A revolution in thought

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

I agree! What happens is that the camera records light - the color and intensity of it. So we are agreed that a camera records light that comes in through the lens and is captured on a senor-array?

You do not take a picture of lightwaves. Light hits a tiny little sensor in the camera. The sensor records the brightness and the color, and translates that to a dot - a pixel - of a specific color. Several million pixels together make a picture. Thus we take a picture just with delayed light. The light source does not even need to exist anymore - as long as the light is still in transit.

It is remarkably similar to how our eyes work: a lens focusses the light on little sensors - rods and cones in the case of our eyes. In my own case, the ones that detect red light do not work very well - hence red does not stand out as much for me as it does for other people, which we can demonstrate by asking me to look at a color-blindness test. I cannot make out the ones that use red dots to make a pattern.

So that leaves us with the problem - if efferent sight is true, then we should see the stars in a different place from where we record the incoming light. We don't.

Also, there should be an interval between when we see large, far away objects such as supernova's, and when we can take a picture of it with a camera, which works only by recording incoming light. There isn't.

Some doubt and a questioning attitude is reasonable. But honestly - Aids deniers? Anti-vac fanatics and quacks? These people support their assertions incredibly poorly. The whole anti-vaccination debate is based on a terribly flawed study where we have conclusively shown the data was purposefully manipulated in order to support a view the researcher held before starting the research in the first place.

The only reason these ideas are still around is because people just love to believe it, and do not critically examine the actual research, or learn much about what they are denying. The first is easy and kind of makes you feel as if you have special knowledge, the second is hard and can be confusing.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

If done carefully together with a good and properly trained MD, sure, that is reasonable. Just be careful to never ignore a proper medically trained person in favor of a quack. It happens more often than you think.

You are the one in denial. For you to answer me this way shows me how entrenched you are with these ideas. It does not show me that you have proved any of these ideas Vivisectus. Are you kidding me? What can I do to change your mind to consider that Lessans could be right? Obviously nothing. You will attack me even if the proof is right in front of your eyes.

[LadyShea]

What can I do to change your mind to consider that Lessans could be right?

We've told you this many times. You need to fully understand the currently accepted model of vision, and find a problem with it that efferent vision explains better. You need to fully understand how cameras and microscopes and telescopes and work so you can explain how efferent vision could be compatible. You need to understand what is meant by "information" in physics and explain how real time, instantaneous seeing (acquiring information) is remotely possible. You need to understand neuroscience, and what the accepted definition of conditioning is and detail how and why the brain cannot undergo conditioning unless vision is efferent.

You don't have enough knowledge about the science you are denying to offer any rational reason to consider poorly explained alternatives. Just like vaccine deniers. Just like faith healers.

[Vivisectus]

I will assume your avoiding dealing with the way that cameras work means that you have no answer for it. In that case my objection stands, and efferent sight must be rejected. I am glad we finally got it out of the way.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I have no understanding regarding the connection between quacks and non-quacks. I guess I would be considered a quack of the worst kind. Sadly, I never intended to fool anyone.

Quackery does not require purposeful intent to fool people. Many quacks are simply wrong, or mistaken.

I told you I appreciate your advice, but this has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VALIDITY OF THESE CONCEPTS.

You're right, however if the person presenting the concepts is not discerning and careful in their research and presentation, I have what reason, exactly, to consider the concepts as possibly valid? Sloppy research and writing often goes hand in hand with sloppy thinking. How is a reader to separate the valid from the invalid when it's all mashed together?

Take it or leave LadyShea. I owe you nothing; just what I believe is true.

Of course you owe me nothing.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

We've told you this many times. You need to fully understand the currently accepted model of vision, and find a problem with it that efferent vision explains better. You need to fully understand how cameras and microscopes and telescopes and work so you can explain how efferent vision could be compatible. You need to understand what is meant by "information" in physics and explain how real time, instantaneous seeing (acquiring information) is remotely possible. You need to understand neuroscience, and what the accepted definition of conditioning is and detail how and why the brain cannot undergo conditioning unless vision is efferent.

You don't have enough knowledge about the science you are denying to offer any rational reason to consider poorly explained alternatives. Just like vaccine deniers. Just like faith healers.

In regard to medicine, I'm not telling you what to do LadyShea. Take the evidence that I provide, and make your own decision. How can you argue with me when there is no argument?

