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Frame of reference of the photon? [duplicate]

This question already has an answer here:

Would time freeze if you could travel at the speed of light? 8 answers

In the frame of photon does time stop in the meaning that past future and present all happen together?

If we have something with multiple outcomes which is realized viewed from such frame? Are all happening together or just one is possible?

How the communication between two such frame s work meaning is there time delay for the information as c is limited? If there is time delay does it mean
that time does not stop?

My question does not concern matter at that speed rather how it looks viewed from the photon reference.

Thanks Alfred! I think I understand it now.

special-relativity speed-of-light photons reference-frames

edited Jun 20 '13 at 14:27 asked Jun 20 '13 at 4:13

Qmechanic ♦ Anonymous
91.5k 12 150 899 412 3 15

marked as duplicate by Ben Crowell, Michael Brown, David Z ♦ Jun 20 '13 at 5:41
This question was marked as an exact duplicate of an existing question.

1 duplicate of physics.stackexchange.com/q/29082/4552 – Ben Crowell Jun 20 '13 at 4:33

Nope. It is not.. – Anonymous Jun 20 '13 at 5:46

Possible duplicates: physics.stackexchange.com/q/16018/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic ♦ Jun 20 '13 at 5:50

4 @Anonymous, there is no frame of reference for the photon because there is no frame of reference in which the photon is at rest. This is elementary. There is no meaningful way to talk about
how the universe "looks" to a photon because that would require that a frame of reference in which a photon is at rest exists. But, there is no such frame of reference. – Alfred Centauri Jun 20
'13 at 13:23

Thanks.So there is no such frame, because it is assumed that c is same in all frames and a photon will move with c in its own frame. So photon could not exist at other speed. So it means that
we could not know from existing theories how the photon sees the universe, so we can say the photon is "not observer".. – Anonymous Jun 20 '13 at 13:52

math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/… "It is really not possible to make sense of such questions and any attempt to do so is bound to lead to paradoxes. There are no
inertial reference frames in which the photon is at rest so it is hopeless to try to imagine what it would be like in one. Photons do not have experiences. There is no sense in saying that time
stops when you go at the speed of light. This is not a failing of the theory of relativity. There are no inconsistencies revealed by these questions. They just don't make sense."
– Alfred Centauri Jun 20 '13 at 14:09

1 Answer

I think you are asking about how a photon experiences the passage of time? There is no right time.
Photons are not ordinary things moving through space. So from the point of view of the photon this
time is not moving at all but the point of view of the photon is that it's place in space is changing but no
time is passing. Change - ie. motion - in time and space actually happens in four dimensions in which
no point in time or place in space can be preferred. We could create any ( or many) agreeable
coordinate system in such space with four indices - they can be anything at all but with them change of
any of the four indices for position and time can be described by the difference in these arbitrary agreed
numbers. But this "Minkowski space" and the equations that relate motions in space and time allows
the one special thing. That one "thing" is that light moves at same speed always, fastest possible. So
light photons were they able to experience, could only experience change of space. They cannot
experience time having changed position in space in the least possible time. I have avoided any math
based on your question. If you sought a more rigorous treatment sorry, this works for me.

edited Jun 20 '13 at 13:45 answered Jun 20 '13 at 5:14

user12811
458 1 3 6

2 "So from the point of view of the photon..." There actually is no "point of view" for a photon as there is no reference frame for
a photon. – Alfred Centauri Jun 20 '13 at 13:49

1z1 3. 5. 2018, 20:13