Eli5: How can light not experience the passage of time if it travels at 670 million MPH – a measurement of time (and space)

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If light travels at 670 million miles per hour, then that means in one hour it will travel 670 million miles. At 2 hours it will travel 1214 million miles etc. This to me sounds like a measurement of time, just on such a huge scale that we can’t comprehend it. But in the grand scheme of the cosmos this is not that crazy of a scale. I would think it’s just saying light doesn’t experience time *relative* to us. But Einstein says no- no matter what, light’s speed doesn’t change and, what, relativity just doesn’t matter? It feels like a paradox

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Lots of questions from reading this thread.

At what point does time dilation come into effect – does it affect people who travel by vehicle compared to those who walk? If I spend my life travelling by the hyper train to work will I be younger than my twin at some point?

Is there not an ‘omnipresent’ time in the universe? Time experienced from relative perspectives being different but can we actually ‘zoom out’ and consider an overarching clock to things? E.g that chap zooming around has experienced 5 years, that slow one 25 years but really, EVERYTHING just went by for 1 day…?

As OP alludes to, is not the instantaneous nature of a photon’s existence not a paradox to its quantified speed to us? I wish to race alongside a photon as it goes on its way, am I travelling 670 mmph?

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