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Asked by lizzie3006 to Ben, Jony, Katharine, Mark, Peter on 18 Nov 2011.
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Ben Still answered on 18 Nov 2011:
?!?! There are billions upon trillions of photons in the Universe – we need 1000’s to enter our eye just to see an image.
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Jony Hudson answered on 18 Nov 2011:
No. I’ve heard some people say that because all electrons are identical, then that means there is just one electron, running round in loops through time. But that seemed like quite a daft theory to me!
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Peter Williams answered on 18 Nov 2011:
Feynman once made an argument about there being only one electron in the Universe – just going back in time (and being seen as a positron) to catch up with itself. This comes out of his quantum field theory, there’s no way of telling a difference between electrons. However this falls over as there is more matter than antimatter in the Universe.
But the photon is its own antiparticle, travels at light speed and so does not experience time. So does the argument work for photons. Hmm, i’m not totally sure.
My initial reaction is that there would be no way to tell a difference, as we are massive and therefore have a refererence frame, we experience many photons. So how does postulating only one photon explain anything extra?
You’ve stumped me.
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Katharine Schofield answered on 18 Nov 2011:
erm, no…I don’t get how there could be only one photon…
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Mark Basham answered on 18 Nov 2011:
Hi lizzie3006,
I have heard about this theory, its like Peter says as photons and anti photons look the same, all photons could be the same one going back and forward through time.
It is possible, but at the same time its unprovable. It is quite a neat idea though, and if there is only one photon I think it should be called Barry.
Comments
lizzie3006 commented on :
thanks
lizzie3006 commented on :
Is that because of baryons or because you like the name Barry?
Mark commented on :
Barry’s just a great name, although I’d like to take credit for the clever name 🙂