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If photons are travelling with speed of light, it means that time is stopped for photons and there is no any distance in the Universe for them. So, does it mean that photons do not exist? From the point of view of a photon, it is destroyed at the same moment when it was born and at the same place.

Does it mean that photons are just lines in time - from a source to the destination when it was absorbed?

Qmechanic
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Robotex
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1 Answers1

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The question is not a physical one and not even a philosophical one: photon does not have a point of view - rather it is us who may want to attribute it a point of view or imagine what it would feel like to see the Universe from the point of view of a photon.

It is an interesting subject to ponder... but it cannot have a definite answer.

Googling however gives interesting results:
A photon’s point of view
Ask Ethan: How Does A Photon Experience The Universe?
From a photons’ point of view, is its speed infinite, since it travels instantly from its beginning to end?.

Roger V.
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  • Without further explanation, it seems like a semantic quibble that a photon doesn't have a "point of view" simply because that anthropomorphizes the photon. That makes little sense, it's very common to deal with physics problems in different reference frames where different observers are defined to be at rest. The underlying problem with the photon frame is that unlike any other entity with speed less than $c$, there is no reference frame in which a photon is a rest. – Nuclear Hoagie Jan 24 '22 at 15:59
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    @NuclearHoagie you seem to be saying the same thing by other words: can we talk about a point of view from a reference frame that does not exist? It is antropomorphizing the non-existing reference frame. – Roger V. Jan 24 '22 at 16:01
  • My point is the rationale presented here doesn't mention the unique properties of the photon that distinguish it from any other entity which does have a rest frame. A asteroid in space does not have a point of view, it is merely us who want to attribute a POV or imagine what it would feel like to see the universe from the POV of an asteroid. None of that reasoning means you can't conduct a thought experiment in the asteroid's frame of reference, though. This answer seems to suggest that a photon has no POV because that involves human imagination, but not for any relativistic/physical reason. – Nuclear Hoagie Jan 24 '22 at 17:05
  • @NuclearHoagie I was looking from a more general perspective: that there is the universe and there are concepts about the universe, which exist only in human minds. I see why you interpreted it differently, and I will think about changing the formulation. – Roger V. Jan 24 '22 at 17:48