You won't get too far taking your cues from Farsight. He's just a poser.
You won't get too far taking your cues from Farsight. He's just a poser.
First, you probably should have said mass, not weight. To have weight you would first have to stop the thing and get to stand on a scale. For this particular case even a bathroom scale would suffice, as a gamma ray cannot exist at rest.
Second, without any comment on the issue of whether or not light has mass, how would a gamma ray burst during the formation of a black hole have any relationship, to the question of whether gamma rays have mass? Are you assuming that during the formation of a black hole all involved mass is contained by the black hole, i.e. there is no mass ejected during the formation?
Unless all of the mass involved in the process is ultimately contained by the black hole's formation, the formation of the black hole itself cannot be a factor in the conclusion that gamma rays do or do not have mass.
Gamma rays are photons, of high energy light. Photons are electromagnetic radiation propagated as energy quanta, which are yes.., called photons. There are a few, light has some small mass hypothesis out there but they are not generally accepted, as representing our best understanding at present.
We still do, but that does not require a photon to have mass. It only requires a transfer of energy. Go outside on a sunny day and get a sunburn.., a transfer of energy. A solar sail just responds to the transfer of energy kinetically.
Physics confusion
Registered Member
Hi,
we cannot yet determine as to wether light has mass as the tools on earth aren't far enough developed. Scientifically it is commonly said that it doesn't have mass. I know that many people, including myself, actively beleive that light has mass. Light is effected not only by gravity, but carries momentum and causes wind like effects in space. furthermore, light is beleived to dissipate its energy as it travels through space, which can only be linked to inpart with the countless volumes of particles in space. If we follow normal LOGIC when we investigate the properties of light, conclusively it must have mass.
we cannot yet determine as to wether light has mass as the tools on earth aren't far enough developed. Scientifically it is commonly said that it doesn't have mass. I know that many people, including myself, actively beleive that light has mass. Light is effected not only by gravity, but carries momentum and causes wind like effects in space. furthermore, light is beleived to dissipate its energy as it travels through space, which can only be linked to inpart with the countless volumes of particles in space. If we follow normal LOGIC when we investigate the properties of light, conclusively it must have mass.
No. The experimental tools we have are plenty developed enough to measure the mass of the photon. It is at most something like 40 orders of magnitude less than the electron, and that's only an upper bound. For comparison, there are only about 6 orders between the electron and the heaviest quark.
So then a photon does have a "rest" mass?
No. Prometheus didn't say that any mass has been measured. He said that to the limits of the current accuracy of our measuring methods, no mass has been detected.
I believe you are correct in what he meant. The way he said it was not as clear.
Everything is relative.
When I posted this I thought some idiot would misunderstand. Please note the highlighted text below:
The photon doesn't have a mass of any kind. Using $$E = mc^2$$ to give the photon a mass is stupid because in that equation you have assumed the particle is at rest, and the photon can never be at rest. The photon has energy and momentum, which are just fine to tell you what you want to know about photons.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=109508
Post #15 - Ellis
"Do you believe man has landed on the moon leo?"
Post # 16 - "i was never there so i can't say with certainty."
Prometheus, I did notice. My posted question was intended to illicit the clarification. As it did.
I find myself, misunderstood at times also. There seems no hope for that. I try to proof for spelling and obviously misplaced or misused wording, but one almost always understands what they meant, even when their written words don't clearly reflect, the intended meaning.
I find myself, misunderstood at times also. There seems no hope for that. I try to proof for spelling and obviously misplaced or misused wording, but one almost always understands what they meant, even when their written words don't clearly reflect, the intended meaning.
Wikipedia,Experimental checks on photon mass:
"Photons inside superconductors do develop a nonzero effective rest mass; as a result, electromagnetic forces become short-range inside superconductors."
A superconductor is a very special case - the properties of a photon in a superconductor can't tell you much about properties of photons in general because as you said, the EM force becomes short range in a superconductor and normally the EM force acts over infinite range.
I don't know too much about superconductors, but I would guess that in the effective field theory description of them, the photons couple strongly to something and are no longer the propagating degrees of freedom of the theory, hence there is no point in really talking about them at all. For those who may post to ask for clarification here, the operative word in this paragraph is guess.