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Saturday, March 3, 2018

Speed of Light

Escaping Photons
Run, photons, run!
Question on Quora: Why don't physicists talk about the acceleration of light?

My answer: Because light only exists when it is traveling, and when it is traveling it is always traveling at the speed of light. Light does not accelerate. It comes into existence traveling at full speed.

Which got me wondering just how that happens. You have an atom in a highly excited state, and one electron decides it has had enough of being overly-excited and releases a quanta of energy and falls down one energy level. And that quanta of energy immediately leaves at the speed of light. It's just weird, man.

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1 comment:

  1. Ole Phat StuMarch 3, 2018 at 1:32:00 PM PST

    Photons do not experience time and so cannot accelerate/decelerate (in a vacuum).
    From the point of view of the photon, it is everywhere at the same time.
    Wrap your head around that, Chuck :-)

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