The speed of light is neither constant nor variable
- From: Albertito <albertito1992@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 04:21:19 -0800 (PST)
A photon is emitted from A to B, but if you measure that photon at an
intermediary point C, then that photon was emitted from A to C, not to
B.
This means there is no path for any photon, only two points, (i.e.
emission
and absorption points). Of course, you can argue that that
intermediary
point can retransmit that photon towards B, once it was absorbed.
A retransmitted photon is not the original photon, but a new one, and
it may exhibit either the same state or a different one, depending on
the
properties and state of system in C that absorbed the former. So, the
question is,
if there are no intermediary points between A and B which can absorb
and
retransmit that photon, what is the speed of that photon "travelling"
from A to B?.
The answer is a nonlocal and "instantaneous speed", it is saying,
once it is emitted,
it is instantaneous absorbed, so the "speed" is infinite!.
Consider now an isotropic medium formed by a lattice of nodes. If a
photon is
emitted by node A, and you measure it at node B, you have to consider
that that
photon has been retransmitted many times by intermediary nodes. This
means
there is not a unique path, but a lot of them.
Let us see which would be the mean distance between two adjacent
nodes, if you
always measure a "speed" for a photon being a constant c=299,792,458 m/
s, for
source node A and receiver B, both at rest. The first postulate says
that if a photon
is emitted from A to B without intermediary nodes, its propagation
"speed" is infinite,
But, now we have an isotropic lattice of intermediary nodes (medium),
so the second
postulate claims that if a photon is absorbed by an intermediary
system at node C, it is
not retransmitted instantaneously to its adjacent nodes, it needs a
finite non-zero time
to be retransmitted. Let us say that the time between adjacent nodes
is a constant, t_a,
and the distance between adjacent node is also a constant r_a, both
characteristic constants
for that medium. Of course, we see that
r_a/t_a = c = 299,792,458 m/s,
t_a = r_a/c, must hold too, when source
and receiver are at rest..
Suppose now our isotropic medium is the vacuum, and we find out that
r_a = l_p is
1 Planck length. Then, we have
t_a = l_p/c = 5.39121(40) x 10^(-44) s ,
it is 1 Planck time,
the mean time taken for a photon to be retransmitted towards an
adjacent node!.
The interesting issue is that t_a is actually a mean time. So, we have
a normal distribution
when source and receiver are at rest, and a log-normal distribution
when they don't ( v>0).
The time a photon takes to be retransmitted towards adjacent nodes is
probabilistic,
and its probability density function depends on the nature of the
medium, and on the
relative speed between source and receiver.
Best wishes
.
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