Traveling at speed of light, and time.

AI Thread Summary
As objects approach the speed of light, time slows down for them, leading to the conclusion that light photons do not experience time at all. This raises the question of whether photons can be considered "older," but it is argued that discussing time in relation to photons is nonsensical. Instead, photons can be conceptualized as timeless line segments connecting two points in spacetime, avoiding the complexities of their movement. The discussion also touches on a humorous anecdote about a conference where the concept of Hilbert space was questioned, paralleling the confusion surrounding the nature of photons and spacetime. Ultimately, the nature of time for massless particles like photons remains a complex and abstract topic.
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It has been stated that as something approaches the speed of light, time slows down for that object.

Since light photons are traveling at the speed of light, does that make them even older?
 
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light does not experience time.
 
cragar said:
light does not experience time.

That's pretty much it. It doesn't even make sense to talk about time for a photon. Consider 'time' as something only massive particles have to deal with.
 
One way to think about photons is that they are a straight, static, timeless line segment joining two points in spacetime.

This avoids the tricky concept that they "start here", "stop there", and "go from here to there in between".
 
DaveC426913 said:
One way to think about photons is that they are a straight, static, timeless line segment joining two points in spacetime.

This avoids the tricky concept that they "start here", "stop there", and "go from here to there in between".

You're saying <a straight, static, timeless etc... I think we all agree on that. Although the way you put it, it reminded me of long time ago and a conference in Berlin where they were discussing the newly acquired <Hilbert space>. After a while Prof. Hilbert poked his elbow into his friend's ribs sitting next to him and said: <what are they talking about, what is this <hilbert-space> (maybe it is an old joke). If our photon could say his side of the story, it would say: <spacetime>? what is he talking about?
 

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