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I understand photons travel at light speed because they have no mass therefore they travel at the fastest possible speed, and at the speed of light time stops. If time is frozen at light speed how do photons vibrate/osculate/have wavelengths? Are photons not effected by time dilation, or is the wave frequency just a symbolic representation of how closely packed together the electric and magnetic fields are to each other?

zander
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    "at the speed of light time stops" - this is incorrect. Lorentz transformation from a reference frame not moving at the speed of light to one that is moving at the speed of light creates nonsensical situations, because that is not an operation that is possible. But it is perfectly possible to construct light-like trajectories - most of the basic setup of relativity (and any part involving light-clocks) relies on time passing for light. You just can't access these trajectories with Lorentz transformations. – probably_someone Sep 25 '18 at 13:44
  • @probably_someone yes i understand lorentz transformations of a reference frame to the speed of light will exponentially chase infinity. What I’ve heard many times though is from a photons perspective that no time passes between when it is emitted and absorbed even though from an outside perspective it travels through space at the speed of light, so if it does not experience time in its journey, how can it vibrate? – zander Sep 25 '18 at 14:24
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    The whole idea of seeing things "from a photon's perspective" in relativity is fundamentally impossible. No such perspective exists. No observer can travel at the speed of light. No matter how close to the speed of light one travels relative to some arbitrary stationary reference, light will always be observed to be moving at the same speed. In fact, "Why is it so problematic to ride alongside a beam of light?" was one of the original questions that sparked Einstein to think of special relativity in the first place, in which such a situation could not exist. – probably_someone Sep 25 '18 at 16:21
  • @probably_someone This is not about the perception of time, it is about the nature of electromagnetic waves and their relationship to time, as a wave implies oscillation and vibration, so I am asking if you were to theoretically travel alongside a photon and observe it as it travels through space (as impossible as that scenario is), does a single photon actually wave up down/side to side perpendicular electric and magnetic field fluctuations that continually meet and separate, or would it appear to be a crest and trough traveling through space like traveling alongside a wave in the ocean? – zander Sep 25 '18 at 16:46
  • @zander If you were to travel alongside a photon, then you, too, would have to be made of photons. Since photons cannot interact with each other, there is no sense in which you can observe anything in this situation. (except at very high energies, but in that case you have to account for the fact that the classical picture of the electromagnetic wave is invalid in that case anyway.) – probably_someone Sep 25 '18 at 17:28
  • sorry i thought maybe there'd been enough research to extrapolate from to form some pretty decent theories. there was a guy whose comments disappeared about the quantum wavicle properties of photons render it a particle only at the point it is emitted and absorbed, but in transit it's waveform is actually just a function of it's uncertain probability to interact with matter in its way, so when many of the photons of the same frequency are fired with the same trajectory at a film it creates a wave pattern, but its not a wave in the vibration sense but a wave in the uncertain sense until contact – zander Sep 25 '18 at 17:30
  • basically i wanted to know if science thought they vibrate and wiggle as they travel (the way most videos depict them) or if they were a single ripple like if you followed a single wave traveling through water... or they are a wave of uncertain probability until the finally interact with something as a particle similar to electron wacicles in quantum experiments – zander Sep 25 '18 at 17:53

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