Could spacetime be an infinitely stretched/redshifted photon?
- Thread starter Cyperium
- Start date
Is that some eccentric twist to or a radical replacement plug-in for the one-electron universe trope or slot?
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foghorn
Valued Senior Member
I’m not really sure where you’re coming from, so I’m going to reply to ‘my guess’.
If the photon is a regular wave in an electromagnetic field, then it's awkward to think of a wave without the concepts of space or time.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Diplomatically put.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
The word you are looking for rhymes with bollocksDiplomatically put.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Isn't that like asking if it's possible to separate a red-shifted photon from reality?
A photon is quite different from a notion. So, yes, it is certainly possible. Most people who know what photons and notions are already do it.
Yes, of course, one can't exist without the other, an infinitely stretched photon would be indistinguishable from spacetime, but could it be distinguishable from an electromagnetic field without any perturbations? In other words, the existence of a photon is determined by the perturbation of the electromagnetic field, but if that photon that have its existence defined through the perturbation becomes infinitely stretched would that photon stop existing because the field that defined it becomes flat? If so, then the electromagnetic field itself is just an infinitely stretched photon.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Would it?
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "stretched" since that it not a well-defined term when it comes to photons. The most obvious interpretation is that you mean "red-shifted", as in "an infinitely red-shifted photon".
I am not sure that is possible, since I believe it would have zero energy.
But the question that arises is better put back to you: in what specific way(s) do you think space-time behaves like an infinitely red-shifted photon?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
By infinitely stretched, I presume you mean its wavelength would be infinitely long and thus its frequency would be zero. That would imply its energy and momentum were both zero and there would be no change in the value of the electromagnetic field with time - no oscillation.
It would not be a photon.
But if you insist on trying to consider infinities, you should not be surprised to get silly results.
What's the point of this? The EM field of QFT pervades the universe (along with the other fields), and sports its distinct excitations called photons. What purpose does declaring that the whole field is a stretched photon serve? It would still be populated with countless ripples, each interpreted as an instance of that type of boson particle, and thereby is indistinguishable from the original conception.
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Why not? One could imagine a universe in which there were no photons but there was still space and time.
You're still making no sense.
Spacetime is the backdrop against which events take place. Photons, on the other hand, are quantum particles.
It doesn't matter how much you stretch a quantum particle. It will never turn into spacetime or become indistinguishable from it.
Besides, if by "stretch a photon infinitely" you mean you're making its wavelength infinite, then that would mean it has no energy and it no longer exists.
Photons are excitations of the electromagnetic field.
Yes. A zero-energy excitation of a field is no excitation at all.
No. Photons are excitations of the electromagnetic field. The electromagnetic field isn't a photon.
I don't see any way that it *doesn't* behave like a infinitely red-shifted photon. Maybe *that is* the behavior of spacetime. Why do we need a seperation of spacetime and the electromagnetic field at all? In the end, shouldn't it all be the same?
Well, you wouldn't be surprised to know that any field is just an mathematical abstraction anyway, if we consider the field as an infinitely stretched photon (or wave of the electromagnetic field) then the field itself *is* the photon at it's lowest energy state that it can be at, which isn't zero because it had energy to begin with. But how to represent a non-zero energy when infinitely stretched? Well, maybe with perturbations happening seperated by time and space in just the right amount dispersed through it all? Which could then be the "quantum foam" that we can measure and being the non-zero background energy of spacetime.
The point would be a better understanding of what it actually is, and who knows, maybe someone good at maths can take the idea and merge the electromagnetic field with spacetime, which would be a great feat wouldn't you think? That everything is the same *thing* seem to be what everything points to, a step in that direction wouldn't be too far fetched.
But the field itself is only defined by mathematical abstractions, there are no actual vectors/directions/arrows, it's just an abstraction, you are talking about the abstraction as if it was a thing. Seeing it as a photon stretched infinitely would make it a thing that actually exists, the energy it holds would be quantum foam that we can measure, it would be a superposition of all the fields into one *thing*. Which is ultimately what we expect a theory of everything to produce. After all, there should have been, at least in the first moment of spacetime, a moment where everything was the same thing.
Yes, so why treat them as a seperate entity from what it ultimately produces when excited? But furthermore, why couldn't spacetime and the various fields be the same thing?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
That's not really an answer. This is your idea; you need to elaborate.
For one: spacetime has four extended dimensions: three of space, one of time. It spans the entire universe, and all things we know of exist within it.
That seems to have nothing to do with a photon.