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Everything moves at the speed of light through the spacetime continuum, but the faster it moves through space, the slower it moves through time (and vice versa).So time only stands still for photons moving through a vacuum, where their speed through space equals c (the speed of light in vacuum) and thus their speed through time equals 0. As soon as a photon travels through another medium, ie air or water or glass, it's speed through space will be a very small amount lower than c and that very small amount will be converted to "speed through time", so a photon, in my opinion, does age whenever it's not traveling through vacuum. Therefore, from the point of view of a photon, existence is not a featureless singularity of an infinitesimally short duration, but more like: "The big bang? Oh, wasn't that the day before yesterday?"
These conditions hold within only the frame of reference of movement at the velocity of light. But if photons, - which move at the velocity of light, exist in a timeless and dimensionless frame of reference, by definition velocity or movement of any kind cannot exist.
Time stopping for photons is a popular misreading of special relativity. SR determines time dilation for massive particles travelling at below c - to extend the equations of time dilation to photons which are masslss and travelling at c is just not correct; ie there is no such thing as the local frame of a photon.
Quote from: imatfaal on 25/11/2011 18:59:02Time stopping for photons is a popular misreading of special relativity. SR determines time dilation for massive particles travelling at below c - to extend the equations of time dilation to photons which are masslss and travelling at c is just not correct; ie there is no such thing as the local frame of a photon.Isn't that just a way of saying the math breaks down so SR can't provide an answer?There is some empirical evidence that photons are "immune" to time. While everything else seems to decay, it seems that photons don't.
or because we just haven't noticed it happening.
Quote from: imatfaal on 28/11/2011 11:28:09 or because we just haven't noticed it happening. Oh, I think we would. They would be redshifted, so everything would look like it was retreating from us (thinking).....- wait a minute!
Quote from: Geezer on 28/11/2011 19:38:34Quote from: imatfaal on 28/11/2011 11:28:09 or because we just haven't noticed it happening. Oh, I think we would. They would be redshifted, so everything would look like it was retreating from us (thinking).....- wait a minute!protons are expected to decay, are certainly not travelling at such a speed that "they are frozen in time" (hateful concept), and we have never noticed one of them decaying
The fact that matter undergoes time dilation until, if it was ever possible to reach light speed, it goes into a state of infinite dilation where time has no meaning, points to a frame where time does actually stop in THAT frame of reference.