RE: Time and the Speed of Light
April 28, 2014 at 12:03 pm
(This post was last modified: April 28, 2014 at 12:03 pm by ManMachine.)
(April 24, 2014 at 11:32 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I have a question about physics, specially photons and the speed of light. I've heard it said, put roughly, that when traveling at the speed of light, as a photon does, there is no time. So from the point a photon is emitted to when it is absorbed by an object, no matter how much time appears to pass from our frame of reference, from the standpoint of the photon, no time at all has passed. The emission to absorption by another object is for a photon instantaneous. Is that roughly correct? My next question, then, is how do we know the age of the Universe? I thought it was partly because the farthest light we can see is 13.8 billion light years away. But then, is that only from "our frame of reference"? How does that work from the standpoint of a photon?
The closer you get to lightspeed the more 'unified' space and time are as spacetime.
To a photon there is no separation, there are one and the same universal constant. Simples.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
