“All right,” you say, “that just seems weird.” You pause. “So it’s probably something quantum.”
Indeed it is.
Don’t oriented oscillating E,B fields explain this adequately at the macroscopic level? If you orient a polarizer at an angle theta to the orientation of the E field of the electromagnetic wave (i.e. light), the field gets projected as Ecos(theta) (the component perpendicular to the polarizer gets absorbed) and so the intensity goes as E^2cos^2(theta). That obeys the same mathematics without invoking the quantum magic wand.
What about if one path length is longer than the other, by either more than one light-beam length, or, in the case of an individual photon, more than one light-photon length? I’m assuming that matching two different paths to that level of precision is improbable even intentionally.
Can a beam of light or a single photon interact with itself non-locally? What if the alternate path has a different detector intermittently intercepting it?
Don’t oriented oscillating E,B fields explain this adequately at the macroscopic level? If you orient a polarizer at an angle theta to the orientation of the E field of the electromagnetic wave (i.e. light), the field gets projected as Ecos(theta) (the component perpendicular to the polarizer gets absorbed) and so the intensity goes as E^2cos^2(theta). That obeys the same mathematics without invoking the quantum magic wand.
Yep, Maxwell equations do produce the same results. The fun quantum thing is that this also happens with individual photons.
What about if one path length is longer than the other, by either more than one light-beam length, or, in the case of an individual photon, more than one light-photon length? I’m assuming that matching two different paths to that level of precision is improbable even intentionally.
Can a beam of light or a single photon interact with itself non-locally? What if the alternate path has a different detector intermittently intercepting it?