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by davidm

The object has to be within the the eye of the camera! No shit! Now tell us: Does the camera take the picture in real time, or in delayed time?

David, I hate to say this, but you are no different than those who say the devil exits because it's been proven. You have not proved your case, but you would swear that you have, in the name of Jesus.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Quackery does not require purposeful intent to fool people. Many quacks are simply wrong, or mistaken.

You're right, however if the person presenting the concepts is not discerning and careful in their research and presentation, I have what reason, exactly, to consider the concepts as possibly valid? Sloppy research and writing often goes hand in hand with sloppy thinking. How is a reader to separate the valid from the invalid when it's all mashed together?

I get what you're saying, and I appreciate your checking up on me. But in this case, your telling people that the sources were not good, means absolutely nothing as far as the validity of these principles goes. You are making a false accusation.

Take it or leave LadyShea. I owe you nothing; just what I believe is true.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Of course you owe me nothing.

It's not about me not owing LadyShea. I know I don't, and I know you know I don't. I was saying that as a reaction to the onslaught of attacks on Lessans. I desperately want you to get something from this work because I know that you are searching for what is true, and it would be ashame if you passed this over. I can't do more than to tell you that this work lives up to its promises. Why would I subject myself to this if I wasn't sure? I would be nuts to do this, especially that I have a limited amount of energy.

[Vivisectus]

Cameras use the light to take a picture, but the object or light source has to be within the eye of the camera. The camera cannot take a picture of just light, and that's the implication.

... but cameras DO take pictures of just light. I have just explained to you how they work. They receive and react to light that falls onto the area where all the sensors are located. The sensors in turn store the resulting pattern of tiny little colored dots to create the images that we see.

Also, the object that a camera takes a picture of is often not in that location anymore in reality, which is more noticeable in the case of very distant objects. When we take a picture of the sun with a camera of the sun, that is actually a picture of where the real sun was about 8 minutes ago, because of the time it takes for the light to travel here from the sun.

If sight was efferent, we should be able to detect a difference between where we see the sun and where we photograph it, because a camera would record light from 8 minutes ago, while our eyes would see the object directly, in real time.

We have never detected any such difference.

[thedoc]

I borrowed this in reference to 'Decline and fall of all Evil'

jtt

Re: small favor

'There is no such thing as removing all of anything.'

"When all the world recognizes beauty as beauty,
this in itself is ugliness.
When all the world recognizes good as good, this in
itself is evil.

Indeed, the hidden and the manifest give birth
to each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short exhibit each other.
High and low set measure to each other.
Voice and sound harmonize each other.
Back and front follow each other.

Therefore, the sage manages his affairs without ado,
and spreads his teaching without talking.
He denies nothing to the teeming things.
He rears them but lays no claim to them.
He does his work, but sets no store by it.
He accomplishes his task, but does not dwell upon it.

And yet it is just because he does not dwell on it
That nobody can ever take it away from him."

Chp. 2 - Tao Te Ching

To be extremely one way or the other is impossable, or at least undesirable.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

... but cameras DO take pictures of just light. I have just explained to you how they work. They receive and react to light that falls onto the area where all the sensors are located. The sensors in turn store the resulting pattern of tiny little colored dots to create the images that we see.

Not true. We can't see light. We see the results of light.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Also, the object that a camera takes a picture of is often not in that location anymore in reality, which is more noticeable in the case of very distant objects. When we take a picture of the sun with a camera of the sun, that is actually a picture of where the real sun was about 8 minutes ago, because of the time it takes for the light to travel here from the sun.

Not true Vivisectus. You're just repeating yourself with no more evidence than we first began this discussion. Why would it be any different 268 pages later, if you haven't provided one more bit of information than what you had 268 pages ago?

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

If sight was efferent, we should be able to detect a difference between where we see the sun and where we photograph it, because a camera would record light from 8 minutes ago, while our eyes would see the object directly, in real time.

No we wouldn't. It is no surprise that the camera --- and what we see --- are exactly the same since there is absolutely no difference in the two pictures. In other words, it makes no difference whether a picture of the real world is taken from a camera, or whether the picture of the real world is taken from the brain, looking out through the eyes. Both are taking a picture of what exists. The camera can only prove what it does up to the film, or retina. It has no way of proving that afferent vision is a fact, so why you keep using this as proof is beyond me.

