In physics, light is an electro-magnetic wave whose wave lengths give a spectrum (3.3.1), but how this wave restarts at a point is unknown. In this model, light is a processing wave that does the same but can also collapse and be restarted. Quantum waves then spread at the speed of light because each cycle, every network point passes its processing equally to all its neighbors in every direction.
Huygen’s Principle that light is a wave where each point is a new wave source then describes how processing spreads on a network but why does it travel forward rather than in all directions? Each point spreads the wave equally, but points at the front start after those at 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 its wave front spreads freely but behind it the wave cancels out. Light as a processing wave spreading on a network then supports Huygens waves rather than Newton’s particles.
That a photon is a process distributed over its wave length points explains its frequency but what happens as it spreads? Gauss noted that a pebble dropped in a pool creates ripples that decrease in strength as the initial activity is divided more. In his words, the flux per ripple is constant but for friction, so if each ripple spreads the same activity over a larger circle, it becomes weaker (Figure 3.12).
If this principle also applies to quantum waves, they will also weaken in amplitude as they spread, for any frequency. Note that distributing a quantum wave more reduces its frequency but not its amplitude, while spreading it out more weakens its amplitude but doesn’t alter its frequency.
However unlike a pond ripple, quantum waves spread on a three-dimensional surface, in an expanding sphere, and so weaken as an inverse square of distance. Chapter 5 deduces the inverse square laws of electricity, magnetism, and gravity from Gauss’s principle, but how exactly can processing spread on a network?