Also, why does my exploding head eventually run into the photons but both of the exploding light-bulbs do not? ...only one of them does
Looks like the difficulty may be in trying to apply vector mechanics to scalar motion. We have a lot of trouble visualizing scalar motion, because it is not something we see in everyday life, unless you bake a lot of raisin cakes or like inflating spotted balloons (classic examples).
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The natural datum is UNIT SPEED, not a point or location, but that CONDITION where both space and time have the SAME MAGNITUDE.
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In scalar conditions, there is no zero or negative magnitudes. Therefore, the ONLY thing you can have is a magnitude GREATER than one.
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Motion has two, inversely related aspects: space and time. A higher magnitude in one is tantamount to a smaller magnitude in the other.
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All motion has a local (you can point at it) and nonlocal (invisible field that does things) aspect.
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What Larson terms as "inward" and "outward" are actually just magnitudes greater than unity in either time, or space, respectively. Locally outward in time = nonlocally inward in space; locally outward in space = nonlocally inward in time. (I have not found an inward motion that is localized... they all apparently are nonlocal, an invisible "force" that moves things, such as the progression of the natural reference system, electric or magnetic fields, or gravity).
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From the observer reference, "outward" means an effective speed faster than unity (Larson: away from unity).
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From the observer reference, "inward" means an effective speed less than unity (Larson: towards unity).
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Atoms are temporal displacements--moving outward in time. The outward motion is "mass."
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By the reciprocal relation, atoms are also moving nonlocally inward in space. This inward motion in space is "gravity."
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Because of the "discrete unit" postulate, there is a cutoff speed for all motion--unit speed. Since you cannot have a magnitude less than one, once you reach one, it stops there. Unit speed, being the datum, is the effective "zero"--the condition where motion no longer has any effect on other motions.
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Larson calls the 3D cutoff the "gravitational limit," as applied to astronomy.
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There are also 2D (magnetic) and 1D (electric) limits.
Now, consider the problem in stages. We have an atom that is going to "emit" a photon, through either thermal or electric motion. The origin of the photon will be in one of the conduction bands of the atom, not inside the rotational mass. It will also be INSIDE the electric, magnetic and gravitational limits of the atom.
When enough energy is present, the photon can reach "escape velocity," -- unit speed -- and the photon will remain at its location in the natural reference system, and the atom will recede away from it. (Visualize a shrinking ball, leaving behind a spherical "wake" of photons as it gets smaller). The atom will continue to move away from the photon while the photon is within its gravitational limit. Once that limit is passed, the photon is far enough away from the receding atom that the chances of collision are nil--once you exceed the gravitational limit, the directions reverse. Inside, the photon appears to be falling away from the atom, once outside, it appears to fall towards it. (If a star were totally outside the gravitational limits of all other objects, you could never see it because all the "emitted" photons would eventually be run down by the star, since there is nothing else to do it.)
The photon is now sitting at unit speed--neither inward nor outward motion. It has to sit there and wait for your head to get there so you can run into it before another mass does. So the photon can "run into" anything in the room, As with the star, that very emitting atom that dropped it off COULD run into it again, but the probability is, due to the effects of the electric, magnetic and gravitational limits it had to first overcome, that it will hit something else, first.
Of course, you could move the emitting bulb to the other side of the room--really quick--and increase that probability of hitting itself to certainty.
Update... I just thought of a simple analogy: imagine a room full of vacuum cleaners, all sucking away. There is a fly in one of the bags (a photon) that gets up enough strength to fly out the spout and escape the suction of the vacuum that was holding him prisoner. Odds are that within moments, he'll be sucked in by another vacuum before the vacuum he escaped pulls him back.