Graviton and photon point particles in reality

[Landru]

Suppose you have a fine layer of dust facing perpendicular to a strong gravitational body. If gravitons are point particles then could you expect to observe the gravitons pulling at the dust particles one by one as they come into contact with the dust or would the dust move uniformly closer to the gravitational body and reveal no specific points of gravity and gravitons?

Simalarly, if you have a straw with a photon detector at the bass and you point the head of the straw towards a distant star would you observe an unbroken stream of photons from that light source or would photon detection be hit and miss? If it is a constant stream, then how is a distant light source able to emit such a fine mist of point particles over such a vast area between itself and the detector?

 

[azntoon]

The answer to both questions is no. Gravitons are not point particles, but rather quantum fluctuations of the spacetime metric that propagate at the speed of light. As such, they do not have a discrete or localized effect on a dust particle; instead, the gravitational field would be felt uniformly across the dust layer and would cause all the dust particles to move closer to the gravitational body at the same time. Similarly, individual photons from a distant star can only be detected if they interact with the detector, which is a hit-or-miss process. Photons travel in a continuous stream, but due to their small size, they are spread out over the entire distance between the star and the detector.