A few months ago I was criticised for stating that from the viewpoint of a photon time does not exist. Funny that Professor Brian Greene is labouring under a similar misunderstanding. In his hugely successful book “The Fabric of the Cosmos”, described by The Times as being “the new Hawking, only better” Brian has a fascinating section on “spacetime”. In this he writes: “Moreover, the maximum speed through space is reached when all light-speed motion through time is fully diverted into light-speed motion through space. – one way of understanding why it is impossible to go through space at greater than light speed. Light, which always travels at light speed through space, is special in that it always achieves such total diversion. And just as driving due east leaves no motion for traveling north, moving at light speed through space leaves no motion for traveling through time! Time stops when traveling at the speed of light through space. A watch worn by a particle of light would not tick at all. Light realises the dreams of Ponce de Leon and the cosmetics industry: it doesn’t age.” – (Page 49).
The original point I made in this regard is that from the point of view of a light photon emerging from the initial milliseconds of the Big Bang to the millisecond it hits your eye absolutely no time has elapsed. For it both events are now! And this instantaneous existence of a permanent now applies to every single photon. For example when you look up at the sky at night trillions of photons from the Andromeda Galaxy will be hitting your eyes if you look at this faint smudge of light …. but for these photons you and the Andromeda Galaxy share the same instant. Try telling that to the Man on the Clapham Omnibus …..
