Photon emittance

A friend and I were discussing photon behavior and properties (there's no there there) and he asked me an interesting question that I can't answer, and now I can't stop pondering it. Google is no help because I can't figure out how to phrase it succinctly, so here it goes.
 
If you take any sphere and extend all points outward, you end up with a spiky ball. Imagine now all these points are photons, and when you're looking directly down one of the spikes, the star is visible. However, if you rotate between the spikes, the star should not be visible as your eyes are collecting none of the photons.
 
Even if you considered every quantum point an emitter, at large distances there should be enough space between the spikes that the star would blink in and out as you move around. The further you go, the the more space between the spikes, so at some distance the star should only be observable from specific locations.
 
Now, we understand that photons are not emitted in a static fashion, but even so it's difficult to comprehend how photons can occupy all the space from the surface of the star to infinite distance (assuming no objects or other interference gets in the way). 
 
If you think of dropping a rock in a pond, the waves propagate outward in all directions, but the water that makes up the wave at one point is not the same water that makes up the wave at a point further from the impact site: it's the energy that's being propagated, not the water itself. Photons, however, do not transfer their energy into another medium in that way, so the photon that makes up a segment of light at X distance from its emitter is the same photon that makes up that light at Y distance.
 
So how is it that light grows dimmer with distance but an observer is never 'between the spikes' and unable to observe the star?

You know what man, I used to think I knew everything... Turns out, I didn't know anything.

Craziness, I never thought of photon emission from a sphere in such a manner. I wouldn't be able to answer your question of course, since I'm not  a physicist, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone here can (or at least someone over at tested).

Maybe, because the photons are not emitted from exactly the same spots over time, rather, they're emitted from random spots.

Maybe, because the photons are not emitted from exactly the same spots over time, rather, they're emitted from random spots.

@GuyIncognito said:

Maybe, because the photons are not emitted from exactly the same spots over time, rather, they're emitted from random spots.

That's what I meant when I said they're not emitted in a static fashion. But even so, at very large distances, you would expect the star to wink in and out.

@Fajita_Jim said:

@GuyIncognito said:

Maybe, because the photons are not emitted from exactly the same spots over time, rather, they're emitted from random spots.

That's what I meant when I said they're not emitted in a static fashion. But even so, at very large distances, you would expect the star to wink in and out.

Why would expect that? Are you saying you're receiving a *single* photon from the star in a time interval in which you could actually perceive it blinking out?  

@GuyIncognito said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@GuyIncognito said:

Maybe, because the photons are not emitted from exactly the same spots over time, rather, they're emitted from random spots.

That's what I meant when I said they're not emitted in a static fashion. But even so, at very large distances, you would expect the star to wink in and out.

Why would expect that? Are you saying you're receiving a *single* photon from the star in a time interval in which you could actually perceive it blinking out?  

Light dims at a distance because you're receiving less photons per area. Thinking logically, this should mean at some distance you'll be receiving no photons unless you're in the proper place.

@Fajita_Jim said:

@GuyIncognito said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@GuyIncognito said:

Maybe, because the photons are not emitted from exactly the same spots over time, rather, they're emitted from random spots.

That's what I meant when I said they're not emitted in a static fashion. But even so, at very large distances, you would expect the star to wink in and out.

Why would expect that? Are you saying you're receiving a *single* photon from the star in a time interval in which you could actually perceive it blinking out?  

Light dims at a distance because you're receiving less photons per area. Thinking logically, this should mean at some distance you'll be receiving no photons unless you're in the proper place.

If your conclusion is false then one of your assumptions must be wrong.  We call that Modus Tolens.  As I said the photons are emitted from random spots on your theoretical sphere.  You're imagining the star as having discrete emitters pointing in a constant direction.   Your retina absorbs photons over time.  The rate of emission of these randomly originating photons is apparently high enough for your retina to send a signal to your brain and eventually you perceive the star.

Here's the thing, the spiky ball doesn't result if you extend all the points. The thing is that a sphere is defined as all the points (in a 3-dimensional space) equidistant from a central focus point. Since these points are infinitesimal in size, there are an infinite number of them. Spikes would appear if you only extended a limited number of the points. But since there are an infinite number of points, there are an infinite number of "spikes" coming up as well.
 
Therefore, you wouldn't end up with a spiky ball so much as an inflating balloon. So yeah, the bigger you inflate the balloon, the less amount of balloon material is in any one spot. This is the proper analog as to why stars are dimmer the further away they are.
 
As a side note, stars are capable of rotation so that could also explain a lack of blind spots if spiking should occur.

@GuyIncognito said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@GuyIncognito said:

@Fajita_Jim said:

@GuyIncognito said:

Maybe, because the photons are not emitted from exactly the same spots over time, rather, they're emitted from random spots.

That's what I meant when I said they're not emitted in a static fashion. But even so, at very large distances, you would expect the star to wink in and out.

Why would expect that? Are you saying you're receiving a *single* photon from the star in a time interval in which you could actually perceive it blinking out?

Light dims at a distance because you're receiving less photons per area. Thinking logically, this should mean at some distance you'll be receiving no photons unless you're in the proper place.

If your conclusion is false then one of your assumptions must be wrong. We call that Modus Tolens. As I said the photons are emitted from random spots on your theoretical sphere. You're imagining the star as having discrete emitters pointing in a constant direction. Your retina absorbs photons over time. The rate of emission of these randomly originating photons is apparently high enough for your retina to send a signal to your brain and eventually you perceive the star.

Fajita_Jim is also assuming that a star only emits photons from one layer, and that all those photons travel in a straight line, and that all those photons are ejected in a perfect line perpendicular to the surface of the sun. And also that the distance at which you receive no photons would be less than the distance at which you can only see the just-after-the-big-bang (not proven, but it could be possible), or that, if you could only see stars from a certain angle, that the window in which you can see the star isn't so small, or that a gap isn't so huge, that a human could perceive it (meaning there could be millions of stars proving Fajita_Jim's theory, but we can't perceive them or record them because the amount of time is too large to be noticeable).

There are probably a ton of possible reasons why what you're saying isn't observed, but to go through them all would be kind of stupid on a video game forum tbh.

Here's the thing, the spiky ball doesn't result if you extend all the points. The thing is that a sphere is defined as all the points (in a 3-dimensional space) equidistant from a central focus point. Since these points are infinitesimal in size, there are an infinite number of them. Spikes would appear if you only extended a limited number of the points. But since there are an infinite number of points, there are an infinite number of "spikes" coming up as well.
 
Therefore, you wouldn't end up with a spiky ball so much as an inflating balloon. So yeah, the bigger you inflate the balloon, the less amount of balloon material is in any one spot. This is the proper analog as to why stars are dimmer the further away they are.  As a side note, stars are capable of rotation so that could also explain a lack of blind spots if spiking should occur.

That's a interesting question, but as others have pointed out, it's probably not observed in practice do to any number of reasons. I doubt anyone here can provide a real, solid, and specific answer.

I think you're greatly underestimating the number of photons being released if you think there would be "spikes" at a scale relevant to the human eye.

The light from a star would fade enough to be completely invisible to the human eye well before these "spikes" would come into play. This means that the "spikes" would consist of so few photons that they would also be considered invisible and irrelevant to viewing the star. I don't know a whole lot about the human eye, but I'm sure there is some minimum number of photons that must be present before light is considered to be "visible."

Edited to add more and clarify some things.

The photons would not be linear, and also they would begin to show wave properties, though not really on a macro scale. Is there space around the sphere..that is what would become distinctive. That is, what you see in the night sky.