(Aside: I've enjoyed the explanantions of your time on DU. Cool beans.)
Remember when computer games were written in BASIC? You could extract the primary calculations, find the best answers "offline" and then "win" the game by huge scores/margins (impressing the gorgeous, red-haired, flirty chick at the lab terminal next to you that you hope you can check to see if the cuffs match the collar...)
That, in very simple terms, is what the photon is doing. The program isn't running but the photon is interacting with the primary coding inside the program.
So did the carpet match the drapes?