Thanks. Analogies like this are never perfect, but they seem to be the only way to tackle the "billiard-ball" concept that people have about particles like the photon, despite the obvious evidence of long-wave radio.
The vacuum doesn't have mass in the sense of inertial mass. You can't push against it and feel resistance to acceleration. You can't feel anything, it certainly isn't like water. And yet, the vacuum does have its vacuum energy. Demarcate a cube of "empty" space and call it a system that's at rest with respect to you. This system contains energy, and thus it has a mass-equivalence. I didn't like it when I first heard it, but I can't fault it because virtual photons are virtual.
In modern day physics, photons are called 'point particles' and so your question of how "big" a photon is would be irrelevent seeing as all points are one dimensional. This means that all photons (regarless of energy) are the same "size". In a classical sense, you would be safe to assume that a photon can only be as "large" as its respective three dimensional wavelength. I should also add that, in a classical sense, the propagation of a photon happens in four dimensions.
Whose this 'they'? Everyone (including lay persons)? The science community? Your perception of the science community?
Undergoing acceleration in a vacuum will cause you to have resistance due to Unruh radiation, you'll see the direction you've moving in gain a positive temperature as you're hit by more particles in front of you than behind you. This is only when you're accelerating, as its not relative like velocity is.
The fields within space have vacuum energies, not the space-time itself (ignoring quantised gravity processes or GR related cosmological constants), the vacuum energy is obtained from the energy of all ground state harmonic oscillators in the quantised field.
The relative velocity you deem yourself to have relative to some frame in a vacuum is immaterial, the vacuum is Lorentz invariant.
I'm pretty sure you've seen the x,y,z symbol. It consists of the endpoints of two lines joining at an intersection, each line being ninety degrees from the other. Then we add a third line whose endpoint matches-up with the other two. This line protrudes out at a fourty-five degree angle (x,y,z labeled respectively for top, side and frount views). If you "zoomed-in" on the intersection of these three lines. That point will always stay the same "size". This is a one-dimensional object. Now, each line represents a two-dimensional space (I think there's another thread open about 2D space) and it takes three lines to represnt a three-dimensional object. Once we established a unit system, we can all agree on the same scale for any particular object (how "zoomed-in" we are).
Even though I deleted my post as I didn't want to interupt this thread too much I thank you for your response.
I didn't think the answer to your question was off topic. All photons follow some form of coordinate system but, if you're going to take what I said literally (which you shouldn't because it's an abstract analogy) then I should clarify something. Each line represents a direction of motion, not a two-dimensional space. It takes two lines to make a two-dimensional space. This analogy also illustrates how the fourth-dimension of time intersects with the three spatial dimensions of space. By "zooming-in" on the intersection of the x,y,z lines (it's called the 'origin' and most every coordinate system has one) we are looking at the fourth-dimension of time. The oddest part about this direction of motion is that it's always hidden. No matter how you orientate the other three lines we will always see the fourth-dimension as a point. In other words, its "line of motion" is always aimed directly at you (it points off the paper) and so, we can only view it as a single point (one-dimensional). We're able to plot a three-dimensional object along this hidden line (in a series) and watch as it changes with time.
and
A photon is a single snapshot of a specific moment in time which is transmitted through space in all directions over a given amount of time. When a ray of light is broken down into its respective constituents (wavelength, frequency - energy) we are able to glean important information about that photon's origin. In no way can we declare a photon to be either a wave or a particle because, in fact, it is both. Now, for simple abstract visualization purposes, you can envision a photon as being either a standing wave (propagation aside) or a point of energy/angular momentum and, for all intensive purposes, both of these images would be correct.
No, it isn't a point-particle. That's a myth that creates untold confusion. Long wave radio waves are not made up of a blizzard of point particles, and nor is visible light or any other electromagnetic radiation.
Not me. Refraction depends on wavelength.
No problem with that. But you can't accelerate a region of vacuum like you can accelerate a spaceship. Hence the usual description of inertial mass does not apply.
This is incorrect I'm afraid. A field is a particular disposition of spatial energy. Whilst it might be modelled in a quantized fashion via virtual particles, these particles are virtual. They aren't real particles. For example the electromagnetic field of an electron comprises energy and has a mass-equivalence. In QED it's modelled very successfully via virtual-photon exchange particles. But the only particle actually present is the electron. There are no actual photons flitting back and forth in the space between an electron and a proton. In similar vein people attempt to model gravity via gravitons, but there are no actual particles flitting back and forth in the space between two gravitating bodies.
No problem.
so distance wave length is not time related in this instance?
so distance wave length is not time related in this instance?
I would have thought that for a constantly travelling at 'c' wave, wavelength distance as you put it, must have a time value of some sort.
image c/o google images
frequency over time
if at t=0 the wavelength is the size of the photon and this length is determined by it's period then at t=0 the photon would have t value greater than t=0