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

We have never detected any such difference.

Detecting light is a far cry from seeing images that come from that light. Obviously, you are in a funk, as is everyone in here. But, of course, you think I'm the one in the funk. You are all thinking, how dare I come here and upset the staus quo with no proof? I'm obviously a nut case, right?

[ChuckF]

peacegirl, how much of this book is plagiarized?

[Vivisectus]

[quote]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Not true. We can't see light. We see the results of light.

It makes little difference - a camera still needs light to reach it, fall on it's little receptors, in order to make an image out of it. Thus they have to wait for the light to reach it.

Not true Vivisectus. You're just repeating yourself with no more evidence than we first began this discussion. Why would it be any different 268 pages later, if you haven't provided one more bit of information than what you had 268 pages ago?

Just denying it doesn't change anything. We still designed cameras to detect light - however, they show us the same images as our eyes do.

No we wouldn't. It is no surprise that the camera, and what we see, are the same because there is no difference between the object or image that is being reflected or emitted. In other words, it makes no difference whether a picture of the real world is taken from a camera, or whether it's a picture of the real world taken from the brain, looking through the eyes. Both are in real time.

Ah so we have an answer at last: cameras work in real time too, according to you. How is this possible? Cameras are nothing but light-detectors fitted with a lens to focus the light on the small rectangular area where their receptors are located, much like a human eye. How can they possibly work in real time? They do nothing but react to light - light that does NOT travel instantly.

Detecting light is a far cry from seeing images that come from that light. Obviously, you are in a funk, as is everyone in here. But, of course, you think I'm the one in the funk. You are all thinking, how dare I come here and upset the staus quo with no proof? I'm obviously a nut case, right?

I am not in a funk at all. Nor am I particularly upset as I do not feel you are upsetting anything. I am just fascinated by how the story gets stranger and stranger as you try to make sense of what strikes me as a nonsensical idea. Real-time cameras? How would that work? How come we designed them to work as light-detectors, while in fact we are detecting something that is faster than light?

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

Obviously, you are in a funk, as is everyone in here. But, of course, you think I'm the one in the funk. You are all thinking, how dare I come here and upset the staus quo with no proof? I'm obviously a nut case, right?

Whining, playing the Martyr, and feeling sorry for yourself, is doing no good at all. No-one else here is doing that, most are just frustrated at your failure to accept and understand their attempts at educating you. Explinations are being given and proof is being posted, it would be helpful if you would look at them more carefully, and with an open mind, to learn the truth.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

David, I hate to say this, but you are no different than those who say the devil exits because it's been proven. You have not proved your case, but you would swear that you have, in the name of Jesus.

What's the matter, peacegirl, can't answer the question? As soon as you even attempt to answer this question your game is exposed. So I'll repeat it:

Does the camera take the picture in real time, or in delayed time?

Answer the question, peacegirl! It's a simple question!



And this has nothing to do with Jesus or the devil, you projecting, dishonest dingbat. YOU are the one who has the God, Lessans, and the religion as expressed in the shitty bible he wrote.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

We can't see light.

And we are back to hundreds of pages ago where we discussed all those things we see that are comprised entirely of light, for which visible light is the ONLY "thing" there to see...like rainbows, stars, the sun, the images on a TV or computer monitor, mirror reflections.

None of these would be visible to us if we can't see light.

[Vivisectus]

She did. The answer is real time.

[thedoc]

It's interesting how peacegirl needs to keep editing her posts.

Vivisectus quoting Peacegirl,
"No we wouldn't. It is no surprise that the camera, and what we see, are the same because there is no difference between the object or image that is being reflected or emitted. In other words, it makes no difference whether a picture of the real world is taken from a camera, or whether it's a picture of the real world taken from the brain, looking through the eyes. Both are in real time."

Peacegirl's post after editing,
"No we wouldn't. It is no surprise that the camera --- and what we see --- are exactly the same since there is absolutely no difference in the two pictures. In other words, it makes no difference whether a picture of the real world is taken from a camera, or whether the picture of the real world is taken from the brain, looking out through the eyes. Both are taking a picture of what exists. The camera can only prove what it does up to the film, or retina. It has no way of proving that afferent vision is a fact, so why you keep using this as proof is beyond me."

