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Author Topic:   Request for help re light speed, emission of light, and time
NoNukes
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Message 6 of 9 (655084)
03-07-2012 6:17 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by PaulK
03-07-2012 5:20 AM


Shouldn't the distance between the Earth and the Sun be different in the photon's perspective (compared to ours), due to length contraction
Generally speaking, it is not all that helpful to consider things from the photons frame of reference, when the photo is propagating in a vacuum. But if we did so, the Lorentz-Fitzgerald equations suggest that length contraction would reduce the earth/sun distance to zero, which would mean that in the photon frame of reference, the photon would be in all places along its path at a single instant. However in such a frame, we could not verify that Einstein's postulate that the speed of light in all reference frames was c actually holds for the photon, making application of Einstein's special relativity rather problematic.
Besides that, I don't believe the question is about quantum mechanics. The wave function itself is complex, but the probability densities of a photon appearing at any one point in space are always positive. Perhaps this is what Taq is saying.
When light propagates, what is actually waving, and occupying positive and negative values are the coupled electromagnetic and magnetic fields associated with the radiation, and not the position of the photon. The concept of a photon traveling up and down some y or z axis as it propagates along the x axis is just wrong.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by PaulK, posted 03-07-2012 5:20 AM PaulK has not replied

  
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