Re: [OT] RE: Actual Warp Drive Theory

> > It has been a while since I followed particle physics, so I will
waste
> > a little bandwidth and ask:
> >
> > I have heard photons described as "free electrons".
>
> A very erroneous description.

Indeed, electrons and photons are quite different things.

This confusion was most like caused by some sentence using the term
'Free
Elctron' in connection with photons.
Most likely contexts:
a) Light particles (photons) can knock electrons free from atoms, e.g.
off a
metallic surface
b) A 'Free Electron Laser' (FEL) uses a beam of high-energy electrons to
produce a laser beam (of photons). An FEL beam is freely tunable in
light
frequency and can reach very high frequencies (the record stands
somewhere
in the gamma ray region, if I'm not mistaken).

> > Has physics predicted an anti-photon?
>
> Photons are their own anti-particles. Same for all the mediating
> bosons (gravitons, W, Z, gluons).
>
> > If so, since light is energy (or at least  energy expressed),
>
> Well, everything is energy. Photons have energy, and momentum, but
> have no rest mass.
>
> > what is the result of a photon/anti-photon
> > collision? Nothing (annihilation without side-effect), Non-EM
> > radiation? Matter? Other?

As Steve said above, that would be a photon-photon-collision

> Depends one the energy involved. Can be the creation of massive
particles.

Particle/anti-particle pairs. Conservation laws have to be observed

> If the photons have different wavelengths then nothing,
> they simply carry on regardless. I think, it's been a few years.

I think they don't have to be the same wavelength to scatter off each
other
(but certainly they should be very high-energy to have a chance to
interact.
I think, it's been a few years ;-)

Greetings,
 Karl Heinz