How the hell can something be massless? Someone told me that light is a massless energy particle or some shit like that but that can't be possible because in order for something to actually exist, it must be made of something, and that something has to have mass, regardless of how minute it is right? Or is this correct since light is suppose to have duality? Please edumacate me.
>>2
This. Just go along with it so you pass your fucking course.
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Anonymous2009-02-07 15:36
What? I still don't get it. How was that a good answer? I thought there would have been more information about this stuff by now.
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Anonymous2009-02-07 17:46
We say things have mass because that is how we have defined them. In order for our system to work, we have defined light as having no mass. Now the only reason to define things the way we do is because it is in accordance with physical experiment. We don't see light affected by gravity like a baseball, and we can't weigh it either.
But if you have to think of it as SOMETHING, think of it as perpendicular electric field,and magnetic field waves that store energy, which sometimes interact with things as if they were really particles. This is wave-particle duality which ALL object exhibit, and has nothing to do with whether it has mass or not. well it DOES, but what i mean is that things both with and without mass exhibit the same wave-particle duality.
Also, 2 is pretty on point as well. I'm basically giving you the same answer, just trying to flesh it out a little more.
My suggestion? Take it for granted, there's way more important questions that need to be answered right now.
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Anonymous2009-02-07 18:08
>>6 i have to disagree with you on the >we dont see light affected by gravity like a baseball.
but its just for the sake of argument
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Anonymous2009-02-07 18:10
>>5
If you don't like having to take things for granted you might prefer math over physics. With math you're usually building up logic instead of breaking down knowledge.
You misunderstand me. I mean to say that light is affected by gravity, but not in the same way that a baseball would be affected by gravity.
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-07 22:23
Physics is complicated; allow me to assist you in simplifying it.
Energy chooses motion; the path of least resistance. Energy seeks greater velocities. Everything seeks a means to achieve flexibility or independence. Energy uses other energy with greater velocities to assist it in this motion. Wood uses fire to to move more freely. Dirt uses water to increase the mass of water and the flexibility of the dirt. Both energies assist in both, this is cooperation. Gravity is one of these energies as well. Heat radiates and expands, cold restricts and contracts motion. Greater mass resists less mass in motion. As mass accumulates within the energies that are in motion the velocities increase and the vectors are effected equally with increase or decrease in mass along with velocity.
Also for referential lookup; Copernicus, Newton, Galileo. It is important to study the past to understand the present.
Understand one thing though; modern math and science only measures the reaction after the interaction and transference has taken place. In other words, as with Newton's words, "For every action there is an equal and opposing reaction." What about the action? What about choice? These are the questions I'm researching right now. Possibly even a new math might be created to represent it.
This may not help, but it'll give you a start. GOOD LUCK!!!
You didn't even attempt to answer his question. None of what you just said makes any sense. You totally circumvented the subject.
"Energy" doesn't choose anything. It's a scalar quantity which is assigned to objects. Energy doesn't "use" energy. GRAVITY is not an energy, it's a force with a potential field. Wood doesn't use fire to move freely IT BURNS. Mass doesn't accumulate within energies in motion. Have you even taken physics 101? The most basic theories prove everything you've just said, completely and utterly incorrect.
OP you can think whatever you want when this thread is over. Just don't listen to this guy.
And if you are a troll, god help your soul you're a great one.
a) Mass is just a number (with units) we assign to every object. For all we know, it can be anything.
b) In relativity theory, the only meaningful mass is the invariant rest mass: you go to the particle's rest frame, and measure its mass there. If you were a masochistic experimentalist, you can measure an "effective mass", then correct for the object's motion relative to you, to find the invariant rest mass. This rest mass is important, because we want to characterize objects independent of how we see them. As for light, you can never be in its rest frame, but you can certainly boost yourself faster and faster, and take the limit. What you find is that as you go faster, the photon's energy decreases. In the limit as you approach the photon's rest frame, the photon will have 0 energy, and thus 0 rest mass.
tl;dr: see last sentence
c) Light is not a classical particle. Forces on photons do not behave as you might expect. Similarly, the forces that photons exert on other things are not what you might expect. For instance, in GR, photons have a non zero influence on the metric, but they do not influence the metric in the same way as regular matter.
>>2
Maybe, but we can certainly strive to understand as much as we can.
>>13
If you think me wrong, then I'm wrong. You are right, I don't know physics, I've yet to learn it. I just have a sense of how things work and I can put them into action.
Because energy flows Towards the path of least resistance; create resistance in all places that build potential energy in the direction of the path of least resistance that is the direction you wish to go. Eventually, the energy will be forced into kinetic release in the very direction you wish it to go. I'm not creator of this process, it was here long before I came along, it is what created me, it is what I use to live, it will eventually be my undoing. It's all part of the process. The process is what matters to me, not the goal, not the achievement, not the treasure at the end of the rainbow...it's the journey, the process that allows me to find my way.
