a point. Adding a point distributes the process more, so the transfer rate we call energy is less, and reducing a point makes the transfer rate we call energy increase.

But if every photon is the same process divided more or less, why does high frequency light have more energy? If each photon makes the same dot on a screen, why doesn’t it have the same energy? It does, but high frequency light delivers more photons per second, so it has more energy. Increasing a photon’s frequency doesn’t increase its total energy, just the rate at which it arrives. X-rays deliver more photons per second than radio-waves, not more energy per photon. Hence the energy of light varies linearly with frequency as per Planck’s equation, not its square, because photons aren’t physical waves.

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Note 1. Let one photon be a Planck process divided over the points of its wavelength, and the constant h represent that process as a quantum network transfer. Let energy E be the processing transfer rate at a point and W be the number of points in the photon wavelength. Every photon is then one Planck process divided between W points, so the processing transfer rate at a point E = h/W. If f is the number of network cycles each point takes to run a Planck process that it can complete in one cycle, then f = 1/W. The equation E = h.f then follows, where E, h, and f are defined in quantum units. Converting these units to per second terms then gives E = h.f, which is Planck’s equation. Plank’s constant then represents the transfer of one Planck process.

Processing systems need fundamental processes as particle systems need fundamental particles. Every CPU has a set of fundamental processes called its instruction set. For example, if “add one” is a basic instruction, it adds a hundred by adding one a hundred times. As computing evolved to include databases and networks, the instruction set got bigger, so it was called Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC). Then it was realized that fewer instructions are better because they run faster and there is less to go wrong, giving Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC). The ultimate RISC design is one process that does everything, and the quantum network instruction set seems to be just that, based on the process:

Set the next value in a circle

This process, to set values in a circle, is now proposed to underlie space and light. It is reliable because each cycle ends where it began, ready to run again. If it runs at one point, the positive and negative values cancel to give a null result that can be space. If it runs at many points at right angles to a surface that are passed on, it can be light. One core process can then represent space or light depending on whether it runs at one point (space), or is distributed over many points (light).

In quantum theory, quantum waves spread at the speed of light but collapse to restart at a point when observed. The quantum model explained this odd behavior as processing waves spreading on a network, generated by a server that can restart them as needed. Figure 3.11 then shows how the above process can generate the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, depending on how it is distributed.

Distributing a process runs it slower, just as dividing a workforce makes a job take longer to finish. A photon quantum wave can then be a core process distributed over its wavelength points. Distributing it less gives short wavelength light that runs faster; while distributing it more gives long wavelength light that runs slower. Light then, in all its forms, can arise from one core process distributed more or less, spreading on the quantum network. Note that this process isn’t physical, it just sets values as complex number theory says. 

To sum up, one core process (1), distributed (2), more or less between client points (3), can give electro-magnetic waves (4), that are passed on at the speed of light (5). The rotation process spreads as a sine wave, and can divide more or less to give any light wave length. Shorter wave lengths make each point run faster, while longer wave lengths make each point run slower.

As the process spreads, new points begin the process, but as they start, those at the rear are finishing. Each network cycle, the wave spreads to new points, leaving those behind to run to completion. As new points begin, others finish, so the total server demand per photon stays the same. Every photon in the electro-magnetic spectrum, whether a radio wave or an X-ray, is then the same process distributed more or less. This core process is also the null process of space, so light is, in effect, space on the move. 

The next module calls the smallest quantum network process a Planck process, just as the smallest distance is called Planck length, and the smallest duration is called Planck time.

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If light is a quantum wave, and quantum waves are processing waves, what is quantum processing? Whatever it is, it has to generate not only the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, from radio-waves to gamma rays, but also the null process that represents empty space. 

QR3.3.1. The Fundamental Process

QR3.3.2. The Planck Process

QR3.3.3. Network Symmetry

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Einstein deduced that the speed of light is constant from how our world behaves, not from a theory that explains why, so why does light travel at a constant speed? If light is particles moving, why can’t we nudge them to go just a bit faster, at the speed of light plus one? Why does our universe have a speed limit? The answer, according to current physics, is that:

“… the speed of light is a constant because it just is, and because light is not made of anything simpler.” (Laughlin, 2005), p15.

Yet “because it just is” isn’t a very good reason in science. Particles move according to their mass, so shouldn’t photons with no mass go at any speed? In contrast, if a photon is a wave, its speed should depend on the medium that transmits it. It follows that if light is a wave on a network, it should move at the rate of that network. How fast then is the quantum network?

