[–] Dalroc 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
Yes, you got that right. The photon is everywhere along its path at the same time from it's own perspective. All spacetime distances are zero for a photon.
Source: Have soon earned my bachelors degree in Astronomy and read a relativity course this summer.
[–] [deleted] 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago (edited ago)
[–] allogonist 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Here what you are seeing is the group velocity of a wave front of many photons. The opposite effect might be shining a laser pointer at the moon and noticing that the dot moves across the moon's surface faster than the speed of light. No actual photon is ever observed going any speed other than C.
That femtosecond camera is freggin awesome though.
[–] allogonist 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
You know I almost got into a fight with my physics prof over this one because he just kept saying "light has no relative point of view" and although he frustrated me at the time, technically he was correct. Since the very definition of light says it moves at the speed of light in every reference frame it simply can't have a reference frame of its own. By being stubborn he forced me to rethink my perspective on what light actually was, and I stopped thinking of it as a magical ball of stuff that moves through space like a bullet that eventually hits something.
Indeed the "perspective" of a photon would be a strange one...but mostly because the universe would look so difference that the idea of "photon" would no longer have meaning.
[–] drakesdoom 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
I think it would be more accurate to say to the photon it never moves. Space is so warped from its point of view that origin and destination are indistinguishable.
[–] Arduous_Armadillo ago
...huh.
[–] allogonist ago
It moves not through space, because to a photon space does not exist. Source and destination exist at different points in time, but the distance between them is zero.