Plasma Tubes in the Sky

Hi John,

Briefly so as not to distract. We don't see substantial objects themselves or the EM radiation (potential sensory data) itself. They are parts of Object reality. Unless you have a very shiny keyboard that leads to production of an image of light bouncing off of it, I would say you are not seeing light bouncing off of it. Instead you are seeing the image of a keyboard produced from the processing of the received EM radiation. That image is an emergent Image reality. It would not exist were it not for the receipt and processing of the EM radiation. Close your eyes and it, the image, does not exist. In contrast to the unseen substantial object keyboard that exists whether it is perceived or not. That being part of the foundational Object reality, not emergent from EM radiation processing. This scenario is comparable to the simple single lens system mentioned previously. The Source object is the substantial keyboard and the image at the focal point is an emergent Image reality keyboard. We do not see objects we see images of them, that could be described as limited fixed state manifestations.

Hi John, All,

I have learnt a new physics word. "Collimated" A convex lens will collimate the uncollimated light, which is then focused. Which is what I should have said rather than the light is re-collected by the lens. It is essentially straightening all of the light paths which are somewhat divergent due to the scattering of the light, and then focusing them. Without collimation and focusing there is no real image, it does not exist; but the potential to be formed is within the environment, that I am calling, in that regard, the electromagnetic data pool.

The image emerges when the processing of the EM is carried out by the lens. Hence the (real) image reality is emergent from the receipt and processing of the EM radiation. Since the human visual system is also reliant upon convex lenses the (real) images produced on the retinas and mapped to the visual cortex are also emergent, as is the output perceived. Making all of the observed present, what is seen, or output from a device such as a camera, emergent reality. Distinct from the external reality of Source objects and environment replete with electromagnetic potential sensory data.

That it is an emergent reality output of processing and not present in the external environment is significant and different from the idea that events and objects themselves are spread within a space-time continuum. (It overcomes the Grandfather paradox). The differentiation of Object (substantial )reality from Image (emergent)reality is pertinent to physics especially the understanding of time, Relativity and physics built upon it.

Just a slight correction of terminology. Collimated light has rays parallel and carries what is called a virtual image. Focussed light takes collimated light and creates a real image from the virtual one.

Remember that there are two surfaces for each lens and eyeglass lenses are usually both convex and concave, for example. Some lenses will focus light while all lenses affect the collimation of a virtual image.

Note that the virtual image of collimated light can also be captured as a hologram, with the phase as well as the amplitude of the collimated light. The image is still encoded, but now has to be read with another laser source.

Note also that photon lengths depend on the lifetime of the emitter and can easily be many tens of nanoseconds, which means that photons can be tens of feet at a foot per nanosecond for light. In other words, a single photon can actually physically connect us to a near object for some instant of time. During that instant, there would not really be a separate reality and emitter, photon, and absorber would be a dynamical superposition of events, not separate events.

Steve,

ditto. jrc

Steve, John,

thank you. I realize now that what I wrote was ambiguous. I meant to imply there are two processes; the light is collimated and then focused. I didn't mean it is focused by collimation. I'm not even sure if collimation is necessary or useful in this context. I'm thinking that the light collimated by the first surface of the lens (facing the object) and then refracted into focus at the other side of the lens. Should I just say refracted into focus, not mentioning collimation, rather than re-collected? I ask because John has urged that I learn and use correct physics terms.

Steve the collimated light (potential) image is interesting. Is it correct to call it a virtual image as you do because unlike the virtual image of a convcave lens it can't actually be seen without the laser processing or other further processing? If it is the correct term then it is not differentiating its difference from the other kind of seeable virtual image, which is unhelpful and thus inadequate. The image distance is infinite for collimated light, so it seems to me only a potential image not a virtual image.

Re. Not separate events. An instance of time in which the photon,within that time extends from emitter through lens and to receiver reminds me of a long exposure photograph in which extended images of people can be seen joining stationary images of objects. It makes the presumption that things exist extended within time rather than just having an imagined temporal persistence of form. Even if not perceivable due to the very short time there is a causal sequence.

