No problem with that, except that you are also saying that the photon is not actually spinning in the sense that we would understand it in 3D space. Doesn’t that imply that the RF is outside our dimensions?
Almost it is valid to exactly one point in our 3D space being the centre of the spin and it is thru that one point the energy enters and leaves. It is exactly the same for the centrifugal case.
Doesn’t that take us back to “square one”. There’s a RF there somewhere, but we can’t relate it to our 3+1 D.
No as per above it is related thru exactly one point and thru the energy exchange. What you are really saying is you can't relate it to other points in space and that is true. However that situation isn't unique corner a car hard and that energy and force has no meaning to anyone not in the car. The cornering car energy has meaning to you if you crash into it and that is the same for your photon.
I still get the feeling you think reference frames should be good and usable universally and it is not at all unusual for that not to be the case even in your classical world.It's funny if I asked you how a bird can sit on a high voltage power line you would probably recite an answer but you struggle with the same situation involving motion. It's almost as if you feel they should be more connected.
This sounds as though it would be difficult to test.
So was the Higgs field
If you hadn't realised the detection of GW150914 creates the same problem you need a dimension for space to contract in and out of for the gravitational wave. That was the problem Paul was struggling with into what is space stretching and contracting.
Its funny we say it proved Einstein right but he actually went backward and forward on the gravitational wave thing over his life because it implied the extra dimension in his GR was real, something he struggled with. He wavered throughout his life on whether the extra dimension in his formulation was just part of the mathematics or real. In the end he sort of adopted the shut up and calculate approach.
