RS2--daniel

I am having a hard time getting my head around a seemingly very simple idea. In Larson's Structure of the Physical Universe, he states on page 12 that a photon is one-dimensional. How can anything that is observable be one-dimensional? It would seem that something that is one-dimensional would be unobservable and just a retro-engineered assumption based on the observable three-dimensional space with live in. If you can see it, it has length, height, and width, however small those dimensions may be. Since a photon has mass it has to have all of those three dimensions, yes? So how can it be considered one-dimensional?

Or perhaps photons do not have mass. When the discussions progressed about photons having particle and wave-like characteristics, I assumed the particle characteristics meant it had some type of observable mass. Is this incorrect?

Kano wrote:I am having a hard time getting my head around a seemingly very simple idea. In Larson's Structure of the Physical Universe, he states on page 12 that a photon is one-dimensional. How can anything that is observable be one-dimensional? It would seem that something that is one-dimensional would be unobservable and just a retro-engineered assumption based on the observable three-dimensional space with live in. If you can see it, it has length, height, and width, however small those dimensions may be. Since a photon has mass it has to have all of those three dimensions, yes? So how can it be considered one-dimensional?

It only requires one dimension of motion to represent it (a single speed called frequency), with the other two dimensions at unity. It is projected onto a 3D spatial grid as a point particle, and onto the 3D temporal grid as a planar wave.

Kano wrote:Or perhaps photons do not have mass. When the discussions progressed about photons having particle and wave-like characteristics, I assumed the particle characteristics meant it had some type of observable mass. Is this incorrect?

Mass is defined by the net, 3-dimensional temporal displacement. Since the photon only has one active dimension (the other two being unit speed), it would have the 1-dimensional analog of mass commonly referred to as an electron volt.

Consider what E=mc^2 actually means... energy = mass x speed^2. Energy is work; the amount of time it takes to push something a distance, or t/s. Speed is obviously s/t. So E (t/s) = m (s/t)^2. Solve for m, and you get mass = (t/s)^3 -- mass is simply 3-dimensional energy and that's what the formula says.

daniel wrote:

Kano wrote:I am having a hard time getting my head around a seemingly very simple idea. In Larson's Structure of the Physical Universe, he states on page 12 that a photon is one-dimensional. How can anything that is observable be one-dimensional? It would seem that something that is one-dimensional would be unobservable and just a retro-engineered assumption based on the observable three-dimensional space with live in. If you can see it, it has length, height, and width, however small those dimensions may be. Since a photon has mass it has to have all of those three dimensions, yes? So how can it be considered one-dimensional?

It only requires one dimension of motion to represent it (a single speed called frequency), with the other two dimensions at unity. It is projected onto a 3D spatial grid as a point particle, and onto the 3D temporal grid as a planar wave.

Kano wrote:Or perhaps photons do not have mass. When the discussions progressed about photons having particle and wave-like characteristics, I assumed the particle characteristics meant it had some type of observable mass. Is this incorrect?

Mass is defined by the net, 3-dimensional temporal displacement. Since the photon only has one active dimension (the other two being unit speed), it would have the 1-dimensional analog of mass commonly referred to as an electron volt.

Consider what E=mc^2 actually means... energy = mass x speed^2. Energy is work; the amount of time it takes to push something a distance, or t/s. Speed is obviously s/t. So E (t/s) = m (s/t)^2. Solve for m, and you get mass = (t/s)^3 -- mass is simply 3-dimensional energy and that's what the formula says.

Ok, thanks very much. I have never had it put like that before. Now I need to mull it over. Cheers!

I heard Bashar (entity channeled by Darryl Anka) refer to "light" (I believe it was more of an analogy, but still) as some kind of a membrane...
And I don't remember if it's you Daniel who said that we should rather talk about our "speed/frequency of perception" instead of the "speed of light".
What I mean is this: isn't the photon in a sense just a point (1D) in this membrane (2D) ?
Could this simple analogy be used to explain it, or is it scientifically problematic ?

AzertyLSD wrote:And I don't remember if it's you Daniel who said that we should rather talk about our "speed/frequency of perception" instead of the "speed of light".

No, that was not me. The "speed of light" is just a reference from which we make physical measurements; it the curved line between the yin and yang halves of the taijitu.

When it comes to perception, the analogous boundary separates the conscious from the unconscious and is a bit "fuzzier" in that it is an overlapped zone, analogous to the center, eye-shaped area of the vesica piscis. The "speed of perception" zone is called the "subconscious" in psychology.

AzertyLSD wrote:What I mean is this: isn't the photon in a sense just a point (1D) in this membrane (2D) ?
Could this simple analogy be used to explain it, or is it scientifically problematic ?

The photon is a scalar motion (a ratio of space to time). In the natural reference system, the only property the photon has is speed, which we call frequency.

When that speed is drawn on 3D space, we get a point particle, since we normalize speed to space by casting a shadow towards zero--a point.

When the same speed is drawn on 3D time, we get a waveform, since the shadow is cast towards infinity, making the waveform to be of infinite length (versus zero length of the point).

Remember there are three factors involved... the "natural" motion (reality), the "material" illusion into 3D space (towards zero) and the "cosmic" illusion in 3D time (towards infinity).