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If photons don’t ‘experience time’ how do they experience space? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have read that since photons have no valid reference frame they don’t experience time. They move through space at c so no time value, in essence.

But space and time are the same in relativity and space obviously affects photons ie they experience eachother. Photons redshift over distance and time, as the most obvious example.

So how is it that a photon can’t “experience time” yet it experiences space? Why isn’t redshifting over X ly considered experiencing time already?

I’m just a layman so I’m having a hard time reconciling a photon not experiencing time due to not having a valid reference frame; but that just doesn’t affect its deal with space? It gets a valid reference frame in space then?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I’ve read about this but it kind of loses me since it’s such an abstract model of what’s going on. It treats each dimension as equal but like, time certainly seems distinct from the 3 spatial dimensions too.

I know it’s legit and a proper way of understanding it though just nitpicking since it leaves me with a sense of fuzziness like, maybe a gross oversimplification?

Granted I know it’s only meant to explain what’s happening in a predictable way not actually address the nature of these values which I guess is what I naturally lead into wondering about

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I found this channel (Science Asylum) really helpful in explaining things very simply. He uses space-time diagrams in this video to explain how gravity is an emergent property of time and how the two are linked together.