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:
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?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zspu7ziA8Y