What is the excepted theory, to explain why light travels so fast.

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We know light can be created with relatively little energy much less than it takes to get an electron up-to to close to light speed, ie a simple torch, what’s the excepted way that light gets to light speed from these very low power levels. What makes it travel so fast?
I was considering the options, the flow of time as we see it is relative, or it’s being pulled by something, the absence of light acts like a magnet, etc etc, I actual have no clue and have yet to see any explanation, so I just wondered what is sciences current thinking.
 
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What is time, or more precisely, does time exist.

Time is like numbers, in fact, it is a subset of numbers, or better still, it belongs to the concept of numbers, or numbering system, it describes events.

Do numbers exist. The answer is a big NO with capital letters.

Yet, we use numbers every day, at school, shopping, etc. They are an invention of the human mind as they do not exist in nature, an invention that became necessary, initially, to communicate quantity, 1 sheep, 2 sheep, 3 sheep ..... etc.

As the use of numbers grew, they became more complex, developed its own logic structure, and generally, it was called mathematics, the study of numbers.

Because of certain events, the sun rises every day, the day yesterday is not the same as today or the day tomorrow. Living organisms, are born, stay alive for a certain period and then die, the human mind was forced to invent the concept of time, just like numbers.

However, later, tried to define it, more precisely. That is, which moment is past, which moment is now and which moment is future. And how about in between moments, is there really a time lapse - time ceases to exist, before it begins again.

To the point, including Albert Einstein, as some ancient Greeks, came to the conclusion, the past, present and future exist at the same time. The concept of time is an illusion but necessary to explain timely events.

...all of the above, in relation to your statement "I was considering the options, the flow of time as we see it is relative ....."

...and to be more succinct. An illusion just like the co-ordinates of an object's position.

As you were, probably, taught at school, we need three co-ordinates: xyz to define position, other argue the time as well.

If you were in space, how any combination of the above co-ordinates would identify, your position in space. Can you tell the position of the earth, say, an hour ago, in space. The space co-ordinates, in other words.
 
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Because of certain events, the sun rises every day, the day yesterday is not the same as today or the day tomorrow. Living organisms, are born, stay alive for a certain period and then die, the human mind was forced to invent the concept of time, just like numbers.
Time exists. There is nothing you can do about that. Claiming that time exists will not change that. There is no rational reason to attempt to deny the existence of time. More people believe the Earth is flat than believe that time does not exist. In fact, you might be the only one.
To the point, including Albert Einstein, as some ancient Greeks, came to the conclusion, the past, present and future exist at the same time. The concept of time is an illusion but necessary to explain timely events.
That is not true. Even in your example above, you use time in your claim. Time has existed for as long as the Universe has existed, and will continue to exist either until the Universe no longer exists, or on into infinity.
 
..... to cut a long story short.

If you don't mind. Define past, present and future either mathematically or without maths OR what is the time interval between past, present and future.



If you do so, I will accept your premise that time exist. ....and how about the Michelson-Morley experiment
 
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..... to cut a long story short.
If you don't mind. Define past, present and future either mathematically or without maths.
If you do so, I will accept your premise that time exist.
That is a completely disingenuous request. Based upon your comments, there is no definition that you will accept. Regardless of which of several ways I might choose to use, you will merely argue against it, basing your argument upon the basis for your irrational “time does not exist” premise.

I am not going to play that game.
 
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..... I do not argue, I follow certain rules, above all EXPERIMENTAL evidence, hence, my id on this forum THEORY and EXPERIMENT.


Subsequently, added the following

OR what is the time interval between past, present and future.

If you do so, I will accept your premise that time exist. ....and how about the Michelson-Morley experiment

But you may have responded before reading the above.
 
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Let me introduce you some ideas, Mental Avenger, to kick start the discussion.

If past, present or future has time duration, for example between 1 to 2 secs then not only logically but empirically ( something to which you respond automatically, that is without thinking) does not sound correct.

For example, arbitrary thinking - you have to start somewhere, a ball in flight, at 1 second is at such and such place, at 1.5 sec, obviously has changed position and you can assume at 2 sec it would be in the future.

