Eli5: How does Light Travel if it Experiences no Time?

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Einstein’s Theory of Relativity states that light (as it is travelling obviously at the speed of light) is so fast that it experiences no (zero) time. Obviously light does move a distance, as thats how we see things as the light bounces off of objects into our eyes, but surely with the equation ‘distance = speed\*time’ and time being zero it implies light doesn’t travel any distance?

In: Physics

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

That’s the reason why we say that no object can move faster than the speed of light: the object that travels with the speed of light experiences no time, so the speed it *experiences* is (speed = distance/time) is undefined. The closer you approach to the speed of light, the closer the speed you experiences to the infinity and at the speed of light you just have to divide distance by zero to get speed.

At the same time, in our frame of reference (because we move at almost zero speed comparing to light) it’s finite speed and non-zero time.

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