- #1
LikesIntuition
- 51
- 1
I'm not sure if there's a satisfying answer to this question, but I'd at least like to incite some discussion.
I haven't had a formal education about photons or quantum mechanics, so all I know is what I've read about outside the classroom, but a buddy and I have been talking about them, as we've reached electromagnetic waves in our EM class. I know that a photon travels through space the way a wave would, but also exhibits particle-like properties (I've read up on the double slit experiment).
Imagine we have a traveling photon. If we could freeze time, or just take a snapshot of an instant in time, would that photon still exist? Do photons exist in individual instants? Or do they need the progression of instants (the flow of time) to exist?
I suppose I could ask this question of absolutely anything, but the photon is what came up in conversation, I think because it seems to me currently like an intrinsic property of a photon is its motion.
I haven't had a formal education about photons or quantum mechanics, so all I know is what I've read about outside the classroom, but a buddy and I have been talking about them, as we've reached electromagnetic waves in our EM class. I know that a photon travels through space the way a wave would, but also exhibits particle-like properties (I've read up on the double slit experiment).
Imagine we have a traveling photon. If we could freeze time, or just take a snapshot of an instant in time, would that photon still exist? Do photons exist in individual instants? Or do they need the progression of instants (the flow of time) to exist?
I suppose I could ask this question of absolutely anything, but the photon is what came up in conversation, I think because it seems to me currently like an intrinsic property of a photon is its motion.