Besides, this isn't an answer for you to stop looking for what you want. This statement should tell you one fundamental truth. If that truth isn't hear then the simple truth is "The answers I'm looking for aren't here." But what is here? Turn my "answers" into questions and you will find a means to look in places that you would never think to look for physics. What about music? Art? Anything in motion? Biology? Plants? These are examples. When you turn any answer into a question the question is yours to pursue, do with it what you will, research it or ignore it; the choice is yours to make.
Beware newfags!
AnOnYmOuS 2U stands for "I'm a troll".
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JimiHendrix!qHyjmd9XCE2009-02-10 17:16
|mass refers to the degree of acceleration a body acquires when subject to a force: bodies with greater mass are accelerated less by the same force.
cited from |http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass
Since you cant apply force to light to increase it's speed, because light is already traveling at the maximum speed allowed by the universe(physics), it doesn't have mass.
>>18
You can still "accelerate" a photon by changing its "direction".
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JimiHendrix!qHyjmd9XCE2009-02-10 18:27
>>19
I never used the word acceleration, in case you didn't notice.
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-11 2:36
What action is taken to CHANGE the DIRECTION of a photon to accelerate it? If I had to guess, deflection? But deflecting what off of photons? hhhhmmmmmmmmmmm?
>>18
Are you absolutely sure that statement is true? You see, if photons or light can't breach a speed barrier it means that in fact it does have mass because it is meeting some form of resistance. Even in a perfect vacuum, what might that resistance be...I wonder?
As particles become increasingly close to the speed of light, they begin to gain mass instead of speed to make up the energy gain difference, but never reaching the speed of light
This is an interesting and completely unrelated anecdote, please enjoy
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-15 2:28
Isn't it amazing how motion can almost equate to mass? Like still air has no feeling, but the wind blows and it can sweep you away. I wonder, what does this on a smaller, simpler level? Hmm...Thank you >>25.
>>29,30
One must turn his back to the devil to understand the true slimy nature of his words.
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Anonymous2009-02-20 23:26
easy light has mass
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-20 23:45
The best way to understand yourself is to understand your actions. "The greatest thing the devil ever did was convince the world he didn't exist."
Do you try to convince people you don't exist by hiding behind walls, doors, lies, emotional defense mechanisms, etc, etc. Are you beginning to catch my drift? If you are hiding something, you are behaving as the devil would. This means, you are ALLOWING the devil to control you. Rather you are allowing your ego, what you know, to self-preserve itself. From this comes a phrase you may have already heard before, "YOU ARE WRONG!" <-defense mechanism to protect your "way of thinking". Understand one thing, we humans aren't as stupid as we make ourselves out to be.
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Anonymous2009-02-21 2:32
apparently my post >>2 was deleted, along with others. someone has some splainin' to do.
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Anonymous2009-02-21 3:25
>>21 >>19
You actually can't accellerate a photon. When a photon goes through something with a non-unity index of refraction, it still goes at the speed of light in that material. When it "bounces off" a reflective surface, what comes back is actually a new photon. When it's "bent" by gravity, it's still following geodesics, and therefore following a straight path through _curved_space_.
>>35
Hence I put "accelerate" in "quotes".
Right, the light that enters a material is not the same as the light that exits, due to electron photon interactions.
It appears to "accelerate" because we're not following a geodesic. We are the ones accelerating, and not the photon. However, since we live on earth, it is convenient sometimes, to use an accelerating reference frame.
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-25 4:42
And don't forget about human perception; human awareness also oscillates at a relative variable from person to person, moment to moment and is in a longer wavelength than that of the light. Not to mention that from person to person this may be seen easily where it takes one person to recognize a task as it does for the next. Their wavelength of awareness is also taking just a few moments longer than the person who is able to perceive this occurrence. This is why it takes some people longer to learn a subject than say someone who is able to learn how to control their own awareness wavelength. I worked on it for a year and already I'm seeing amazing results. My own wavelengths are shortening to the point where I can recognize moments of clarity that did not exist before. One simple thing to practice was this (it was so simple I amazed myself just from its practice.)
1) As you are in your location; describe to yourself your surroundings. This brings your attention and awareness closer to your relative surroundings and location. At first it will appear mundane and boring, eventually you will recognize simple and subtle things about yourself and other people around you.
2) Learn from other people's mistakes; it is easy to say someone else is doing something wrong. When you turn their mistake into your own, you will seek your own method to creating a solution for yourself, then you are going to express that solution simply by doing it for yourself or someone you work for.
3) Make the choice a habit; by making the choice a habit means simply to choose a course of action that will take you to a means to successfully completing a task or procedure and doing it repetitively within EVERY aspect of your life though it may vary from subject to subject, the choice, you will find, is relatively similar in its active facilitation. What is choice? "To be or not to be; that is the question." -William Shakespeare
"To sleep or not to sleep, to eat or not to eat, to breathe or not to breathe, to choose or not to choose, what you decide is entirely up to you. After all, man is a creature of habit.
4) Practice Free-Will; to practice free-will simply do the things you don't feel like doing for the moment. If you want something, perform the contributory actions through free-will and you will find yourself making new choices and new avenues of practicing these things.
I urge anyone that practices these things to do it relatively close to your location; meaning, where you are now, what can you do to make your future moments easier even though its a bit of a task right now? What about certain practices? Habits that you would like to alter to your benefit.
