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?