Thought experiment with light.

I have had this thought going on at the moment , so I thought I'd post it to get any feedback. Its a thought experiment to do with photons, and time dilation.

We seem to be all agreed that, a photon is "time locked" or time neutral with regards to the observer, at the moment of emission . It travels at the speed of light, which is what gives it its time neutrality.

So imagine , a laser beam projecting out into space on a revolving platform . As the platform revolves, at start up, the beam from the laser, will project as a curve, something like a Catharine wheel. So if the revolutions were increased . The curve of the light, would progressively bend, until it became a circular. This might occur somewhere out around the moon, depending on the revolutions of the platform . Wouldn't this mean, that the speed of light has been violated? Or even that a time dilation , might occur, where the laser beam gets circular . Like a field of time neutrality? Because in one way you are doing something kind of funny with light. As the time neutrality would tend to get concentrated at the circumference of the outer circle. Any thoughts?

Have fun!

Ron Mallet

a reply to: anonentity

But the light doesn't bend it's merely your perception of the light that would create the impression of a curve. (assuming there is no other forces acting upon the photons)

a reply to: Kukri


But it would have to bend , as the changing source is skewing it.

If that where true wouldn't we see pulsars with bent light beams as the star spins away from are view? I am in no way trying to disprove your theory, I'm curious myself, its a very interesting theory.

a reply to: anonentity

If ones perception of the photons was the light bending?
Then wouldn't ones perception of the photons bending in the light
indeed cause the light to bend? Leaving the observer with a bent light?

If travelling at the speed of light makes time stand still then travelling faster than light could reverse time to the point in time when the object was travelling at the speed of light. That's a hard cookie to crack.

a reply to: 772STi

I think the Pulsar sends blasts from its poles, and not the pheriphery.

a reply to: glend

Yes that would be the generally agreed state of things. But if the photon ring becomes an area of time lock. Then at some point it should disappear from the perspective of the observer. Like exit the observers time line?

a reply to: xeven

So Ron Mallet has had the same idea, a time field manipulated by photons,it does seem the way to go, as they seem to have a time thing, which could be played with.

originally posted by: glend
If travelling at the speed of light makes time stand still then travelling faster than light could reverse time to the point in time when the object was travelling at the speed of light. That's a hard cookie to crack.

It might be a paradox, that cant happen. All Paradoxes seem mental . With no physical expression. Unless of course its all a paradox.

originally posted by: glend
If travelling at the speed of light makes time stand still then travelling faster than light could reverse time to the point in time when the object was travelling at the speed of light. That's a hard cookie to crack.

Well that takes me back 'in time'... Reminds me of a limerick my dad taught me when I was a child:

There was a young man, Mr. Bright,
Who could travel faster than light.
He took off one day
In a relative way
And returned the previous night!

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: Kukri


But it would have to bend , as the changing source is skewing it.

Not at all. At any instant, a photon leaving the source departs in a straight line. There IS no "beam of light" other than your perception

originally posted by: anonentity
So if the revolutions were increased . The curve of the light, would progressively bend, until it became a circular.

For this to happen the revolution must reach infinite speed. I'm sure you can understand by yourself how this would be a problem.

You can spin with a garden hose spewing water.
But each droplet travels in a straight line away from the hose.

a reply to: samkent

That's right , and the water curves as you rotate.

originally posted by: anonentity
I have had this thought going on at the moment , so I thought I'd post it to get any feedback. Its a thought experiment to do with photons, and time dilation.

We seem to be all agreed that, a photon is "time locked" or time neutral with regards to the observer, at the moment of emission . It travels at the speed of light, which is what gives it its time neutrality.

No we are not agreed on this point. People say time is frozen from the photon's perspective but no observer can be on the photon so it's a silly supposition to put an observer on the photon. For all real observers the photon is not frozen or time locked or time neutral. The emission of the photon is an event and the timing of all events are relative depending on the observer. Einstein gave an example where the light flashes are perceived differently by different observers, and are not "time neutral with regards to the observer". In this example the two light flashes are simultaneous for one observer but not for another observer.

Relativity of simultaneity

Einstein's version of the experiment[3] presumed slightly different conditions, where a train moving past the standing observer is struck by two bolts of lightning simultaneously, but at different positions along the axis of train movement (back and front of the traincar). In the inertial frame of the standing observer, there are three events which are spatially dislocated, but simultaneous: event of the standing observer facing the moving observer (i.e., the center of the train), event of lightning striking the front of the traincar, and the event of lightning striking the back of the car.

