On some questions about Photons

John Karpinsky

June 30, 2020

There are some elements of photon characteristics that are not commonly addressed in courses on quantum mechanics. It is possible that a detailed investigation into these lesser noticed elements of the characteristics of quantum particles and waves could discover new connections that might answer some of the outstanding questions in quantum theory.

A photon is an electromagnetic wave that has no rest mass. From our frame of reference, the wave travels at the speed of light. But from the frame of reference of the photon, it does not travel at all. The distance between the emitting medium and the absorbing medium is zero in the photon’s frame of reference. Also, the time elapsed is zero in that frame of reference.

The first question I will address involves how the photon looks in different frames of reference. How many cycles of oscillation are in a single photon? This may not seem like an important question, but it is necessary that the answer be the same, regardless of the frame of reference. One hypothesis in answering this question is that it is one cycle. The reason for this speculation is that, when a photon is emitted by an atom by the jumping of an electron from an excited state to a less excited state, it is reasonable to assume that the transition happens in one cycle of the electron around the nucleus. If that is not true, there should be an experiment that will show what is true. I don’t know the implications of the answer to this. There may…