About Time by Paul C.W. Davies5/20/2023 ![]() As the orientation θ is varied, so the odds in favour of transmission vary as cos 2 θ. When Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity it brought about a revolution in our understanding of time, yet also presented a new set of mysteries. We may say that a particular photon will be transmitted through the polarizer with a probability of 0.5. The Big Questions: Paul Davies in Conversation with Phillip Adams Paul C. In About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution Paul Davies confronts the puzzles and paradoxes of time that have bemused the world's greatest thinkers throughout the ages. ![]() Thus, on average, half the photons get through and half do not. If it sometimes passes a photon and sometimes blocks it, without rhyme or reason, all we can say is that there is a fifty-fifty chance of any given photon being passed. But there is nothing to distinguish any one photon from any other – the polarizer has no means of sorting them into ‘sheep’ and ‘goats’. Because photons cannot be chopped in half, each photon either does, or does not, get through the polarizer. Suppose the intensity of the light is reduced so that only one photon at a time arrives at the polarizer. ![]() ![]() Weird overtones develop, however, when the quantum nature of light is taken into account. All this is readily comprehensible according to Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory, using vector projections at 45° the polarizer takes out half the wave energy. ![]()
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