So, the next step, is to reduce the time interval. But how small this time interval must be so as to exclude the other two.

Can we use the nanosecond, one billion of a second. Unfortunately, NO. Because light in that time interval will travel 30 centimeters. big enough distance to include all three. Past, Present and Future.

What if we use the speed of light as reference, again NO. Because it has been found that the outer perimeter of the electron moves faster than light.

So it appears any time interval will involve all three states, the past, the present and the future.
 
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What is time, or more precisely, does time exist.

Time is like numbers, in fact, it is a subset of numbers, or better still, it belongs to the concept of numbers, or numbering system, it describes events.

Do numbers exist. The answer is a big NO with capital letters.

Yet, we use numbers every day, at school, shopping, etc. They are an invention of the human mind as they do not exist in nature, an invention that became necessary, initially, to communicate quantity, 1 sheep, 2 sheep, 3 sheep ..... etc.

As the use of numbers grew, they became more complex, developed its own logic structure, and generally, it was called mathematics, the study of numbers.

Because of certain events, the sun rises every day, the day yesterday is not the same as today or the day tomorrow. Living organisms, are born, stay alive for a certain period and then die, the human mind was forced to invent the concept of time, just like numbers.

However, later, tried to define it, more precisely. That is, which moment is past, which moment is now and which moment is future. And how about in between moments, is there really a time lapse - time ceases to exist, before it begins again.

To the point, including Albert Einstein, as some ancient Greeks, came to the conclusion, the past, present and future exist at the same time. The concept of time is an illusion but necessary to explain timely events.

...all of the above, in relation to your statement "I was considering the options, the flow of time as we see it is relative ....."

...and to be more succinct. An illusion just like the co-ordinates of an object's position.

As you were, probably, taught at school, we need three co-ordinates: xyz to define position, other argue the time as well.

If you were in space, how any combination of the above co-ordinates would identify, your position in space. Can you tell the position of the earth, say, an hour ago, in space. The space co-ordinates, in other words.
Times existence as a thing other than what we use it for is a pointless argument.
You say time doesn’t exist yet you cannot undo anything you have done so something prevents you from doing so if it’s not time in the sense that we measure with clocks so be it, but if something prevents us from going back to a point we haven’t done something we did a second ago on what we measure with clocks, saying time doesn’t exist is fine but it is a reality. if you can show we can go back to a point in what we call time and not do something we once did as if it never happened then I will say time as we perceive it doesn’t exist.
To prove time doesn’t exist you need to show it’s possible to completely undo an action as if it never happened?

The fact that’s not possible for us, proves some law of the universe says in our reality effect follows cause and can never be the other way around.
We call this time rightly or wrongly, we also say it flows at one rate again rightly our wrongly but as effect alway follows cause the thing we call time exists.
I think what your looking for is time is relative, to the observer, and what we call time is being observed from every point at the same time so all time ever exists at the same point within the universe but we only see time from a linear point of view, that doesn’t dispel time as a thing it more says we experience time differently to the universe say. As humans we experience time in one way as the universe it experiences time as an instant.
So the observer is the important aspect to the flow of time. This is why I asked the question light in my eyes experiences time in a different way to us it makes light look to move at high speeds but that’s only relative to our experience and observation of what we call time.

So your right to the universe maybe time doesn’t exist but to us it does so both are true it’s just our observational perspective.
 
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If we say time is measured at many different rates from instant(so no time as we measure it) to the crawl of what we call time in a black hole. And it’s our observational perspective of the passage of time that forms our understanding of the passage of time, doesn’t remove time as a thing only that it can vary.

If we can say times as we call it can vary we cannot exclude time as in the entirety of it can also be seen as an instant as in it can all be seen and interacted with all at the same time in some way so to move outside what we call time to a state where we can see all of time and move to see anything that happened at any point in what we call time, but I think in that state we cannot do more than observe we lose the ability to interact with it. To us it becomes fixed if we retain the ability to change the universe around us. So possibly as our influences on the universe increases so does our ability to interact with time, so blackholes have big influences so slow time light so big influence on the rate time as we see it, switch that to light which has an almost passive influence so small influence equals quick time. Etc etc.
 
