2014 05 08 

Mike Polioudakis 

The electric charge of light  

I know light is electrically and magnetically neutral.  I am not disputing that.  I just want to understand it better.  I think my gap comes in understanding electric flux and magnetic flux.  

Light is a dual transverse wave, composed of one wave of electric flux and one of magnetic flux, at right angles (orthogonal) to each other.  The wave propagates at right angles to the two component waves.  I can’t draw a picture here.  

An electric field has to have a charge one way or another.  It can’t be equally charged in both ways at the same time or the two charges cancel each other and the field does not exist.  Even if the field starts at zero, if flux occurs at a point in the field, the flux has to be either positive or negative.  I assume that the opposite of a negative flux is a positive flux, and vice versa.  I assume all this is true of a magnetic field as well even without any monopoles.  

Start at a zero point.  Then the electric field begins to “flux negative”.  Eventually the electric field reaches a maximum of negative charge or of flux in negative charge.  Then it begins to “flux positive”.  Eventually the electric field goes back to zero.  While the electric field was in flux, the magnetic field was in flux too, in exact phase.  The magnetic field would exhibit strength in one direction (polarity).  At maximum of electric field (or flux) the magnetic field would also exhibit maximum.  When the electric field reversed flux (reverse polarity) the magnetic field would do the same.  I don’t know which direction of magnetic field (N or S) is associated with which electric polarity (P or E(M)), and it doesn’t matter for here.  The total flux of both fields cancels out within the field, so the total wave has no net electric charge or magnetic “charge” even though the wave is an EM wave that propagates.  I assume the wave could start negative and then go to positive, or vice versa.  If any of this is wrong, please correct me.  

Does the wave have to start negative or have to start positive?  Is there a difference between waves that start one way versus waves that start the other?  

While the wave is in flux, and while the wave is not at a zero point, does the wave have an electric charge or a magnetic charge?  If so, is this charge detectable?  If the charge is not detectable, does that mean the wave never has a charge despite the electric and magnetic flux, or does it mean that the charge is not detectable even though the charge is there?  

If the charge is never detectable, is the fact that it is not detectable provable?  This question might be a math question more than a physical question but I don’t know how to get at it. 

Does the wave have to go through a whole cycle?  Is an EM wave unlike a water wave that can be cut mid-cycle?  Is the fact that the wave has to go through a whole cycle important in wave-particle duality and in the fact that the “wave” always arrives and leaves as a particle?  Why does the wave have to go through a complete cycle?  

I tend to think the wave has to go through a complete cycle, but I am not sure why.  

Imagine photons directed at electrons.  Only the photons that arrive at the electrons near some important point in the cycle can interact with the electrons (mid wave or end of wave, or suitably close given the Planck distance, Planck time, and quantum nature of space-time).  How does this fact relate to the probabilities of interaction and to the coupling constant (fine structure constant) of electromagnetism?