Poll A photon's frame of reference?

[MAraujo]

So I read this book, Schrodinger's Kittens by John Gribbin, I don't know if any of you have read it (I would recommend it if you haven't).

Its essentially a search for the underlying reality of the various models of quantum uncertainty. Whats really going on down there. It seems the standard textbook answer is to just say the universe is probabilistic...period. That uncertainty is not an approximation of some unknown underlying deterministic mechanics, it just is (seems a little ad hoc to me).

Gribbin explores the perspective of a photon...since it travels at the speed of light, to a photon, time and space have no measure. Therefore the photon is created and absorbed simultaneously (from its own perspective).
The fact that we see a photon as traveling a time and distance is merely a relativistic loss of simultaneity from our frame of reference.

So in essence, a photon cannot be emitted unless its point of absorption is already determined. This would make the phenomena surrounding double-slit experiment (and quite a few others like it) seem totally logical.

Does a photon have a frame of reference?

Why is this not the standard explanation? This book came out about two decades ago...has new evidence since trumped this explanation?

Any physics scholars out there could maybe shed some light...

 

[TMac3000]

It's no wonder the speed of light cannot be exceeded: since time expands and space contracts as you approach the speed of light, once you reach the speed of light (academic, since no object can do so), you have no universe left to travel in! From a photon's point of view, it is already everywhere at once!

Special relativity is one of those strange, semi-mystical consequences of the laws of physics that we will probably never completely understand.

 

[Eagle]

So in essence, a photon cannot be emitted unless its point of absorption is already determined.

Interesting claim. The question is why would we care or what observable difference could it make.

Obviously a possible experiment would be to fire a photon through a filter so its properties are pretty much known (it needs x phase/wavelength etc to pass or it will be absorbed) and then vary the point of absorption and see if there is any property change.

Now supposedly if there is some discernible difference it would allow for FTL information gathering. As you know what's happening when the photon gets there, but before a return photon can come back. Reminds me of a theoretical wormhole where when you travel through it you arrive in the future, but if you travel back into the wormhole you arive back in time only slightly after you left.

Unfortunately I'm skeptical of this as the answer is there probably is no dicernable difference, especially since there's no way to be sure of a photon's properties without absorbing it, and if you absorb it, its not gonna be absorbed at a relativisticly interesting distance.

So its interesting, but it has some problems and may be possibly unprovable (which is bad).

 

[RisingFury]

We can and will make lead nuclei wizz around LHC at almost the speed of light. I'd say that's an object that has managed approaching it pretty well.

 

[cjp]

The 'randomness' occurs when we do a 'measurement' on a system that is so small that its quantummechanic behavior becomes observable.

The 'measurement' is basically an interaction between the particle (photon or whatever you're looking at) and a large macroscopic system (a human being together with its measuring equipment).

I used to have a theory that this observed randomness is not caused by the particle, but by the large macroscopic system. Its origin is the fact that you don't know the exact state of the macroscopic system.

This theory could preserve determinism (one state of the large system + one state of the particle together always lead to the same measured value). Unfortunately I've been unsuccesful in getting all the equations right so far.

 

[Brycesv1]

im no expert and im not afraid to admit that i know very little or next to nothing about this but i have come to believe that nothing is "random" everything is caused for a reason and probability is simply our explaination for all of the variables that we cant measure

 

[movieman]

Why is this not the standard explanation? This book came out about two decades ago...has new evidence since trumped this explanation?

I think you're basically running into the same kind of areas as the Transactional Interpretation, which makes sense of most of the gobbledygook which has been spouted about quantum physics over the last few decades.

If you're going to try to tie together quantum mechanics and relativity, you have to deal with the relativistic Schrodinger equation, which gives you two wave-functions, one going forward in time and one going backwards. Hence when the photon is emitted it already 'knows' where it's going to be absorbed because the backward wave tells it.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Transactional_interpretation

 

[MAraujo]

I think you're basically running into the same kind of areas as the Transactional Interpretation, which makes sense of most of the gobbledygook which has been spouted about quantum physics over the last few decades.

If you're going to try to tie together quantum mechanics and relativity, you have to deal with the relativistic Schrodinger equation, which gives you two wave-functions, one going forward in time and one going backwards. Hence when the photon is emitted it already 'knows' where it's going to be absorbed because the backward wave tells it.

Yes exactly!....Thank you for answering my question. John Gribbin's book came out in the late 80's so I don't think that term was coined when he wrote it. Gribbin derives the same interpretation from the Wheeler-Feynman absorber paper, that I think is the first example of a retarded/advanced wave interactions. I never felt comfortable with the Copenhagen interpretation anyway. It gives too much importance to "intelligent" observers.

 

[Eagle]

I think you're basically running into the same kind of areas as the Transactional Interpretation, which makes sense of most of the gobbledygook which has been spouted about quantum physics over the last few decades.

If you're going to try to tie together quantum mechanics and relativity, you have to deal with the relativistic Schrodinger equation, which gives you two wave-functions, one going forward in time and one going backwards. Hence when the photon is emitted it already 'knows' where it's going to be absorbed because the backward wave tells it.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Transactional_interpretation

I'm not understanding this because the explanations to me looks like the backcasted waves are just a sloppy way of saying "the emitted photon's waveform had to come from something" Or to enforce conservation of something.

My first (wrong) interpretation:

Backcasted | real (emitted) | forwardcasted by receiver
-inf~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~inf

but then again they are atemporal(outside or independent of time)

So we get:

time
~~~~~<-Descriptor wave
~~~~~<-Another descriptor wave (mirror image to the first)

So they're not measurable, and can only be generated if you already know what happens. Its like a Fourier transform of an event, except less useful.

OK then. Please correct me if this is anything other than a fancy functional transform that makes an occasional quantum equation nice.

 

[movieman]

Please correct me if this is anything other than a fancy functional transform that makes an occasional quantum equation nice.

The relativistic Schrodinger equation contains a square root, so any non-null solution produces two waves going in opposite directions in time.

Now, I'd agree that it's just a mathematical abstraction to explain a complex physical interaction which is otherwise difficult to put into mathematics, but it's still true.

 

[Brycesv1]

agh this is all so confuzing... where do u guys learn all this?

 

[Eagle]

Now, I'd agree that it's just a mathematical abstraction to explain a complex physical interaction which is otherwise difficult to put into mathematics, but it's still true.

Are we talking true as in take the inverse function and get the event or true as in 'Oh look a photon!'