A photon that is emitted from an atom in some astrophysical event has a wave function that moves in more or less a spherical pattern away from its source. Ram Sashadri says, if I was a lowly patent clerk and came into possession of earth shattering new physics how could I go about attributing credit to myself without getting rumbled? GPT: The idea that by putting a paper a result into public it will get stolen is precisely backwards. If you actually come up with something correct you're not going to be the only person who comes up with that idea before too long.