From the point of view of a photon, is the universe a dimensionless point?

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From the pov of a photon travelling at the speed of light, no time elapses from the moment it emits from the sun and absorbs in my eyeball. This is true also of all photons going all directions off the sun. This implies there is no distance either, for the photon, in any direction. So does this imply that from the point of view of a photon, is it’s universe a single dimensionless point? That is, for a photon, is it existing in a pre-big bang universe? And further, since there is at least one photon, surely there isn’t space for more than one …. And since it’s the same universe we occupy with that one photon (viewed through differing points of view), is all light that one photon, possibly superimposed countless times?

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24 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I think one of the stranger implications is that for a photon of the cosmic microwave background radiation reaching us from outer space, the entire age of the universe elapses in a single moment. Entire stars have been formed and died out, entire civilizations rose and fell, entire species came into existence and went extinct, and to those photons, all that time that elapsed while it was in transit was all a single instant because at the speed of light time comes to a halt.

Anonymous 0 Comments

There is no “point of view” of a photon, since lacking a brain structure or equivalent , they don’t have experiences or points of view.

Maybe you would be interested to think about a particle, or a person, that travels very close to the speed of light (relative to the galaxy’s rest frame, if you like). Then you could imagine the effects extended to extreme , as far as your mind can cope with .

The first point to understand is [relativistic aberration](https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/aberration.html). The particle will “see” the entire galaxy as a point in front of it.

As you mentioned elsewhere, length contraction means distances get shorter but only in the direction of motion. If you move towards the galactic centre fast enough it might only be 1 metre away, but if you are moving perpendicular to it, it is still 80,000 light years away or whatever.

Taking to intergalactic distances then you need to allow for the expansion of space, which means general relativity. This part is beyond my intuition now to try and describe what happens if aiming for a distant quasar that is receding from Earth at faster than c !

Anonymous 0 Comments

I mean accordingly, since the universe is ever-expanding at a rate of over 73 km/second (which is ~263,000 kph) the universe is a dimensionless point for anything physical

Anonymous 0 Comments

I see a lot of really bad answers here so here it is plain and simple: a photon has no valid point of view at all so your question is meaningless. Not in the sense that it’s a stupid or bad question, just that it has no valid answer because it’s based on a flawed premise. Special relativity simply does not allow photons to have a point of view.