I wanted to update my thoughts on this obvious but intriguing and – you may be surprised to hear this – basically unanswered question in phyics: can matter be created out of light? If so, where does the charge come from? Or the reverse: in matter-antimatter pair annihilation, where does the charge go?

So, I revisited and updated Lecture XIII and Lecture XI on that: two papers in what I, with a wink to the title of Richard Feynman’s rather famous Lectures on Physics (which inspired this blog many years ago – not anymore) , wrote as part of a series in which I try to make things that are not so obvious – because couched in guru-speak – somewhat more obvious: what are the actual experiments and what are the possible interpretations? I also opened a discussion thread on the question on ResearchGate. That was useful and not-so-useful at the same time. Let me elaborate:

1. It was useful because:

• It forced me to ask a very precise question so as to get input from other researchers: no philosophy. Only tough and precise discussion.
• I did get references to other experiments than the ones I had looked at.

2. It was not-so-useful because:

• I found myself re-explaining very basic physics while ‘talking’ to people with very different backgrounds. One of those questions was a weird discussion on what a real photon actually is: something with no rest mass whatsoever. To my surprise, one of the researchers does support the thesis slow-moving or massive neutral particles might be photons (or whatever other field you might think of).
• The format of these discussions is – in no way whatsoever – a substitute to good, detailed and precise email exchanges with colleagues whom you know and who are at your level of understanding. I guess such email exchanges are the only true equivalent of the long letters physicists used to write to each other about hundred years ago.

It made me realize why thinking and writing about physics and the metaphysics that come with it is a rather lonely and somewhat depressing intellectual pursuit. You think about very difficult issues for which there may or may not a solution. That is stressful enough already. It becomes even more stressful when you think you found an answer or a solution to a problem but that, apparently, you are not able to communicate it clearly or – much more likely – no one is interested in your views. 🙂 Another possibility is that – all of a sudden – you realize that you missed some obvious fact, or that an entirely different interpretation of what might be the case is also possible. So, then, you have to start from scratch again. That is very tiring. Mental.

I think I am fortunate because I am an amateur physicist only and – on top of that – I do not take myself very seriously any more. Not on these questions, at least. 🙂