Re: Time for a photon.
- From: Phil <toob-headman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 09:02:35 GMT
googlegroupie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
So, maybe my layman's understanding of GR is so far off mark that thisAn excellent question. At least some physicists think that because the "time dilation factor," or "time-rate" (an object moving at high speed *undergoes* time dilation, which *results* in a slower time-rate) of an object WITH mass would slow to zero if we could accelerate it to the speed of light, that the time-rate of an object WITHOUT mass must also be zero. I know of no theory that ACTUALLY predicts this, but it seems to be a commonly held ASSumption that, of course, this is one of relativity's predictions. This caused great confusion in the study of neutrinos, because it turns out that by the time the sun's neutrinos reach the Earth, they have "had time" to transform, x number of times, into any of the three types of neutrinos, which caused the measurements of the sun's neutrinos to be 1/3 of the expected value (the experiments looked only for the type known to be produced by the sun). This fact, plus the assumption above, caused many physicists to conclude that neutrinos have mass since "only an object with mass, which allows it to travel at less than c, can have a non-zero time-rate." However, if it turns out that massless particles like neutrinos and photons do NOT have a time-rate of zero, then the ability of the sun's neutrinos to shift among the 3 types of neutrinos does NOT imply that neutrinos have mass (and given that neutrinos from the 1983 (?) supernova beat the photons here to Earth by over a day, it is hard to believe that neutrinos could travel at even slightly less than c). For me, the fact that photons can be "short-circuited" in a waveguide at some points in time, but not others (basically when the EM field is passing through a zero, we want the photons to reflect off the top or bottom of the waveguide, to minimize the losses), tells me that their state varies, like a neutrino, meaning that both photons and neutrinos have non-zero time-rates. However, I suspect that a waveguide that works for some frequency out in space will also work deep in a gravitational field, so my guess is that the time-rate of photons and neutrinos slows in a deep gravitational field.
question doesn't make sense, so, please correct my understanding if it
is...
My understanding is, the faster an object (or particle) moves, the less
"time" it experiences relative to other objects. This happens to the
point that when an object moves near the speed of light, time nearly
stops.
Now, I know that it would take infinite energy to get any "massive"
object/particle to the speed of light. However, light itself does not
have mass, and therefor must travel at the speed of light (I know its a
tautology, but follow with me here).
So, my question is this... Does a photon "experience" time? Are
massless particles immune to time dilation? Does the fact that they are
waves make them immune?
Again, if my understanding is so far off base that the question is
irrelevant, just let me know :-) Thanks.
Phil
.
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