This kind of sad romantization of physical phenomena is weird to me.
I think romanticizing physical phenomena can be a really great tool to create a narrative and get people interested in the subject, or can just be a cool talking point about physics.
This example is pointless and kinda sad
If a photon from the sun misses the earth it will likely travel for billions of years into the void, most of them probably absorbed by random space dust.
So hitting earth or hitting a human could be considered cool depending how you sell the narrative.
It’s possible to tell many different narratives. I just dislike the sad ones. There are many more cool ones
I’m not as against these “sad narratives” as you are, but I still think that this one just doesn’t make much sense. Photons hit random planets and stuff all of the time, so arguably hitting a living sentient being is one of the coolest things that could happen to a photon.
I think, from the photon’s perspective, the time between emission and absorption is instantaneous (since they’re traveling at the speed of light). i imagine a photon’s journey would feel like utter chaos.
This kind of sad romantization of physical phenomena is weird to me.
I think romanticizing physical phenomena can be a really great tool to create a narrative and get people interested in the subject, or can just be a cool talking point about physics.
This example is pointless and kinda sad
If a photon from the sun misses the earth it will likely travel for billions of years into the void, most of them probably absorbed by random space dust. So hitting earth or hitting a human could be considered cool depending how you sell the narrative.
It’s possible to tell many different narratives. I just dislike the sad ones. There are many more cool ones
I’m not as against these “sad narratives” as you are, but I still think that this one just doesn’t make much sense. Photons hit random planets and stuff all of the time, so arguably hitting a living sentient being is one of the coolest things that could happen to a photon.
I think, from the photon’s perspective, the time between emission and absorption is instantaneous (since they’re traveling at the speed of light). i imagine a photon’s journey would feel like utter chaos.
Zero time and also zero distance due to length contraction