You may find that most of what I'm talking about is untrue or a lie in your case. I would say that you are right, but what would it mean to you if you were able to say that you had done these things? Is there hope or despair? Strive for things that bring you hope and you shall succeed at anything you do.
Well, other than that, its a matter of Will and repetition. After all this, repetition breeds excellence, and man is a creature of habit. How can you turn this to your benefit? There is a way, the answer that you'll find is, "What choice brings me joy?" Next would be, "If I don't know, free-will it to find out."
I've heard that Free-Will is doing what you want to do; I say that's not entirely accurate. Most people want to laze around the house, it takes no amount of effort to do this, free-will is easily accomplished and easily made a habit to laze. However, to commit yourself to an action, free-will is your tool, fear is your guide. That's right, fear. If you fear something you won't want to confront it, amirite? Free-will means to confront your fears, do the things you don't want to do to prove you are not a zombie...TO YOURSELF, what others think is only of consequence to them. Afterall, who are you around 24/7/365? That mug looking back from the mirror tells you that answer. When your words become your ally of truth, you will begin to see things in a different light. And btw, I am lying, am hypocritical, am arrogant, am selfish, am foolish, am afraid, am threatened. So does it really matter what I tell you to do? Your body/mind/spirit, your choice; to do or not to do. I can't control what you do from wherever I am in the world to wherever you are from a dinky laptop at his mommy's house in the woods, can I? Please don't believe me off the bat, find out for yourself what you really want, you probably already knew this, but it got lost in the whitenoise of societies adaptation. It doesn't really matter what you choose so long as it makes you happy; What hath a man lest he hath not a joy to carry, really?
Use whatever methods, religions, philosophies, doctrines, advice, you name it, etc, to figure things out for yourselves. You'll find a ton of info on the net, a ton more from asking people questions, and in the process you'll learn more about yourself.
"What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror, then we shall see face-to-face; for now I know in part, then I shall know fully just as I have been fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12
The guide for me, that I'm on the right track with MY life? Everything anyone says is truth until it is found out otherwise. It is the PURSUIT of truth that lends its wisdom to our lives, not the KNOWLEDGE of being able to do so.
Some reading if you fancy it;
The Laws of Spirit by Dan Millman
Way of the Living Sword by Yagyu Munenori
48 Ways to Wisdom by Rabbi Noah Wineburg
Too soon old, too late smart by Gordon Livingston
I know this sounds corny, but The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Believe it or not, the BOOK holds a few HINTS at the mysterious ways of every motion within our universe and how to utilize this to your benefit.
I simply call it "The choice of energy" It works best for me in those terms.
If anyone is interested, I'll post it in this thread tomorrow after I review it and revise it some more to update my findings.
Though I don't think anyone cares, but meh, what the hell. I'm just here to waste time and accomplish nothing like everyone else here, amirite?
Which means that the photon would increase its velocity, i.e. accelerate, right?
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Anonymous2009-02-27 3:13
>>40 >>41
lrn2GR; spacetime is always locally lorentzian, there is no c increasing or decreasing
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-27 4:52
>>40
lol, wtf? who cares if photons accelerate or not. Like it f'ing matters anyway, amirite? Talking about photons...how about women? I would like to see what a woman does the first time I massage her thigh. The look in her eyes, her surprise, her breathing, what does her breath smell like, her face blushing, her soft hair against my face...hmmm, now that's something worth finding out about, amirite?
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-27 4:55
>>40
lol, stop it. Photons can accelerate or decelerate depending upon what pushes and draws the photon. Find out that info and you can control the flow of photonic energy how you want. Hell, you might even be able to project a new information beam faster and further into space depending upon how you use it. I hope you understand what I mean by push and draw...please tell me you know this function about nature...o.o
Photons interact only with leptons, quarks, and W bosons (and gravitons, but standard model can't account for gravity). None of these things can accelerate a photon in the classical sense. I think the most they can do is absorb and emit photons.
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AnOnYmOuS 2U2009-02-28 23:57
>>46
hmm, thanks for noticing. You're not so bad there yourself.
the particles of light are called photons & they are massless. They are effected by gravity in the exact same way as everything else. gravity pulls on the photons because they have momentum. thing can exist even if they don't have mass. mass is caused by the particles interaction with the higgs field. think if it like this. when you move your hand through water the water impedes the motion. massive particle interact more strongly then light particles so it takes more force to accelerate them.
the duality you are mentioned is the wave particle duality. which is that light acts like both a particle & a wave. in that it will interfere with itself & that it comes in discrete packets of energy
...okay fellas, what happens when you apply all energy in one direction, the path of each particular energy's least resistance? I use this function to achieve my goals, though I use the opposite also, learn of each, divide and utilize each flow for the prior statement. I believe this is knowing God to be like God. But that's just me, lol.
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Anonymous2009-03-11 20:24
A guy named Albert told me once that Mass and Energy are the same.
He mumbled something about the equation E=MC^2
Where:
E= Energy
M= Mass
C= The light of speed in nothingness(vacuum)