My how she wriggles and squirms, she must have teflon skin.

[davidm]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

She did. The answer is real time.

So the camera takes pictures in real time, does it, Peacegirl? Doesn't that contradict what you said earlier? Of course it does!

But no matter. As Vivisectus explained, we KNOW how a camera works -- afferently -- because we BUILT IT THAT WAY.

So, how does a camera work THE OPPOSITE OF THE WAY THAT IT WAS CONSTRUCTED?

Of course, you have this same problem with the actual eye, which anatomically and functionally CANNOT be an efferent organ.

Hey, peacegirl, here is a simple question for you, perhaps one that was not asked before.

WHY DO HUMAN EYES HAVE HAVE LENSES? WHAT ARE THEY FOR? WHY DID THEY EVOLVE?

If your "efferent seeing" were true, there would be no evolved lenses! They would be wholly pointless, and hence not selected for by evolutionary processes.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

David, I hate to say this, but you are no different than those who say the devil exits because it's been proven. You have not proved your case, but you would swear that you have, in the name of Jesus.

Kettle, you are black!

My studies have convinced me that arguments or data critical of their beliefs are always considered by the true believer to be insignificant, irrelevant, manipulative, deceptive, not authoritative, unscientific, unfair, biased, closed-minded, irrational, and/or diabolical Dr. Robert T. Carroll

As I've said since page one, peacegirl. You strike me as a true believer and you have used the true believer's defenses throughout this thread. For you to accuse davidm of true believer status is hugely ironic.

[Vivisectus]

But even when you say a camera takes a picture of what exists, then that suggests this happens in "real time" - IE if I take a picture of a star, then the star is actually in that position relative to me. It is not light from that star reaching us one year per lightyear after the fact, and the star in question has moved on in the meantime.

How can this be? How can a camera, that works by using an array of small light detectors, detect light that has not reached us yet and will not reach us for another year per lightyear of distance? Because a camera does nothing but detect light, and turn the readings of all those tiny little detectors into a pattern of differently colored dots.

Either there must be an observable difference between cameras and the eyes, or instant efferent sight is not true.

[davidm]

OK, peacegirl, you are now on record as stating that cameras both do, and do not, take pictures in real time; and that information both does, and does not, travel faster than light. Wow, that is some undeniable truth ya got there! It's so undeniably true it seamlessly embraces mutually contradictory positions.

Hey, peacegirl, here is another question for you. In his book The Big Dummy asserts that a man with a telescope would see Columbus landing in real time, but that if a TV image were broadcast of the landing, the astronomer on Rigel would have to wait 800 years for it to arrive. And my question is,

WHY?

Why would the TV broadcast be delayed, but the camera and telescope see in real time? This should be fun.

Oh, and peacegirl? You evidently forgot to answer this one, so I'll repeat it:

Given that it is a POSTULATE of special relativity that light speed is invariant and finite across all inertial frames, AND THAT light carries information that is transduced to the brain for processing,

HOW IS REAL-TIME SEEING COMPATIBLE WITH SR?

Oh, and peacegirl? When God turns on the sun at noon, why do observers on earth see it and the reflected light of the moon instantaneously, but not the reflected light off their neighbors for eight and a half minutes?

Questions, questions, questions! My goodness! Well, you said you were here to "ed-u-cate" us.

Ed-U-Cate away!

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by thedoc

I borrowed this in reference to 'Decline and fall of all Evil'

jtt

Re: small favor

'There is no such thing as removing all of anything.'

"When all the world recognizes beauty as beauty,
this in itself is ugliness.
When all the world recognizes good as good, this in
itself is evil.

Indeed, the hidden and the manifest give birth
to each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short exhibit each other.
High and low set measure to each other.
Voice and sound harmonize each other.
Back and front follow each other.

Therefore, the sage manages his affairs without ado,
and spreads his teaching without talking.
He denies nothing to the teeming things.
He rears them but lays no claim to them.
He does his work, but sets no store by it.
He accomplishes his task, but does not dwell upon it.

And yet it is just because he does not dwell on it
That nobody can ever take it away from him."

Chp. 2 - Tao Te Ching

To be extremely one way or the other is impossable, or at least undesirable.

I laugh at you doc. You know nothing, but you act like you are Tao Te Ching himself.

