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Physicists Simulate Photon “Cut” — Infinite Light Requires Impossible Speed

6/18/2026

41 9 Full Breakdown

Summary

Story summary

Øystein Skaar and team simulated cutting a photon with a shutter, creating a state ranging from zero to infinite photons.
Only an infinitely fast shutter yields infinite photons, while realistic speeds limit the count to at most thousands.
One-side measurements detect a single photon while the opposite side shows a vacuum.
The team says a photon cutoff could remove causality issues from infinite interaction tails and will study electron cutoffs.

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Story summary

Øystein Skaar and team simulated cutting a photon with a shutter, creating a state ranging from zero to infinite photons.
Only an infinitely fast shutter yields infinite photons, while realistic speeds limit the count to at most thousands.
One-side measurements detect a single photon while the opposite side shows a vacuum.
The team says a photon cutoff could remove causality issues from infinite interaction tails and will study electron cutoffs.