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IMO L travels at the max wave speed of the quantum fluctuation.
Time yes but not as a substance only an effect.
Is the quantum fluctuation powering its traveling at that speed.
Infinitesimally small power sources can generate light but it still travels at the speed of light in a vacuum which seems odd against the effort it takes to get electrons up-to close to the speed of light.
Why does one take little to no power to travel that fast and the other far more.
It just boggles the mind
 
Is the quantum fluctuation powering its traveling at that speed.
Infinitesimally small power sources can generate light but it still travels at the speed of light in a vacuum which seems odd against the effort it takes to get electrons up-to close to the speed of light.
Why does one take little to no power to travel that fast and the other far more.
It just boggles the mind
The vacuum of space, me, you, inside stars and everything has quantum fluctuation happening in pretty much the same activity levels.
Think of it like a universe full of static electricity that takes up every space.
 
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The vacuum of space, me, you, inside stars and everything has quantum fluctuation happening in pretty much the same activity levels.
Think of it like a universe full of static electricity that takes up every space.
Ok but what makes one thing fly about on that imagined static electricity with seemingly no resistance and other things just not like radio waves they are fast but not as fast as light.
Is light anti quantum fluctuation so in essence it has a big interaction with the universes QF so it’s repealed from it at the speed of light from all matter or the opposite it’s in harmony with it so it has no effect on it. So it’s a ghost to these interactions?

When we comparing my electron to a photon one needing way more energy to get close to light speed where the other just travels as if by magic is it, because of there interaction with other matter ie the electron just wants to interact while the photon just wants to get to where it’s going in as straight a line as possible?

I think it’s important we understand how light does what it does. What to me it’s like, is it’s treating our universe as if it’s a super conductor it offers it no resistance to lights movement or it actually accelerates it, or charging it?

Cheers for any responses to my random questions. :)
 
My guess would be wave interference.
Light probably have no wave interference and everything else does.

I think the speed of light is trying to tell us something else about the real makeup of the universe.

I think if we could get around trying to speed through the universe and simply create a zone with no fluctuation the law would change and the effect of time would alter or vanish altogether.
In that bubble we would become an effect and be able to traverse the universe in no time even at 1 mph.

Now creating that Void?

I did read an interesting paper on just that done in microscopic levels and the results were pretty strange.
Will hunt it out if your interested?
 
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My guess would be wave interference.
Light probably have no wave interference and everything else does.

I think the speed of light is trying to tell us something else about the real makeup of the universe.

I think if we could get around trying to speed through the universe and simply create a zone with no fluctuation the law would change and the effect of time would alter or vanish altogether.
In that bubble we would become an effect and be able to traverse the universe in no time even at 1 mph.

Now creating that Void?

I did read an interesting paper on just that done in microscopic levels and the results were pretty strange.
Will hunt it out if your interested?
I am always interested in strange.

Ok I was reading this

The last section about the speed of light being constant regardless of the speed your traveling.

Then we have that it’s expected the universal constants we use for the likes of atomic clocks can be shifted by the speed they are moving, which has been experimental proven.
Then throw in time dilation where the flow of time will at least appear to alter as we accelerate Close to the speed of light.

All these factors seem to point to light not being in our temporal flow.
If I am traveling at say 10% of the speed of light and lights speed is still constant and not reduced by 10% then that would point to that light and me are not traveling in the same time frame the universe I am traveling in is different to the one it’s in.

Then we have time dilation we theorise that we would notice time dilation if we started to travel at speeds close to light and possible well before that if we could measure it accurately, why are we then not assuming light is not experiencing the same effect that it’s relative experience of what we call time is different.
This begs the question if light is experiencing time dilation because of its relative speed, what does that mean if light is suffering from time dilation then is time flowing somehow much faster?

We know what we call time has to be flowing much faster than light or we could not measure lights speed. Because light would travel in what would appear as an instant would it not?