The words cause and compel
are the perception of an improper or fallacious relation because in
order to be developed and have meaning it was absolutely necessary
that the expression ‘free will’ be born as their opposite, as tall gives
meaning to short. Nothing causes man to build cities, develop
scientific achievements, write books, compose music, go to war, argue
and fight, commit terrible crimes, pray to God, for these things are
mankind already at a particular stage of his development, just as
children were sacrificed at an earlier stage.

< snip >

Continuing our analysis, there is another hidden problem that
leads to a build up of resentment not only between married couples
but as a part of the general social fabric. What is this serious
problem? It is the fact that mankind is having constant collisions of
desire. This has been an enormous source of conflict and must be
solved in order for there to be peaceful coexistence. To balance this
equation during our years of development God was compelled to have
good and evil, and the balance was perfect. Now that we have
developed sufficiently to see His laws which reveal Him by observing
the harmony in the mankind system that was never understood until
now, He snips off the evil and attaches good so that the balance still
remains perfect. To understand the magnitude of this mathematical
problem which requires for its solution that there be no collisions of
desire anywhere in the world, I shall offer you a problem as a
comparison and then show how it can be prevented.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

But even when you say a camera takes a picture of what exists, then that suggests this happens in "real time" - IE if I take a picture of a star, then the star is actually in that position relative to me. It is not light from that star reaching us one year per lightyear after the fact, and the star in question has moved on in the meantime.

How can this be? How can a camera, that works by using an array of small light detectors, detect light that has not reached us yet and will not reach us for another year per lightyear of distance? Because a camera does nothing but detect light, and turn the readings of all those tiny little detectors into a pattern of differently colored dots.

I wanted to add: I never said we can't detect light, but how in the world can that light be seen as a detectable pattern when a camera cannot detect this pattern without the object or image in view?

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

Either there must be an observable difference between cameras and the eyes, or instant efferent sight is not true.

There's another possibility. Cameras and the eyes take a picture of the same thing because efferent sight is true.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

David, I hate to say this, but you are no different than those who say the devil exits because it's been proven. You have not proved your case, but you would swear that you have, in the name of Jesus.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Kettle, you are black!

If I'm black, you must be the kettle. Are you in cahoots with David and trying to cast a witches spell over me?

My studies have convinced me that arguments or data critical of their beliefs are always considered by the true believer to be insignificant, irrelevant, manipulative, deceptive, not authoritative, unscientific, unfair, biased, closed-minded, irrational, and/or diabolical Dr. Robert T. Carroll

Wouldn't that be easy? But your argument has offered no critical data whatsoever. You think it's airtight, but it's not. It feels like you are holding a cross up, trying to exorcise the bad spirit out of me in the name of Jesus.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

As I've said since page one, peacegirl. You strike me as a true believer and you have used the true believer's defenses throughout this thread. For you to accuse davidm of true believer status is hugely ironic.

It's ironic and very unfortunate that it has come to this. He will not get away with accusing me of being a believer, without him getting a dose of his own medicine.

[peacegirl]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

And we are back to hundreds of pages ago where we discussed all those things we see that are comprised entirely of light, for which visible light is the ONLY "thing" there to see...like rainbows, stars, the sun, the images on a TV or computer monitor, mirror reflections.

None of these would be visible to us if we can't see light.

We don't see light LadyShea. We use light to see.

Photons - the secret of light

≥Photons are the small bits that go together to make light. We use light

to see with, but we can't see photons- and that's not just because of their

size! Photons turn out to be very hard to describe. Scientists talk about

them in just the same way that they discuss the tiny objects inside atoms;

they call all of them 'particles'. However, light has always done things

that a good honest speck of matter would never do, things that reminded

us of waves in water. Its character is usually explained away as being

both wavy (as when it makes patterns by overlapping) and chunky (as

when it punches electricity out of a solar cell). However, in their effort to

explain physics in terms of other more familiar objects and events,

scientists often obscure the very real weirdness of the building blocks of

the universe. They can be so weird, in fact, that even the simplest of

familiar questions may have no answer. For example......

How big is a photon?

