I’m not sure from which direction you’re thinking about, but depending on what you mean there are likely ways we could determine this. Not photons, but you can look into The Solar Neutrino Problem for a similar situation and resolution.
Though if you mean because of photon’s inability to experience time, thus not changing even though they ‘could’, that’s a different matter.
hat’s actually a wild thought — imagine if photons could just decide to zigzag or do somersaults mid-flight. We’d probably never get a straight beam of light again. It kinda reminds me of those laser pointer toys for cats, but in real life chaos. Physics would be like trying to play billiards with spaghetti noodles.
THe only problem with this statement is that since the photon moves at the speed of light, from its perspective time doesn’t exist. For a photon that was emited a billions of years ago at the other end of the galaxy the entire journey to hit a detector on Earth today is instant.
technically photons do have 2 (depending on what exactly you mean and how you count it) degrees of freedom, but they just can’t change over time since photons don’t experience time – having degrees of freedom isn’t the same as being able to change over time. But yeah, if they could change over time we probably wouldn’t be able to tell lol
Any Universe that is ( with our current tools) undetectably different in the way we now assume the universe is, should be considered equally like to be accurate as the one we assume.
Imagine going up to a physicist 150 years ago and say; you know what if time moves slightly, just the tiniest bit different for a person that’s moving relative to someone else.
They’d probably not accept it, but it should be considered equally likely.
Another example of this now we don’t actually know the one way speed of light, we only know the two way speed of light but it’s possible that it’s instantaneously in one direction and 2 * speed of light in the exact opposite direction.
There is no way for us to tell what the one way speed of light is (with our current tools and understanding of physics)
So, if photons could change over time, does that mean they’d have midlife crises too? Picture them trading in their old wavelengths for something more ‘in’—like a nice infrared sports car!
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I’m not sure from which direction you’re thinking about, but depending on what you mean there are likely ways we could determine this. Not photons, but you can look into The Solar Neutrino Problem for a similar situation and resolution.
Though if you mean because of photon’s inability to experience time, thus not changing even though they ‘could’, that’s a different matter.
For time to change a photon, a photon must first be able to experience time.
imagine healthcare fraudsters promoting to drink “younger-proton water” because it makes you healthy
hat’s actually a wild thought — imagine if photons could just decide to zigzag or do somersaults mid-flight. We’d probably never get a straight beam of light again. It kinda reminds me of those laser pointer toys for cats, but in real life chaos. Physics would be like trying to play billiards with spaghetti noodles.
THe only problem with this statement is that since the photon moves at the speed of light, from its perspective time doesn’t exist. For a photon that was emited a billions of years ago at the other end of the galaxy the entire journey to hit a detector on Earth today is instant.
technically photons do have 2 (depending on what exactly you mean and how you count it) degrees of freedom, but they just can’t change over time since photons don’t experience time – having degrees of freedom isn’t the same as being able to change over time. But yeah, if they could change over time we probably wouldn’t be able to tell lol
Any Universe that is ( with our current tools) undetectably different in the way we now assume the universe is, should be considered equally like to be accurate as the one we assume.
Imagine going up to a physicist 150 years ago and say; you know what if time moves slightly, just the tiniest bit different for a person that’s moving relative to someone else.
They’d probably not accept it, but it should be considered equally likely.
Another example of this now we don’t actually know the one way speed of light, we only know the two way speed of light but it’s possible that it’s instantaneously in one direction and 2 * speed of light in the exact opposite direction.
There is no way for us to tell what the one way speed of light is (with our current tools and understanding of physics)
So, if photons could change over time, does that mean they’d have midlife crises too? Picture them trading in their old wavelengths for something more ‘in’—like a nice infrared sports car!
Redshift is a direct example of the fact that photons change over time.