A 5GHz computer network runs at 5,000,000,000 cycles per second. That seems very fast but Planck time suggests that the quantum network cycles at an astonishing 1045 times a second! Planck time is the smallest possible time scale in our universe, and Planck length is the smallest possible distance, so dividing this distance by this time should give the speed of light, and sure enough it does (Note 1). The speed of light then, like every wave, is limited by the speed of the medium that transmits it.

Yet even the term speed of light betrays our particle bias, as it assumes that light sets its own pace, but waves don’t do that. They only move as fast as their medium allows, so if space is the medium of light, what we call the speed of light is actually the speed of space. Light, like every wave, moves as fast as its medium does, so the speed of light is constant because space everywhere is the same.

Why then does light slow down when it moves in water? Again, it is our particle bias that says it is in the water. If light moves in water, we say the medium is water, and if it moves in glass, we say the medium is glass, but if it moves in space, we say it is a wave of nothing, which is inconsistent! Surely light has the same medium in every case. If the medium of light in space is the quantum network, it is also the medium when it moves through water or glass. Light then doesn’t slow down because water is a denser medium, but because the quantum network has to also generate the water. When the quantum network is doing other things, it slows down, so light slows down in water for the same reason that a game slows down when the computer running it has other things to do.

Light then moves at different speeds through different materials because the quantum network handling it has other things to do as well. Fortunately, the network still processes photons in strict sequence, one after the other, like cars in a queue. Each point handles the photon it has before accepting the next one, so even if it runs slower, they still arrive in lock-step order. This maintains causality, as if one photon could overtake another, we could see an object arrive before it left! Causality requires photons to stay in sequence and the quantum engine rigorously maintains this.

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Note 1: The speed of light c = L_P/T_P, where L_P is a Planck length of 1.616×10⁻³⁵meters and T_P is Planck time of 5.39 × 10⁻⁴⁴ of a second. This gives the speed of light as 299,792,458 meters per second (see here).

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A wave, by definition, is a vibration that spreads in a medium, so what moves when light does? It is said that the electromagnetic field does, but that movement isn’t physical. Given no physical ether, current physics has to just declare that:

“… we accept as nonexistent the medium that moves when waves of quantum mechanics propagate.” (Laughlin, 2005), p56.

After all, if quantum waves don’t exist, no medium is needed to transmit them! Electromagnetic field theory then glibly explains light by saying that electric changes cause magnetic changes, and magnetic changes cause electric changes, in a circular fashion, so light is said to be a:

“… self-renewing field disturbance.” (Wilczek, 2008), p212.

Yet what renews the fields that renew? That an electric field powers a magnetic field that powers the electric field is like Peter paying Paul’s bill, and Paul paying Peter’s bill. With such logic, I could borrow a million dollars now and never pay it back. If light waves self-renew, light is a cosmic Ponzi scheme, and physics has found the long-sought perpetual-motion machine of medieval alchemists to be the photon!

Light waves never fade but physical waves that move matter up and down (Figure 3.10) produce friction by the second law of thermodynamics, so they eventually fade, with no exceptions. Yet light that has traveled in space for billions of years hits our telescopes the same as local light, so is it a frictionless wave? If so, it can’t arise from matter moving, but how can vibrating nothing (space) create something (light)?

Light could be particles passing through empty space but by the evidence, it is a wave, so empty space must be its medium. If as concluded earlier, empty space isn’t empty, just a quantum network null result, then space can be the medium of light because the:

“… vacuum state is actually full of energy…” (Davies & Brown, 1999), p140.

Rather than little particles moving in empty space, light is now a wave on a surface that actively supports it. Instead of vibrating nothing, it now vibrates something, namely the quantum network. Instead of electrical and magnetic fields mutually causing each other, which is illogical, the quantum network causes both. Space then has energy because the quantum network is always on, to power any light that passes, just as an idle computer is always on to respond to any keystroke (Note 1). Physical waves fade but quantum waves don’t, because they are sustained by a network that can also restart them if they fail. Instead of being mostly dead, our universe is now literally pulsing with activity. What then moves when light does? In network terms, the answer is processing.

In computing, processing sets values, so when a laptop runs a game, it just sets values. In a game like Warcraft, these values generate the virtual world but have no meaning within it. We see monsters, not the values set by computer code. Likewise, quantum values have no meaning to us, but they generate what we see. Feynman called these values vector potentials, Born called them probability amplitudes, Hiley called them quantum potentials (Davies & Brown, 1999) p138, and others refer to the quantum function (ᴪ).

Whether we call quantum activity a vector, probability, potential, or function result doesn’t matter. What matters is that it happens, and it causes physical events, so quantum theory predicts those events because it models what actually causes them. 

Note 1. Processing must always run, so an “idle” computer still runs a null cycle, so it isn’t doing nothing.

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