Electromagnetic Radiation

 * In recent weeks, I’ve tried to learn the conventional wisdom surrounding atomic structure and electromagnetic radiation.  Some of my thoughts are presented in an earlier posting.
 * Radiation is described and accounted for with two main theories that don’t mix easily, classical physics and quantum mechanics.  It is my belief that a proper understanding of atoms and radiation must reconcile both theories, by modification of classical theory to account for quantum behavior.
 * Charged particles undergoing acceleration emit electromagnetic radiation.
 * According to the classical theory, an electron is surrounded by its force field which could be spherically symmetrical when the electron is inertial.   Accelerating the electron displaces its field with respect to its most recent previous field, the new field being propagated radially with light speed from the electron.  There is a spherical dog-leg-field shell where the new field replaces the old, that shell expanding at light speed from the electron.  This is a compelling description of radiation from an accelerated electron.
 * Quantum theory provides no such mechanistic accounting for radiation from an accelerated electron.  It's more about absorption or emission of energy incident to electron jumping among orbitals of an atom.  But the classical theory fails to account for the fact that the energy from an accelerated electron doesn’t radiate spherically, it departs as an energy bundle (photon) in one direction and proceeds without inverse-square weakening, able to energize an electron in a distant target atom.
 * Needed is a theory of an electron’s force field or of events associated with emission that would account for the photon.  It seems that the electron’s field might not be spherical but more like a beacon directed randomly in various radial directions, or perhaps directed with respect to neighboring charges.  Alternatively, one might imagine that the photon (energy bundle) takes a direction dictated by the force accelerating the electron perhaps following a trough in the dog-leg-field shell.
 * It may be worth noting that these theories attempt to explain our commonest experiences: vision, warmth, cold; our commonest tools: glasses, magnifiers, lasers, furnaces.  Contemplating these matters is about as entertaining as music, socializing, art, literature, theater, more satisfying than rest or pleasure quest.  Discussing them should be even more fun.

Reply to David Regen  at  xms@bellsouth.net