Back to the contest though..
I believe Entry #8 is pretty much debunked. I, of course, am not the final authority.
Now for some of the others:
"Entry #1: from ashura
Layman entry: Matter has mass. Photons are massless. Ergo, matter can't be made of photons.
CptBork pointed out that ashura REALLY means rest mass."
---The latest Quantum concensus is that mass is a property of energy and is actualized via the Higgs boson as it relates to the Higgs field. Note use of the term boson. This has not been verified by the LHC yet but it is the prevailing opinion of the elite quantum physics community. According to Mr Higgs matter/mass IS in fact made of that which is massless.
For this reason I think Entry #1 is defunct and request it be removed unless a rational arguement is presented to the contrary.
"Entry #2: from Diode - Man
Photons are products of excited (heated) atomic matter. ...400 to 790,000,000,000,000 waves per second...With such erratic motions it would be impossible for a photon to become a solid or permanent piece of any molecular or atomic configuration. ” - etc.
---I believe the point of this post is most concisely stated by the following sentence: "With such erratic motions it would be impossible for a photon to become a solid or permanent piece of any molecular or atomic configuration."
Please refer to the Quantum Atomic Model. As stated (repeatedly), photons are absorbed by, contained within and emmitted by electrons (and hence atoms).
Since photons DO in fact become part of all atomic configurations, I think Entry #2 is defunct and request it be removed unless a rational arguement is presented to the contrary.
"Entry #3: from Steve100
If two particles with the same mass are made of photons, they must be made of the same amount of photons.
This would make the 2 particles have identical properties, and we already know that we can have particles with different properties and the same mass.
Therefore the particles cannot be made of photons."
---Photons come with widely varying energies depending on their frequency.
I hate to play the E=MC² card but differing energies result in differing masses during the conversion.
As such, particles with the same mass are not necessarily made of the same number of photons. Two high energy photons might create more mass than two low energy photons I therefore think Entry #3 is defunct and request it be removed unless a rational arguement is presented to the contrary.
"Entry #4: from QuarkHead (in limerick form)
A physicist (mad as a hatter)
Once pondered the nature of matter.
He concluded "it's light";
But we know that's not right,
Since the absence of forces
Would take less than two horses
To cause all matter to shatter."
---Nice rhyme.
"Entry #5: from melodicbard
Photon does not have charge.
Matter can carry positive or negative charge."
---This is nonsensical.
See my primary arguement- Electrons absorb, contain and then emit photons. Electrons carry charge.
As such, I think Entry #5 is defunct and request it be removed unless a rational arguement is presented to the contrary.
"Entry #6: from Vkothii. I think I missed this one before.
Photons are perturbations in the EM field and don't couple to the putative Higgs field.
Like waves on the surface of a liquid are perturbations of the surface, and don't displace (carry) any liquid, except as part of the momentum-wave's [vertical] time-displacement. Ocean waves don't have mass either.
Particles like electrons, can 'surf' a wave, like a bit of wood or a surfer can surf an ocean wave. That's an interaction with the wavefront - a charged electron is affected by the electric wave component of a coherent group of photons.
Fundamental particles with 'rest' mass [can] couple to both fields.
A photon doesn't generally interact with another photon, except at the extreme of the frequency range, where two 'extreme' photons with sufficient momentum have a greater probability (the uncertainty principle) of massive (gamma-gamma) interaction when they encounter each other, and interact as massive particle-antiparticle pairs, but not as photons.
Something like that. "
---I can't even follow that mess, much less judge it.
"Entry #7: from Cyperium
Why can't mass be made of photons?
Photons are the result of the energy released when mass converts or when something of higher energy enters a lower state (then the energy difference is released as photons to preserve the energy total)
So photons preserves the energy, so then there is no need for preservation in the form of photons, if the energy is already preserved in mass.
You can convert photons to mass, or mass to photons. But photons cannot be mass. "
--- If you can convert photons to mass and mass to photons then OBVIOUSLY photons CAN be mass- and vice versa. As such I think Entry #7 is defunct and request it be removed unless a rational arguement is presented to the contrary.
"Entry #8: from Janus
Why matter can not be made up of photons...."
---See above posts.
I request Entry #8 be removed unless a rational arguement is presented to the contrary.
Entry #9: from...Vern?
BenTheMan; an entry. In all of the photon theories I can find, not one of them can make a neutrino out of photons. Maybe it is not fair; you posted this yourself But I have known it for years.
---I can't comment about the processes of photon conversion.
But, are neutrino's KNOWN to exist? Because if they are still purely theoretical, then this entry is irrelevant. We are not required to prove that photons must make up theoretical particles.
As such I think Entry #9 is defunct and request it be removed unless a rational arguement is presented to the contrary.
"Entry #10: from temur
Have somebody already said spin? Photon has spin 1, and you cannot make particles with spin 1/2 with this. "
---I have no argument against this Entry.
"Entry #11: from CptBork
and ordinary matter would quickly decay into photons if its was simply composed of bunches of them. "
---Ordinary matter IS composed of bunches of protons, neutrons and electrons but atoms very rarely decay into them (alpha particles, nuclear and radioactive materials excluded).
I believe this entry is not yet debunked and requires further debate.
