Eli5 how does a photon not experience time when zooming toward point b? Wouldn’t other photons from point b passing it appear as time happening very quickly?

Question

Eli5 how does a photon not experience time when zooming toward point b? Wouldn’t other photons from point b passing it appear as time happening very quickly?

In: 425

Answer 1

Because photons aren’t “things”. It’s not a unit of mass like a basketball. It’s just energy. I’m not a physicist, but I know radio. As it turns out, light is just a different frequency of radio (electromagnetic) waves. They’re not that special or unique and by studying these lower frequencies used for radio we can learn some things.

A radio wave (low frequency light) is just two intersecting waves. One magnetic, the other electrical (hence the term “electromagnetic” 🤔)

So we all know that a magnetic change creates an electric current. That electric current happens to be perpendicular. So radio and light are just that – magnetic energy causing electric current, causing magnetic energy, causing electric current, etc. this is basically just energy, so it propagates at the speed of information oscillating back and forth until something absorbs the energy.

Now what’s a “photon”? Well, I dunno. But this electromagnetic wave sure has a lot of energy at the high frequencies that make light. If that energy hits something, the energy doesn’t disappear. Most of that energy creates heat, but what if some of it turned into mass – as mass and energy are interchangeable at the quantum level – and that mass would have momentum.

I can’t back up that last sentence, but y’all are welcome to write a thesis paper proving it as long as you reference “some rando on the internet” in the paper.