Re:Why Is the Speed of Light So Fast? (Part 1)
by linuxdude314 on Friday October 04, 2024 @08:47PM
(#41746847)
This is not true. You can easily measure TOF of a photon using an APD in Geiger mode or other detectors easily purchasable in 2024.
So what exactly are you talking about?
Re:Why Is the Speed of Light So Fast? (Part 1)
by lijok on Friday October 04, 2024 @10:58PM
(#41747413)
> for the photon
he’s talking about the photons frame of reference
Re:Why Is the Speed of Light So Fast? (Part 1)
by linuxdude314 on Saturday October 05, 2024 @12:43PM
(#41751108)
It’s still not true.
Re:Why Is the Speed of Light So Fast? (Part 1)
by mikhailfranco on Saturday October 05, 2024 @05:10AM
(#41748630)
Yes, the basic idea is that photons do not 'experience' time. They 'experience' creation, all points along their path, and absorption 'simultaneously'.
However, you have to be careful with terminology. There is no inertial frame co-moving with the photon. All we can say is: as a massive particle gets faster relative to an observer's frame, the time it experiences relative to the observer's frame becomes shorter, and in the limit, as it approaches the speed of light (but never reaches c), the experienced relative time approaches zero (but never reaches 0).
This is well explained by Don Lincoln on the Fermilab YT channel:
Do photons experience time?
I think I know what you're getting at, but somehow the phrasing bothers me, as if there is meta-time or as if cause and effect have time between them... for the photon at light speed, time isn't passing, it's emitted and then zero "time" later it hits something very far away.
It's more like we somehow need to think of cause and effect chains that have orderings without time.
I wonder if future generations will ever look back and casually quip something about "well they believed X existed, that was their problem, it all makes intuitive sense if you just..."