The photon, like the electron, is a standard building block of the

universe. This suggests that it is a tiny, invisibly-small sort of thing. (As

if you could see the very thing that we see with!) But if you could catch

a photon you would find that it weighed nothing at all. So why should

something that weighs nothing be small? Why couldn't it be naturally

any size at all? In the wave idea of light, colour is determined by the rate

at which the wave wiggles; a rapid, energetic wiggle for blue and a more

leisurely wiggle for red. You can measure the distance that the light

travels for each wiggle, and this is the 'wavelength' - it appears to be less

than a thousandth of a millimetre for light. A photon is sometimes

thought of as a 'wave packet', a short snippet of wave which zips along

like a cosmic caterpillar. This picture fits in well with the smallness that

we desire of photons. However, light has many close cousins which

share its same properties but wiggle at different rates. One such is a radio

wave. Long-wave radioähas a wavelength as long as one mile- quite

big for a caterpillar! The image of such colossal energy-vehicles

zooming around the earth from radio transmitters and crashing into our

homes suggests that there may be a flaw in this picture description of a

photon. How good are their crumple zones? Do they have an

aerodynamic shape? Fortunately, these questions require no answer,

because.......

Photons don't actually have any length at all

If we could stand and watch photons speed by, what length would

they appear to have. In his Theory of Relativity, Einstein showed that

an object travelling very fast would appear to be squashed in the

direction of motion to someone watching as it passes. The apparent

length (in the direction of movement) of a moving object gets smaller

as its speed approaches the speed of light. Of course, no solid object

can reach the speed of light; Einstein also showed that it gets heavier

instead of faster, a kind of cosmic 'more haste less speed' effect. Not

so the photon! Since a photon travels always at the speed of light then

it will always appear to have no length at all. This is, of course, whilst

it is on the move. The photon's presence is revealed only by its

interaction with a detector, which requires an arrival; the metaphorical

running into the buffers of a high-speed train. Photons don't splat into

things as solid objects do. They are splatted flat as they fly along, and

only reveal a wavelength as they are annihilated. The best way to

catch a photon is to encourage it to crash into an object whose size is

similar to the wavelength. Wires or aerials catch radio waves; nerve

cells catch light.

So how wide is a splatted photon?

We can find something out about how fat a photon is by requiring it to

pass through a narrow gap. The smaller the gap, the more the photon

appears to spring out the other side in an uncertain direction; although

light is supposed to travel in straight lines, it can change direction as it

bursts through. This trick goes by the name of diffraction, and is most

dramatic when the gap is only as wide as the 'wavelength' of the photon.

At first sight, this seems to be a puzzle; the photon in flight would seem to

have forgotten that it had a length. More puzzling still is the fact that the

photon must have passed through the gap to have emerged on the other

side, yet it has shown that it was 'aware' of the presence of the gap edges

since it changed direction. It is as if it stopped and took aim before flying

through. This doesn't really answer the question about how wide a photon

is, since the gap that a coach can drive though doesn't depend on its

length! But it does raise a serious question about how the photon views

the gap.

The Flat Universe and the ageless photon

It would not be possible to judge that a photon of light was splatted

flat by looking at it its thickness; this would require that parts of it could

be seen by different parts of the eye. Just as the photon is splatted, the

speeding photon sees the world along its path without depth. Einstein

explained that moving things appear shorter. Just as the moving tourist

'sees' the scenery appear to move past outside a train, then at the ultimate

speed, the photon sees all points along its route drawn together. To the

photon, its source and its destination are at the same place, superimposed

images on a flat page.

Another consequence of moving rapidly, said Einstein, is that time

seems to slow down to the traveller. For the photon, at the speed of light,

time has stopped. From source to destination, the photon does not age; it

is at all places on its journey at the same time. This opens up the truly

remarkable possibility that the photon can cover as many routes from A

to B as it wishes, without wasting time, and so really can take the best

aim at a gap. The straight line that light is supposed to take is really only

the most likely highway, the one needing the least effort. The narrower

the toll gate that it is required to pass through on its way, the more

arbitrary a route it can take thereafter.

The light fantastic....

So how big is a photon? To answer that question, you need to take a

ruler and to measure it during its journey through space. But the photon

is everywhere unless you capture it; and, when you catch it, it

disappears, like the reflection of the moon in water. We cannot know its

size or shape. The appearance of light itself turns out to be a real secret;

we cannot see that which we use to see everything else".

ääDavid J May, NPL Web Site ,1997