if u place a single photon in the middle of space, it would radiate light in all directions

Author: n8nrgmi

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n8nrgmi
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does anyone dispute this? 
oromagi
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I dispute this.  A single photon is the transportation of radiance.  All human sight is sensed by rod and cones in the eye responding to photon strikes.  In open space, a photon is always moving at and always only moving in one direction and that direction is determined by the action of other (charged) particles.  Therefore, you would only see a single photon if that photon struck your eyes and would impact your vision so minutely that you probably wouldn't notice.  If your eyes were incredibly sensitive and time moving incredibly slowly you might detect the most miniscule little pixel of flash for a microsecond.

A single photon can only move in one direction.  If light is radiating in all directions then you are witnessing the action of more photons than you could count in your lifetime.  If those photons are all moving away from a single point than there is something more than just photons at the origin point.
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@n8nrgmi
Ooops.....Didn't think that one through.
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@n8nrgmi
Photons don't radiate light. Theyre corpuscles of light waves
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@n8nrgmi
I think you should wright a book about this. All the best science fiction is based on scientific inaccuracies that sound intuitively possible. 

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looks like i'm mistaken
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@n8nrgmi
does anyone dispute this?
Light generally travels in a straight line, and one photon (which is one single chunk of energy) will travel in a straight line.

Light can act like a wave and diffract, and is subject to waveform uncertainty, and thus  interfere as light with other light - which I think is where your confusion is coming from - but it still travels in a straight line, in a given direction.

There is a hint of correctness in your question whether though: if you beam a single photon at a time at the two slit apparatus (the famous experiment), they will build up the classic interference pattern despite being one photon at a time - meaning a single photon interferes with itself.

35 days later

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@n8nrgmi
A single photon won't radiate new photons in all directions. In fact, it can't radiate at all, it is the radiation, a single packet of electromagnetical energy.