So :) ok if you got to this bit of my rambling mind you have the patience of a saint.
Have I got that final part backwards, if we were in a slower temporal rate ie in a black hole would light appear to be traveling instantly? If light is traveling at a constant speed that includes in the mega time dilation of a black hole, ie it’s unaffected by the black holes time dilation, would light then appear to be instant or a lot faster to an observer under the effect of the time dilation of the black Hole?

medals for anyone who made it this far :)
Thanks for any responses to my further ramblings.
 
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Ok my mind is exploding. This is all likely rubbish but hear goes.

If we assume we are moving through time but at a slower rate than light so light appears to be fast, and no matter how fast we travel light has the same speed, then light is in a different temporal flow rate to us somehow. now the fact we are in a slower one, means light appears fast, but not instant, so the fact we can measure its speed and see it move, does that mean it’s moving inside something faster?

Ok let’s be light for a second,
if let’s say light in its theoretical temporal frame rate is only moving at what we would call 1km/hr which, for it would require little to no energy to do, (which makes sense if we look at what little power is needed to create photons. )
It’s still moving through what we call time, so time is still quicker right?

I suppose if we assume that light is the fastest natural thing there is, then the maximum temporal rate would be one where light appears not to move?
 
Ok my mind is exploding. This is all likely rubbish but hear goes.

If we assume we are moving through time but at a slower rate than light so light appears to be fast, and no matter how fast we travel light has the same speed, then light is in a different temporal flow rate to us somehow. now the fact we are in a slower one, means light appears fast, but not instant, so the fact we can measure its speed and see it move, does that mean it’s moving inside something faster?

Ok let’s be light for a second,
if let’s say light in its theoretical temporal frame rate is only moving at what we would call 1km/hr which, for it would require little to no energy to do, (which makes sense if we look at what little power is needed to create photons. )
It’s still moving through what we call time, so time is still quicker right?

I suppose if we assume that light is the fastest natural thing there is, then the maximum temporal rate would be one where light appears not to move?
Not rubbish at all.

IMO light moves at the distance of the smallest quantum leap.
The leap distance an electron moves when decay causes an atom to loose energy and leap down one orbit.
(helium decays to hydrogen)

Light i think wants to move instantly fast but the wave of the quantum sets a max speed limit for light.
The particle nature of light moves through empty space but is set at the max wave speed so it can't travel any faster.

Traveling at L speed is in all essence traveling at Time so when you do you instantly zip across the universe, we see 14.6 billion years pass but light in it's perspective makes the trip instantly.
 
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"Light i think wants to move instantly fast but the wave of the quantum sets a max speed limit for light."

"The particle nature of light moves through empty space but is set at the max wave speed so it can't travel any faster "

Can you elaborate on: ..... but the wave of the quantum sets a max speed limit for light; what do you mean by "..... the wave of the quantum..." ; Can you describe it? ; and

"The particle nature of light moves through empty space..." 2 questions arise: what do you mean by "The particle nature of light...." How do you picture this in your mind; and

"moves through empty space" Is space empty ?
 
"Light i think wants to move instantly fast but the wave of the quantum sets a max speed limit for light."

"The particle nature of light moves through empty space but is set at the max wave speed so it can't travel any faster "

Can you elaborate on: ..... but the wave of the quantum sets a max speed limit for light; what do you mean by "..... the wave of the quantum..." ; Can you describe it? ; and

"The particle nature of light moves through empty space..." 2 questions arise: what do you mean by "The particle nature of light...." How do you picture this in your mind; and

"moves through empty space" Is space empty ?
That is just a guess why light moves at it's speed.
The universe is filled with quantum fluctuation but it also has empty space between the quantum areas, quantum fluctuation and empty space.
The quantum leap proves something is missing in a quantum jump to lower orbit, bet it's empty space.

The duality of light is just that light measured can be either particle or wave, i think my idea gives a good reason why.

I love simple solutions to complex problems :)

Classic physics would fill most of this board explaining how and why light moves at it's speed and why it is a particle/wave moving in time/space.
IMO not a simple or straightforward solution riddled with long math calculations.
 
