Up, Down, Clockwise, Anticlockwise

On my post on the magnetic field, I wrote that photons must be pointing in the same direction, and spinning in the same direction, in order to be polarized.

However, this is not entirely true. A photon spinning clockwise with its hoops up does in fact have the exact same magnetic orientation as a photon spinning anticlockwise with its hoops down.

When I say that a photon spins clockwise, I'm referring to the hoop side. The hook side is always spinning with equal speed in the opposite direction. When I use the term spin about the the photon as the whole, it is a reference to the orientation and spin of the hoops.

Polarization of photons has the feature that photons bumping into each other sideways do so in a non-destructive way. Spin is preserved. This is explained in my post on the magnetic field.

It is the ability to bump into other photons without loss of spin or orientation that determines the degree of polarization. It is the speed of spin that determines the strength of the magnetic field.

From considering the two orb model of the photon in this perspective, it becomes clear that there are a total of four combinations of spin and orientation, in which two are non-destructive and therefore polarized, and two that are destructive and therefore unsustainable for any duration of time.

The non-destructive combinations are:

• same orb pointing up and same direction of spin
• opposite orb pointing up and opposite spin

The destructive combinations are:

• same orb pointing up and opposite spin
• opposite orb pointing up and same spin

The destructive combinations will loose spin and orientation when photons bump into each other. The non-destructive combinations will loose neither spin nor orientation by bumping into each other.

The non-destructive combinations come in two complementary versions. One we can call north up, and the other that we can call north down. Choosing arbitrarily one non-destructive combination to be north up, and another to be north down, we get:

• north up = hoop orb up and clockwise spin, or hoop orb down and anticlockwise spin
• north down = hook orb up and clockwise spin, or hook orb down and anticlockwise spin

This becomes important when we go on to consider how magnets work. Magnets can send photons flying into space with the same orb pointing away from the magnets, regardless of which end of the magnet is used, provided the photons spin in opposite direction as they fly away from the north and the south pole of the magnet.

Alternatively, photons can fly away from the magnet with their orbs all pointing in the same direction relative to the magnet, provided they spin in the same direction.

Two orb model of the photon