Light has no *rest* mass.... but then light has no rest state. Light *has* mass, because it has energy, and energy *is* mass (E-MC2). This is why light is bent by gravity.
So the actual mass of light depends on it's frequency:
The reason nothing can be accelerated beyond the speed of light, is that accelerating mass actually *increases* it's mass (by increasing it's energy). The closer to the speed of light it gets, the more massive it gets, and hence the more energy it take to accelerate it. To *achieve* the speed of light through acceleration of a mass, would take infinite energy, and would achieve infinite mass... and incidentally, due to the Fitzgerald contraction, the mass would also achieve two dimentionality (no length in it's direction of travel), and time, for that mass, would slow to a complete stop.
Light can achieve the speed of light, because it never goes any slower, and does not achieve it through acceleration.
As a fun excersize: If you think of time as a fourth dimension of space (it's not, and there are problems doing this, but for the sake of the excersize), then *everything* is always moving at exactly the speed of light, on a vector in this 4D space. The faster you move through physical 3D space, the slower you move through time. The vector addition sum of all four dimensions is always the same.
Y’know…ages past… I could actually dabble in stuff like this, Fido. Even if I couldn’t visualize the abstract concepts, I could play with the numbers and get the right answers. But too many years have gone by and my mind is not as pliable as it once was. Ya know what they say… if ya don’t use it…ya lose it. I remember arguing with the other egg heads about time being a dimension (I always felt that it was not)but others were convinced it was. Now it’s an argument (to me) about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin! I’d need a good month of hard remedial math before I could even look at this stuff now and even then I wouldn’t be able to wrap my mind around it…😞
Absolutely. All this crap are just stories we made up to "explain" what we see, and mostly to "predict" what we *will* see. To the extent that the stories achieve the later, we call them "true".... until they fail.... which they always eventually do.
If the story doesn't actually let *you* predict *your* future, and thereby get some control over it.. This it's just another fairy tale.... until it isn't:
I collect these stories, because many of them have eventually given me a sense of control over things, as an engineer. Most of them never have (so far).
We are finite beings with finite cognitive resources, and you've got to draw the line *somewhere*.
Dark energy?
ReplyDeleteIt's a particle AND a wave. A wave can couple with atmosphere by resonate coupling/induction. Kent in Michigan
ReplyDeleteUghhh. I’m still constipated from those latest double slit experiments that seem to indicate light can “choose” whether to be a wave or a particle….
DeleteThe drone in the pic has motors in the hubs of the two props. Also the blades are fixed and the motor just hangs down. I'm going with bad AI picture.
ReplyDeleteExile1981
You nailed it.
DeleteLight has energy, not mass. E=mc^2, therefore m=E/c^2. Energy transfer is energy transfer.
ReplyDeleteLight has no *rest* mass.... but then light has no rest state. Light *has* mass, because it has energy, and energy *is* mass (E-MC2). This is why light is bent by gravity.
ReplyDeleteI am not a physicist fellas… but … “c” is a constant measured in velocity. “M” is mass. Is there a formula explaining the principle of operation here?
ReplyDeleteI’m with Exile above… I think it’s a hoax…
So the actual mass of light depends on it's frequency:
ReplyDeleteThe reason nothing can be accelerated beyond the speed of light, is that accelerating mass actually *increases* it's mass (by increasing it's energy). The closer to the speed of light it gets, the more massive it gets, and hence the more energy it take to accelerate it. To *achieve* the speed of light through acceleration of a mass, would take infinite energy, and would achieve infinite mass... and incidentally, due to the Fitzgerald contraction, the mass would also achieve two dimentionality (no length in it's direction of travel), and time, for that mass, would slow to a complete stop.
Light can achieve the speed of light, because it never goes any slower, and does not achieve it through acceleration.
As a fun excersize: If you think of time as a fourth dimension of space (it's not, and there are problems doing this, but for the sake of the excersize), then *everything* is always moving at exactly the speed of light, on a vector in this 4D space. The faster you move through physical 3D space, the slower you move through time. The vector addition sum of all four dimensions is always the same.
Y’know…ages past… I could actually dabble in stuff like this, Fido. Even if I couldn’t visualize the abstract concepts, I could play with the numbers and get the right answers. But too many years have gone by and my mind is not as pliable as it once was. Ya know what they say… if ya don’t use it…ya lose it. I remember arguing with the other egg heads about time being a dimension (I always felt that it was not)but others were convinced it was. Now it’s an argument (to me) about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin! I’d need a good month of hard remedial math before I could even look at this stuff now and even then I wouldn’t be able to wrap my mind around it…😞
DeleteAbsolutely. All this crap are just stories we made up to "explain" what we see, and mostly to "predict" what we *will* see. To the extent that the stories achieve the later, we call them "true".... until they fail.... which they always eventually do.
DeleteIf the story doesn't actually let *you* predict *your* future, and thereby get some control over it.. This it's just another fairy tale.... until it isn't:
I collect these stories, because many of them have eventually given me a sense of control over things, as an engineer. Most of them never have (so far).
We are finite beings with finite cognitive resources, and you've got to draw the line *somewhere*.