in science what is stationary

@FBM,

Einstien was always looking for it as kind of eather in which all else moves. But obviously never found it. Other wise you would have said. Ha thanks again.

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@martinies,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment

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@FBM,

IVe been reading on photons and they are stationary as in timespace.

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@martinies,

Would you mind linking me to your source of information? When I was in physics class, the speed of light was about 186,000 miles per second (slightly less than 300,000 km/s) in a vacuum. Photons = light.

http://faculty.smu.edu/whorsthe/PC2formulaesheetFinal.pdf

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@FBM,

Quote:

When I was in physics class, the speed of light was about 186,000 miles per second...

Relative to what, FBM? A photon? How fast does a photon travel with respect to itself?

At light speed, time stops and distances shrink to nothing, or so they say. In its own "frame" a photon can go clean across the universe, and back again, and across again, and back again, ad infinitum in no time at all, it would seem. In it's frame, I guess it could be everywhere at once, or, maybe, nowhere at all, when you average it all out.

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@layman,

It seems to me that the individual photon would not experience time or motion, but the photon isn't the whole universe. I don't know of anything in SR that precludes a photon's motion through space-time.

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@FBM,

One view:

Quote:

What would the world look like in the reference frame of a photon? What does a photon experience? Does space contract to two dimensions at the speed of light? Does time stop for a photon?. . . It is really not possible to make sense of such questions and any attempt to do so is bound to lead to paradoxes. There are no inertial reference frames in which the photon is at rest...

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/headlights.html

"There are no inertial reference frames in which the photon is at rest..." Not even it's own?

If time stops, how could it "go" anywhere?

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@layman,

I don't know the answer to the riddle, but my best understanding is that saying that time stops for the photon doesn't mean that time stops for the rest of the universe. Nor does the rest of the universe increase in mass as a result of that photon approaching c. And the rest of space-time is still there for it to propagate through. I'm not sure if there's a reasonable altertative explanation for how I'm getting information from my monitor.

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@FBM,

Quote:

that time stops for the photon doesn't mean that time stops for the rest of the universe.

Well, maybe it depends on who you want to believe, eh, FBM? SR says that all such effects are reciprocal. If we see time as stopped for the photon, then it must see time as stopped for us. It's "viewpoint" is, they say, correct. So that means our time has stopped. Which means all sense of time is a mere illusion. There is no becoming, only being

Parmenides was right!

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@layman,

Gotta hand it to them 'ol Greeks. They had their **** together in a lot of ways. I'm partial to Pyrrho of Elis (whose thesis was something along the lines of "Fucked if I know."), but that's just me.

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@FBM,

My favorite is probably good ole Diogenes (the dog)

Stand out of my light!

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@layman,

Well could it be that light has nonlocality as its ref frame.

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@martinies,

Non-locality isn't a reference frame. It's (apparently, anyway) a feature of particle behavior. Reference frames are hypothetical constructs.

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@FBM,

What I mean is could the photon re frame be related to nonlocality in the same way as entangled particals are directly related to nonlocality. Where they the spooky particals seem to bypass time and space for instant action at a distance. Could light relate in the same way perhaps.

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@martinies,

I'm not completely sure what you mean, but I have a vague idea. I don't know the answer to your suggestion, though. Would you mind explaining a little more?

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@FBM,

Well in action at a distance what ever the space as in distance is the spooky action bypasses it as if it where not there or is not happening. Could the photon be being presented in away by being in a nonhappening frame. So the photon relates directly to nonhapping. Where as in physics frames of reference relate to happening things in time and space.

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@martinies,

That's an interesting conundrum. I'll read up and see if I can wrap my head around it. Right now I'm thinking that photon entanglement is no different from any other kind of quantum entanglement. Though photon numbers aren't conserved, their spin, energy, momentum, etc, are.

And, of course, all of that could be avoided if one were to accept superdeterminism, but not many people are fond of that. Wink

(I'm indifferent to it.)

But I still don't see a problem with a photon not experiencing time itself, yet still travelling through space-time and interacting by being absorbed by other particles. It's what's actually going on all the time.

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Photons...do...things.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-particle.html

Quote:

The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave
23 minutes ago

(Phys.org)—Light behaves both as a particle and as a wave. Since the days of Einstein, scientists have been trying to directly observe both of these aspects of light at the same time. Now, scientists at EPFL have succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of this dual behavior....

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@FBM,

Thanks for that. Is that then a picture of super position. It surly cant be a picture of probabilty waves can it?

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@martinies,

They're standing waves of photons. I don't know for sure about whether or not it's a case of superposition.

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in science what is stationary

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