3 ms·

I was going to put this as mine. It’s astounding how important this is. I woke up at 2am with the intuition that light was like a lightning strike across space

I was going to put this as mine. It’s astounding how important this is. I woke up at 2am with the intuition that light was like a lightning strike across spacetime, with no time and no distance between the emitter and absorber. Why and how, though. What are the fully-baked implications.

peterfirefly 4y ago
I remember that we found that entirely obvious (well, most of us) in my high-school physics class. What I still don't understand, though, is how photons can "wave" or how "long" a photon is (or how they can have any "length" at all). What I also didn't understand back then was how light can be slower when there is matter present -- or how a photon could somehow know that it was supposed to cause another, very similar, photon to be released in just the right angle when it hit something that, if zoomed out enough, looked like a mirror. How on Earth could the photon know that the photon it was hitting was part of a flat surface and what its orientation was? I even started using that mirror question as a litmus test of physics students once I started at uni (comp.sci.) -- pretty much all of them failed, not by not knowing the answer but by not understanding that this was even a question that required an answer. I now know that the photon -- the wave(s) in the electromagnetic field -- cause atoms (and in particular their electrons) to move about a bit, which in turn cause waves in the electromagnetic field. And by adding up all these waves, we get the resulting wave which moves slower than c and which might seem to have been reflected at an angle. Why my physics teacher in high-school didn't tell us that, I don't know.
hnfong 4y ago
Given that most physicists would tell you the same, I presuming you're not merely saying this is only of physical importance - Many spiritual teachings say that consciousness is made of light.
- richardw 4y ago
  The mere physical implications are astounding but don’t seem to be fully embraced. A photon that left a billion years ago connects the source and destination. They’re basically touching each other. Shortest distance between entangled photons isn’t the 3D distance, it’s back via the source. Our perspective is that a photon takes a billion years but we need to see past it to what is instant, because it hints at deeper questions and answers.
sfink 4y ago
This one really struck me too. I think of it from the point of view of the emitter, which is surrounded by a sphere of every final destination of a photon in every direction, with no distance in between. The photon itself, from its own perspective, is born and immediately dies, having stepped across the 0-length gap between emitter and absorber.
- richardw 4y ago
  And therefore the future affects the past. And light only ever gets emitted when there is a receiver to absorb it.

peterfirefly 4y ago

I remember that we found that entirely obvious (well, most of us) in my high-school physics class. What I still don't understand, though, is how photons can "wave" or how "long" a photon is (or how they can have any "length" at all). What I also didn't understand back then was how light can be slower when there is matter present -- or how a photon could somehow know that it was supposed to cause another, very similar, photon to be released in just the right angle when it hit something that, if zoomed out enough, looked like a mirror. How on Earth could the photon know that the photon it was hitting was part of a flat surface and what its orientation was? I even started using that mirror question as a litmus test of physics students once I started at uni (comp.sci.) -- pretty much all of them failed, not by not knowing the answer but by not understanding that this was even a question that required an answer. I now know that the photon -- the wave(s) in the electromagnetic field -- cause atoms (and in particular their electrons) to move about a bit, which in turn cause waves in the electromagnetic field. And by adding up all these waves, we get the resulting wave which moves slower than c and which might seem to have been reflected at an angle. Why my physics teacher in high-school didn't tell us that, I don't know.

hnfong 4y ago

Given that most physicists would tell you the same, I presuming you're not merely saying this is only of physical importance - Many spiritual teachings say that consciousness is made of light.

richardw 4y ago
The mere physical implications are astounding but don’t seem to be fully embraced. A photon that left a billion years ago connects the source and destination. They’re basically touching each other. Shortest distance between entangled photons isn’t the 3D distance, it’s back via the source. Our perspective is that a photon takes a billion years but we need to see past it to what is instant, because it hints at deeper questions and answers.

sfink 4y ago

This one really struck me too. I think of it from the point of view of the emitter, which is surrounded by a sphere of every final destination of a photon in every direction, with no distance in between. The photon itself, from its own perspective, is born and immediately dies, having stepped across the 0-length gap between emitter and absorber.

richardw 4y ago
And therefore the future affects the past. And light only ever gets emitted when there is a receiver to absorb it.