I suppose I might say the separation of Object and image is not necessarily temporal they can exist within the same chosen time interval.Under usual circumstances the separation is spatial, though it could be contrived that an image of the object is projected onto the object. There is most importantly metaphysical separation into different facets of reality. The Object exists independently of EM radiation processing. The Image requires receipt and processing of EM radiation for its existence. The emitter is the source Object reality the lens is the reality interface and the screen is showing the output Image reality. Temporally separated or not, the image is emergent and does not exist anywhere unless the processing is carried out that brings it into existence. Remove or cover the lens and the image ceases to exist but the Object does not. The object is foundational reality, the image is emergent reality.

In standard optics terminology, a virtual image is one that you need a lens project onto a surface as a real image. Since our eyes have lenses, the images that we see are called virtual because it is the lens that makes a real image on a retina. Light from distant objects is nearly collimated and that light carries virtual images.

Light rays can be diverging, collimated, or converging and there is a simple way to think about a compound lens. The first lens collimates the diverging rays of an object into a virtual image, and the final lens refocuses the collimated light of the virtual image into a real image on a surface. The ratios of the focal lengths then determines the magnification or reduction of the image of the object.

Refraction is what happens to light inside of transparent objects like lenses and so it is correct to say that a lens refracts light into an image. However, usually we say that a lens focuses a virtual image into a real image.

Light connects us to objects much more than we typically think and emissions and therefore a photon can easily be longer that the few nanoseconds that separate us from an object a few feet away.

Hi Steve,

A virtual image is an image that appears where no light rays have actually reached. Where light appears to have come from although it has not. Such as the image formed by a concave lens or a plane mirror. It can not be displayed on a screen. So to avoid confusion the mere potential of the light to form an image, with subsequent processing, should have a different name. Prior to processing it isn't an image real or virtual image( as in the kinds mentioned above)only potential to be formed into one. So it shouldn't be called an image. Sorry Steve if that is the correct use of the terminology I think it is misleading. Something should not be called what it is not.

We shouldn't make this more complex than it really is. If you hold up a white card, no images appear on that card from a scence, but all of the light from all of the virtual images of the scene do reach and illuminate the card. The images are there encoded in the light, and so those images are called virtual.

In fact, each spot on the card will project real images of a scene as a pinhole camera without any lens or further processing. The image information is all there, but scrambled up and blurred.

A lens in front of the card captures an aperture of light and forms a real image from that aperture's virtual image. Optics calls an image virtual when all of the light rays are there, but are scrambled and incoherent and therefore blurred. An image is real when it looks like the objects that we look at directly. All of the light rays are present for both virtual and real images. In fact, when we capture a virtual image as a hologram, there is actually much more information encoded as both amplitude and phase than just the light intensities of a real image.

Hi Steve,

I'm not trying to complicate matters. I have not yet found a source article in which incoherent light or collimated light is referred to as a virtual image or said to be containing virtual images. Which I would like to see in order to verify what you have told me. Perhaps you could link one. It seems to me to call the electromagnetic radiation itself a virtual image would be confusing and misleading as virtual image has other meanings in physics. The radiation unprocessed in some way is not an image or images but a carrier of the potential to form images. Images are the output.

A virtual image appears where light paths seem to be coming from, even though the light hasn't come from there. Such as when it is reflected or re-emitted from the reflective surface of a mirror, and the image appears to be inside the mirror or when divergent light paths from a concave lens produce an image at a point where the light did not emanate from. Virtual image from concave lens In holography a virtual image is one seen inside the film and a real image one that seems to protrude out beyond the film. Still referring to images and not mere potential.

You are correct that virtual image has many different uses and not just with refractive images. Wiki has virtual image and real image and the optics page has more detail on virtual images as well as ray tracing. I am surprised that you were not able to find that information since it is a very common usage in geometrical optics.

Once again, every point of a virtual image carries the information of a real image, just dimmer, and a lens simply brings all of those points into the same real image. We cannot see a real image projected onto our cornea, which becomes a blurred virtual image at our retina by the action of our lens, but all of the same light rays are coming into our eye.

I am not sure why this virtual/real image thing messes up your uni time. We also sense objects with touch, smell, taste, and sound and none of these issues with light impact our other sensations.

Anonymous replied on Jun. 21, 2015 @ 23:03 GMT, is me,

kind regards Georgina