Since the events are placed along the axis of train movement, their time coordinates become projected to different time coordinates in the moving train's inertial frame. Events which occurred at space coordinates in the direction of train movement (in the stationary frame), happen earlier than events at coordinates opposite to the direction of train movement. In the moving train's inertial frame, this means that lightning will strike the front of the traincar before two observers align (face each other).

So imagine , a laser beam projecting out into space on a revolving platform . As the platform revolves, at start up, the beam from the laser, will project as a curve, something like a Catharine wheel. So if the revolutions were increased . The curve of the light, would progressively bend, until it became a circular. This might occur somewhere out around the moon, depending on the revolutions of the platform . Wouldn't this mean, that the speed of light has been violated? Or even that a time dilation , might occur, where the laser beam gets circular . Like a field of time neutrality? Because in one way you are doing something kind of funny with light. As the time neutrality would tend to get concentrated at the circumference of the outer circle. Any thoughts?

Think of replacing the laser with a machine gun firing bullets. The bullets may hit a distant target at spacings that reflect apparent faster than light, but nothing really traveled faster than light except the perceived impact points of the bullets.

The faster than light article on wikipedia covers this topic:

If a laser is swept across a distant object, the spot of laser light can easily be made to move across the object at a speed greater than c.[7] Similarly, a shadow projected onto a distant object can be made to move across the object faster than c.[7] In neither case does the light travel from the source to the object faster than c, nor does any information travel faster than light.

He actually doing experiments. Check his name on Google and u tube etc...

a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Thanks for your intelligent response ,but I would differ with regard to the photon not being time static as far as the observers point of view, from the moment of its emission. It looses no energy during its flight from its original source . It records the state of the star, perhaps millions of years ago. It can only do this, if its in its own time locked state. Because at the speed of light time has stopped for it.

Whether its a beam or individual packets of energy , it doesn't matter, by moving the source, the packets, have now got a forward as well as a lateral motion. In the machine gun example , if the machine gun was revolving, at a really high speed, and the bullets were photons . The bullets say tracers, would at first take up a spiral, trajectory, if the rotation of the muzzle, was the same speed as the feet per minute of the bullet .They would have to come out at about 45 degrees . The faster the rotation, the lower the angle, until at some undetermined speed, the lateral motion , would make them leave the muzzle, at right angles.

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Thanks for your intelligent response ,but I would differ with regard to the photon not being time static as far as the observers point of view, from the moment of its emission. It looses no energy during its flight from its original source.

The photons we observe that were emitted 9 billion years ago have far lower energy when we observe them so your statement that the photon loses no energy is false. We compute something called "z" for old photons and it's in a way a measure of how much energy the photons have lost. Also the fact we can say the photon has been traveling for 9 billion years means it's not frozen, in time, it's 9 billion years old from our perspective as observers. This link explains how you can calculate the z value which is a measure of the reduction in frequency:

skyserver.sdss.org...

This fundamental formula shows how we calculate the energy of a photon, which is based on the frequency, so translated into English it says the lower the frequency the lower the energy. Photons from distant galaxies have both lower frequency and lower energy than when they were emitted, so it's precisely the fact that they DO NOT retain their energy that we can measure the approximate distance to the galaxies they came from.

E = hν

It records the state of the star, perhaps millions of years ago. It can only do this, if its in its own time locked state. Because at the speed of light time has stopped for it.

As I said this claim is often repeated, but it's meaningless, because there is no observer on any photon and you can't put one there.

Whether its a beam or individual packets of energy , it doesn't matter, by moving the source, the packets, have now got a forward as well as a lateral motion. In the machine gun example , if the machine gun was revolving, at a really high speed, and the bullets were photons . The bullets say tracers, would at first take up a spiral, trajectory, if the rotation of the muzzle, was the same speed as the feet per minute of the bullet .They would have to come out at about 45 degrees . The faster the rotation, the lower the angle, until at some undetermined speed, the lateral motion , would make them leave the muzzle, at right angles.

The lateral motion of the bullets though will never exceed the speed of light. The photons travel in a straight line (except for things like gravitational lensing and even then we say they travel in a straight line through curved space-time) so they have no lateral motion.