A wave, by definition, is a vibration in a medium that spreads, so what moves when light does? It is said that an electromagnetic field does, but no-one can say what that is physically. There is no physical ether to explain light, so 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, who needs a medium 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 the photon is a perpetual-motion machine!
Light waves never fade, but transverse 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 to reach us activates our telescopes the same as local light, so is light a frictionless wave? If so, it can’t arise from matter moving, but how can vibrating nothing (space) create something (light)?
Some say light is just particles passing through empty space but by the evidence, it is a wave, so empty space must be its medium. If empty space is the quantum network generating a null result, then space can be the medium of light. This also explains why the:
“… vacuum state is actually full of energy…” (Davies & Brown, 1999), p140.
Instead of light being independent little particles moving in empty space, it is now a wave on a surface that actively supports it. Instead of light vibrating nothing, it is now a vibration of 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? Physically, nothing can, but in network terms, the answer is processing.
In computing, processing is the setting of values, so when a game plays on a laptop, the latter just sets values. In a virtual reality like Sim-City, avatars and objects are generated by values that have no meaning in the game. Likewise, quantum values have no meaning to us, yet 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 call them quantum function (ᴪ) results.
Yet whether we say quantum activity is a vector, a probability, a potential, or a function result doesn’t matter. What matters is that quantum events happen and they cause physical events. Quantum theory then predicts those events because it models what actually causes them. Section 3.3 specifies the quantum process in more detail.
Note 1. Processing must always run, so an “idle” computer still runs a null cycle, so it isn’t doing nothing.