Author(s)

Shuang-Ren Zhao

mutualenergy.org, London, Canada.

Einstein guessed that the macroscopic electromagnetic wave is built by thousands of photons, however, no one has offered a theory about how the macroscopic electromagnetic wave is built from photons. A concrete theory about photons is needed to answer this question. Current theory for photons is Maxwell’s equation which has the solution of waves, but it is difficult to describe the photon as a particle. There is the paradox problem of wave-particle duality. This article offers one solution to solve this problem by introducing the normalized mutual energy flow. The interaction of the retarded wave and advanced wave produce the mutual energy flow. The mutual energy flow satisfies the mutual energy flow theorem. The mutual energy flow theorem tells us that the energy that goes through each surface between the emitter and the absorber is all same. That means the mutual energy flow is different in comparison to the waves. The wave, for example, the retarded wave, its amplitude is decreased with the distance from the source to the point of the field. The mutual energy flow does not decrease. The author noticed this and claimed that the photon is the mutual energy flow. In this article the author updated this claim that the photon is the normalized mutual energy flow. Here the normalization of mutual energy flow will normalize the mutual energy flow to the energy of a photon, which is E = hf. E is the energy of the photon; h is Planck constant; f is the frequency of the light. This normalization is similar to the normalization in quantum mechanics. After this normalization the relation between an electromagnetic wave and photon as a particle becomes clear. This article will prove that the macroscopic wave of an electromagnetic field can be built by thousands of normalized mutual energy flows, which describes the photons. The mutual energy flow is an interaction of the retarded wave and the advanced wave. The retarded wave and the advanced wave satisfy the Maxwell equations. There are two additional waves which are the time-reversal waves which satisfy time-reversal Maxwell equations. The advanced wave and the two time-reversal waves are all real and physical electromagnetic fields. The time-reversal waves cancel all self-energy flows of the retarded wave and advanced wave. Hence, the waves do not carry any energy, the energy is only transferred by the normalized mutual energy flows which are the photons. Hence, all energy is transferred by the photon instead of waves. This offers a solution to paradox of the duality of wave-particle.

Advanced Wave, Retarded Wave, Time-Reversal Wave, Photon, Mutual En-ergy, Energy Flow, Electromagnetic Fields, Normalization, Wave-Particle Duality, Electron, Quantum

Zhao, S. (2020) Photon Can Be Described as the Normalized Mutual Energy Flow. Journal of Modern Physics, 11, 668-682. doi: 10.4236/jmp.2020.115043.