Could the (SR) forbidden photon's own referential mean something?

[drzbigniew31]

TL;DR

If special relativity implies dτ = 0 and zero proper distance for a photon between emission and absorption, and quantum mechanics already accepts discrete transitions/teleportation, why do we insist that the photon's "perspective" is meaningless instead of asking what ontology would be consistent with both theories?

Hey everyone, undergrad here. Just took my first SR course and something's been bugging me. I know this is probably a dumb question, but I'd really appreciate it if someone could point out where my logic breaks.

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Step 1 – What SR says (as I understand it):

• For a photon, proper time dτ = 0.
• If we (naively) try to go into the photon's "frame", the Lorentz transformations blow up.
• The standard interpretation: "The photon has no rest frame, end of story."

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Step 2 – What bothers me:

If dτ = 0, that means no time passes for the photon between emission and absorption.

Also, in its own (forbidden) frame, the spatial distance traveled would be zero as well (length contraction to zero).

So logically: the photon disappears at A and appears at B, with zero elapsed time and zero distance traveled from its own perspective.

Isn't that... exactly what we call teleportation?

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Step 3 – But we already accept teleportation in QM:

• Electrons jump orbitals without passing through the space in between.
• Quantum teleportation experiments literally destroy a state at A and recreate it at B, with no continuous trajectory.
• Photons themselves mediate interactions via virtual photons that don't obey the usual dispersion relation.

So the concept of "discrete, non-continuous propagation" isn't alien to physics.

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Step 4 – Here's where I start sounding crazy (sorry in advance):

If the photon really teleports (ontologically), then the speed c = 300,000 km/s isn't a "speed" in the classical sense. It's just the effective rate at which teleportation events happen, as measured from our external reference frame.

And if that's the case... why would teleportation have a distance limit?

We accept quantum teleportation over a few meters, then kilometers, then satellite distances. No one says "beyond this range, teleportation stops and continuous motion takes over."

So why do we implicitly assume that the photon's "teleportation" is limited to microscopic scales? Where exactly is the cutoff written in the equations?

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Step 5 – The paradox I can't resolve (please help):

If the universe is fundamentally continuous at macroscopic scales but discrete at microscopic scales, where is the transition?

Is there a precise distance (1 mm? 1 meter? 1 light-year?) after which the photon stops teleporting and starts moving continuously?

And if not... then isn't the only consistent ontology one where everything teleports (and continuity is an illusion of coarse-graining)?

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Step 6 – And here's where I'm really sticking my neck out (QM + GR):

I know people say QM and GR don't play well together. But this particular tension — discrete vs continuous, local vs non-local — seems to sit right at the intersection of both theories.

From the QM side, we have discrete transitions and teleportation. From the GR side, the photon's null geodesic literally has dτ = 0 and, if we naively push the math, suggests zero proper spatial displacement too.

So my dumb undergrad question is: could the inconsistency between QM and GR be softened if we just admitted that the photon (and maybe everything) teleports, and that "continuous propagation at c" is just how our low-resolution detectors perceive a fundamentally discrete process?

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Look, I fully expect to get roasted here. I know I'm the new guy, and this probably sounds like the kind of "deep thought" every freshman has before being politely destroyed by people who actually understand the math.

But I genuinely want to learn. So please: tell me where I went wrong.

Is there an experiment that distinguishes between "photon moves continuously" vs "photon teleports"?

Or is this just one of those things we accept because the math works, and asking "what really happens" is considered philosophy, not physics?

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

So logically: the photon disappears at A and appears at B, with zero elapsed time and zero distance traveled from its own perspective.

It makes no sence to speak of the perspective of a photon because a rest-frame of a photon does not exist.

 

[Ibix]

You cannot define the rest frame of a light pulse in relativity because such a frame is explicitly forbidden by the second postulate of relativity. Light cannot be at rest and travelling at $c$. You can certainly define coordinate systems where light is at rest, but they are not frames (which is the usual interpretation of "perspective").

Light pulses should have associated gravitational fields. That makes it hard to imagine light teleporting anywhere, since you can (in principle) detect its passage via its gravitational effect.

 

[Dale]

For a photon, proper time dτ = 0.

Proper time is not 0 for a photon, it is undefined.

Sticking with science and not philosophy, QFT is the QM theory that is compatible with SR. So this merging of the quantum and relativistic perspectives is already accomplished.

So logically: the photon disappears at A and appears at B, with zero elapsed time and zero distance traveled from its own perspective.

No, this is not logical. The coordinates you describe are not logically valid. All coordinates must be one-to-one and what you describe is not.

 

[Dale]

Posting AI generated content is not permitted here. This thread is closed but the topic is not. If @drzbigniew31 would like to start a new thread in their own words they are welcome to do so.