Editing Talk:811: Starlight

I thought that was a picture frame, a mirror makes more sense. [[Special:Contributions/184.66.160.91|184.66.160.91]] 08:40, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

From the light's point of view, EVERYTHING is in the same place. The whole universe in one point. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.114}}
:Actually, I think that the universe would be a solitary plane.  Since light moves only in one straight line. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.204|173.245.54.204]] 02:14, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I still think it's a picture frame.  [[Special:Contributions/108.162.215.118|108.162.215.118]] 00:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

It's a mirror, you can see the reflection of his arms. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.75.77|141.101.75.77]] 18:35, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, what you see is a reflection of one arm and of his torso. The other arm is behind the mirror (for that's what it is, though I admit that at first I thought it was a picture frame, also) and is not reflected. Look at the position of the hand of that arm.... well in front of Beret-guy's torso. BTW, it really helps to zoom into this image to understand Randall's attention to detail, yet again. 18:39, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

I am still of the opinion, sort of, that it is a picture frame. It seems like beret guy to make art of things we consider simple, because of the actually extraordinary circumstances that happened to make it so. [[User:YourLifeisaLie|The Goyim]] ([[User talk:YourLifeisaLie|talk]]) 23:35, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

It's a mirror. Picture frame makes no sense. It's a mirror. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 06:41, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

This is pushing into areas beyond my expertise, but I question the validity of the assertion that the light particle will experience no time between departing the star and arriving at the planet. From what I understand, One of the pillars of relativity is that from ALL reference frames the speed of light is constant.  So when we discuss things "from the point of view of a light particle" most of what we say is basically conjecture.  It is impossible to have a valid reference frame moving along with a photon. To say that from the photon's point of view no time passes is to assume a reference point where the speed of light is no longer constant, but instead photons have the ability to be stationary.  A stationary photon can never be observed in any valid reference frame.  It is fair to say that a particle traveling at a speed infinitesimally less than the speed of light will experience almost no time between locations, but time dilation follows a curve that is only valid for speeds approaching but not including the speed of light. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.114}}

---I'm not a physicist, but I'm fairly certain you can have a valid light-speed frame of reference. As I recall, that's part of the explanation for how the weak force can distinguish left-handed particles from right-handed ones. This makes no sense at first blush, because whether a particle is spinning left or right depends upon the position of the viewer. You could have one person observe a left handed particle decay while an observer at a different angle observes a right handed particle do nothing. The answer is that if the particle has no intrinsic mass, all observers would agree that it is traveling at the speed of light, and that there is a well-defined left and right (with respect to the direction of the particle's motion).  This becomes immensely more complicated because it applies to particles that have no intrinsic mass, but nonetheless obtain effective mass through the Higgs mechanism (for instance, leptons). [[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.165|173.245.56.165]] 18:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC) - NotaphysicistbutIplayoneontheinternet

There is also the obvious futility of the exercise: only a tiny fraction of the photons emanating from a star will reach the mirror and, even if the mirror is held at the perfect orientation, with dispersion (even if the mirror is perfectly smooth, the atmosphere is not) the probability that even one photon will make it back 'home' is effectively nil.
Maybe off-topic, but this reminds me of the occasional media circus event when some random marine mammal is beached and then a massive rescue effort is affected to 'save' it). [[User:Danshoham|Mountain Hikes]] ([[User talk:Danshoham|talk]]) 23:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I got the impression that Beret Guy wasn't trying to return the light itself back to the stars, but give the stars the same pretty image they get on Earth by "looking" at the mirror. Seems more poetic of him. Could be either or though, I guess. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.90.126|172.68.90.126]] 05:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

The function of art is to hold a mirror up to nature.... {{unsigned ip|173.245.48.183}}

Maybe I'm weird, but I feel no one understands Beret Guy here. Clearly (to me), when he hears that photons travel millions of years only to then "die" on our eyes, he puts up a mirror, so that photons instead of "dying" are reflected back to travel the universe. I don't really see why he would want to send them back home, is it not really rude to send someone home just after they arrived? However in reality, when a photon hits a mirror, is "dies" anyway, as it excites given atom, and that atom then "shoots" new photon, with same phase and frequency in the direction given by law of reflection. Unless that counts as the same photon.
Also, I would like to offer a though I read in "Lectures on physics by Richard P. Feynman". He claims, that light never slows down, never reflects and is never absorbed. Instead, when a photon "hits" an atom, that atom radiates a photon in same direction with opposite phase. This duo then travels together for the rest of eternity, undetectable as it has no effect on universe (opposite phase photons cancel out). In that case, Beret Guy's effort would be meaningless, as photons are immortal whether they hit a mirror or eye or ground. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.73|172.70.85.73]] 10:31, 7 January 2022 (UTC) mauriicio