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I have been reading those comments throwing around terminology such as “quantum fluctuation”, “max wave speed of the quantum fluctuation”, “smallest quantum leap”. And “quantum jump to lower orbit”. While mildly entertaining, it is merely an exercise in pseudo-speculation. Even the scientists whose work includes Quantum Mechanics understand that it is just a theory that allows them to make suppositions about things they can never directly measure, What they refer to as the quantum nature (discrete incremental movement) of the properties of things they cannot directly observe, may well be due to the indirect nature and limitations of their measurements, not the limitations of that which they are trying to observe. In fact, the Uncertainty Principle could be the direct result of the inability to measure discrete particles at that level.
The Wave/Particle Duality of light is a great example, showing that they don’t really understand what they are trying to observe. In their attempt to ascribe macro characteristics to sub-micro particles, they have literally proven that light is neither a wave nor a particle, but something for which there is no macro analogy. Therefore, trying to explain how something we cannot describe, moves through something else we cannot describe, is rather pointless.

Light apparently gets from one place to another, and does so predictably enough for most practical purposes. Perhaps it would be more constructive to focus on how light interacts with other objects, substances, or forces.
 
There is a lot of space out there. How much space is empty and how much is filled with quantum fluctuations. And how about the speed of light in Empty Space.


I came across this web page: https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-say-they-ve-managed-to-manipulate-pure-nothingness

A lot of mis-information in it. I am quoting just a paragraph:

"But a byproduct of one of the most fundamental principles in quantum mechanics, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, states that there's a limit to how much we can know about quantum particles, and as a result, a vacuum isn't empty, it's actually buzzing with its own strange energy, and filled with particle-antiparticle pairs that appear and disappear randomly. "


It equates the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle ....and comes to the conclusion to the vacuum of space NOT been empty. How can a principle can lead to a general conclusion of ALL space ....not been empty, is a mystery to me.

Generally, speaking, the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says, if you know the value of one complimentary pair with a high precision , the less you know about the value of the other part of the pair.
 
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what’s the excepted way that light gets to light speed from these very low power levels.
Before this thread continues, perhaps you could explain to us what you are looking for. While there might be some value in finding the accepted way that light gets to light speed, the value of the excepted way that light gets to light speed is unclear, especially since there may be a great many of those.
 
It is not just the power levels, there are factors which control light speed, such as refraction. Light changes it speed as it passes from one medium to another, this is evident by the change in its direction.

How does then "...the wave of the quantum..." sets the speed of light, say water. (I am looking for the general idea.)


Further, interesting news from this website:





"Scientists have apparently broken the universe’s speed limit.



For generations, physicists believed there is nothing faster than light moving through a vacuum - a speed of 186,000 miles per second. But in an experiment in Princeton, N.J., physicists sent a pulse of laser light through cesium vapor so quickly that it left the chamber before it had even finished entering.



The pulse traveled 310 times the distance it would have covered if the chamber had contained a vacuum.

This seems to contradict not only common sense, but also a bedrock principle of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which sets the speed of light in a vacuum, about 186,000 miles per second, as the fastest that anything can go.

But the findings--the long-awaited first clear evidence of faster-than-light motion--are "not at odds with Einstein," said Lijun Wang, who with colleagues at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., report their results in today’s issue of the journal Nature.

"However," Wang said, "our experiment does show that the generally held misconception that ’nothing can move faster than the speed of light’ is wrong."
Nothing with mass can exceed the light-speed limit. But physicists now believe that a pulse of light--which is a group of massless individual waves--can.

To demonstrate that, the researchers created a carefully doctored vapor of laser-irradiated atoms that twist, squeeze and ultimately boost the speed of light waves in such abnormal ways that a pulse shoots through the vapor in about 1/300th the time it would take the pulse to go the same distance in a vacuum.

As a general rule, light travels more slowly in any medium more dense than a vacuum (which, by definition, has no density at all). For example, in water, light travels at about three-fourths its vacuum speed; in glass, it’s around two-thirds.

The ratio between the speed of light in a vacuum and its speed in a material is called the refractive index. The index can be changed slightly by altering the chemical or physical structure of the medium. Ordinary glass has a refractive index around 1.5."



But by adding a bit of lead, it rises to 1.6.



The slower speed, and greater bending, of light waves accounts for the more sprightly sparkle of lead crystal glass."
 
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