Timeline for Does a photon in vacuum have a rest frame?

6 events

when toggle format	what		by	license	comment
Jul 10, 2023 at 14:09	comment	added	Robert Frost		I understand how at light speed (i.e. a photon) the problem of no rest frame exists, but what about if we ask ourselves about the limit as something approaches light speed. What does the world look like in the limit? Is that a legitimate question I might ask here do you think?
Aug 6, 2014 at 1:11	history	edited	dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten	CC BY-SA 3.0	Fix a long standing problem that no one called me on...we read what we expect or something.
Oct 25, 2011 at 18:26	vote	accept	Physiks lover
Oct 21, 2011 at 20:41	comment	added	Vladimir Kalitvianski		And in QM the photon energy is $\hbar\omega$ and $\omega$ in a medium is the same, so $m_{photon}=0$.
Oct 21, 2011 at 19:58	comment	added	FrankH		I agree completely with @dmckee and would only add that for any particle the elapsed time experienced by that particle in it's rest frame is called the proper time and can be calculated (in units where $c=1$) by any observer as $$d\tau^2 = dt^2 - d\vec{x}^2$$ and for a photon in a vacuum the proper time is always identically $0$. So photons do not experience any passage of time so in that sense also, they do not have a rest frame.
Oct 21, 2011 at 19:11	history	answered	dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten	CC BY-SA 3.0