Everything has a frequency! Can you suggest reading materials to learn more about photons for a retired mechanical engineer? Too late for me to get another degree but I am fascinated with the subject. These details, if currently understood by science, are very interesting to me.
Been close to 50 years since I had to use it. Thanks again. The photon has zero mass but has energy. I read the above great response for the Physicist, and Al, thank you for your comment. Ross, I too have had a year career. I have made a somewhat related to-the-subject discovery of my own. After years of research, I have concluded there is an atemporal, massless particle at the functional center of every living cell which is responsible for all cell functions through the DNA contained in the cell , it is also the repository of all memory and co-responsible for consciousness.
I would love to hear from a physicist what the makeup of that particle might be. Also, according to relativity, it takes infinite energy for any object with mass to travel at the speed of light.
So if the photon has mass, it takes infinite energy for it to travel at c. All of Physics is screwed. However, I believe that if we stand very close to the Sun o. So perhaps it depends on the size of the photo and the source from which it originated. So if we change the playing field in this example to a large photon emitter — the Sun- would we then notice a mass-bearing photon? Or a star bigger than our Sun perhaps? The reverse should also be true where as energy slows down by whatever mechanism the energy would revert to matter.
This might explain how the matter in the universe arose from the Big Bang. As space, time and energy instantaneously unfolded the expansion caused a potion of the infinite energy to slow down and convert to mass. It will take time, but, one day a really smart individual may figure out the mechanism that allowed this to happen. As the universe unfolded and energy slowed down converting to matter.
The mass of the matter that was infinitely spread out was concentrated also. It makes for an interesting discussion.
Hi Carl, Sounds like you are in favor of my mass-bearing photon theory. I am non-educated shlup,but have semi-figured out some questions including why a photon has energy without having mass,and if it ever runs out of energy or stops?
Last what will happen to the photons if there not part of this normal universe? Except for the fact that is not at all what happens or could have happened. It happens when you attempt to calculate an impossible real-world scenario. Like mass traveling at light speed. A photon would be nothing if it were at rest. They are always going full speed. Movement creates kinetic energy which makes a photon something rather than nothing. So now you get it. A photon must have energy as a source to be created however it does not take any energy from the source when it leaves.
Yep, but a photon is a particle. Oh you want to talk waves? By this definition a beam of light is massless like the photons it is composed of. However, if light is trapped in a box with perfect mirrors so the photons are continually reflected back and forth in both directions symmetrically in the box, then the total momentum is zero in the box's frame of reference but the energy is not.
Therefore the light adds a small contribution to the mass of the box. This could be measured--in principle at least--either by the greater force required to accelerate the box, or by an increase in its gravitational pull. You might say that the light in the box has mass, but it would be more correct to say that the light contributes to the total mass of the box of light. You should not use this to justify the statement that light has mass in general.
Part of this discussion is only concerned with semantics. It might be thought that it would be better to regard the mass of the photons to be their nonzero relativistic mass, as opposed to their zero invariant mass. We could then consistently talk about the light having mass independently of whether or not it is contained.
If relativistic mass is used for all objects, then mass is conserved and the mass of an object is the sum of the masses of its parts. However, modern usage defines mass as the invariant mass of an object mainly because the invariant mass is more useful when doing any kind of calculation. In this case mass is not conserved and the mass of an object is not the sum of the masses of its parts.
To be technical, it cannot be brought to rest in a vacuum which is the important part here. The important property is the rest energy in a vacuum, since this is how the mass of a particle is defined in a universal sense.
I mean, how do you measure the property of something at rest if it cannot be at rest? This would then mean that photons do not have mass either, since mass is practically defined as rest energy.
For photons, which of course move at the speed of light, this prediction indeed happens to be true. But how exactly does special relativity predict this?
The answer is very simple and to see it, you only need one of the fundamental results of special relativity, which is the formula for relativistic total energy :. From this, you simply solve for the mass and see what happens in the case of a photon i. I should also make clear that this prediction simply tells you what the mass of a particle travelling at c should be. Now, this really is the most fundamental way to explain the mass of photons, because quantum field theory is the single most accurate theory of nature that we have.
First of all, quantum field theories are a class of theories that describe different physics by using what are called quantum fields.
The quantum field theory related to photons and electromagnetism is called quantum electrodynamics. The question is different, the answers are different. In fact, the "duplicate" question has NO answer that tells why it is believed that photons are massless. And the question is one of some interest.
In addition to the current literature i. Jackson has a discussion of this question and the question here has attracted 5 answers, none from a less than rep author, and with a total of 9, reputation. Reopen the question. It is not an axioma as far as I know. Is this why any body with a mass can't escape a black hole? Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes.
Improve this answer. Correspondingly, the force among such neutral particles decreases quickly with the distance. In fact, the decreases is faster than the power law because the gluons self-interact so they are confined, too. The mass of colored objects is a subtle thing - it depends on the RG scale and the masslessness is only relevant at very short distances, much shorter than the proton radius QCD scale where the confinement starts to matter.
Einstein's equations show that in order for mass to travel at the speed of light would take an infinite amount of energy. So, you asked Crazy Peanut how he knew that neutrinos did not travel at the speed of light. I am going to reverse that on you. How do you know that neutrinos travel at the speed of light?
Your profile lists theoretical particle physics as your specialty, so you must have some basis for your stance. The S. Show 10 more comments. Rafael Rafael 2, 16 16 silver badges 21 21 bronze badges.
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