(February 24, 2015 at 8:29 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(February 24, 2015 at 7:58 pm)Surgenator Wrote: Bullshit. Imagine I put pulse a laser that is on the moon which will hit your eye. I know it takes a little over 1 second to reach your eye. Can I or can't I put a piece of paper to block the laser light from hitting your eye. According to your logic, the photon left the moon and reached your eye instantly. According to me, I blocked the lasers path and it never reached your eye. Who's right?The photon was always going to hit your paper, right at the point it left the emitter, and before (in our reference frame) you moved the paper to block its path. This is because for the photon, no time has passed and no distance had to be covered-- the photon represents a direct link between the emitter on the moon and the receiving body, i.e. your eye. Whatever the photon hits, it could not have hit anything else, because there is no time in which the photon could be influenced by anything.
I'm pretty sure this is one of the apparent paradoxes in physics, and is connected to the observer effect, to wave/particule "duality," etc.
How do you know it was always going to hit the paper? The fact that it hit the paper doesn't prove that it was always going to hit the paper. How fast did I move the paper according to the photon reference frame? Infinitely fast. How can my hand move faster than the speed of light?
IATIA reminded me of something else. What is the speed of light in the photons reference frame? What is the speed of light in any other reference frame? Do you realize the contradiction yet? The fundamental assumption for relativity, the speed of light is the same in all proper inertial reference frame, is a contradiction in the photons reference frame. The photon suppose to be going at 3e8 m/s in its reference frame, but its suppose to be at rest in its reference frame. Contradiction! That is the conceptual reason why the photon reference frame is invalid.