Speed of light

[Tim_Lou]

i dont believe that photons have mass. its probably some experimental error.

atoms are made of electrons, protons and neutrons as we all know.
and protons and neutrons are made of quarks.
but the total mass of quarks doesnt equal the mass of protons and neutrons, it is a very small % of the mass of protons and neutrons.

then where does the rest mass comes from?
it is due to the energy in it.

so, my conclusion is this, photon has mass, probably it is due to its energy.

[TINNY]

And, while everything in the physical universe has some mass greater than zero, which is a necessary characteristic for existence in the material world, light has no mass at all. As you approach the speed of light mass increases, at the speed of light mass is infinite. Regardless of how tiny the amount of mass you begin with, that mass rises to infinity at the speed of light. Since photons travel at the speed of light and do not reach infinite mass it means that they had zero mass to begin with, and a light therefore does not actually exist in the material world.
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[PIB28]

The slit experiment showed that photons can behave as particles. Don't ALL particles have mass? So, if a photon has mass, wouldn't it take infinite energy to accelerate it to the speed of light?

This one has me confused and saying there are "massless particles" seems like a bullshit answer -- but what do I know?

[wavelength?]

I have posted a reply in the thread "matter and energy" which may help you out.

Since all matter is made up of light that occupies space time, then when you try to accelerate matter to the speed of light what you accually would be doing is trying to take the spin of light in the matter and attempt to make light go faster than the speed of light in the forward precession. Since light can not go faster than itself what you would end up with is infinite mass, and it would also take infinite energy to try and accelerate matter to the speed of light since it is impossible. What you would have to do to get something to travel at the speed of light is take the light that is in rotation in the matter and convert in back to its original form, which is linear. This has not been done yet, it is improbable but not impossible.

[Spinner]

Under the wave theory of matter, matter is described as standing waves in a wave-structured universe.

The most common "proof" of existence of mass, such as inertia, gravity and space-time curvature may therefore just be observed properties of a more fundamental phenomenon. In fact mass itself might just be an observed derivative property as such, and may not deserve a primary measuring unit (gram).

The fact that mass changes at relativistic speeds is in support of such a view. An increasing mass on acceleration at high speeds might happen to be a set of consistent observations and explanations that might actually be sitting within a superset of observations and explanations by a higher and more unifying theory (wave theory), with the difference either not yet observed by human science, or already observed but not attributed a consistent and commonly recognised scientific theory or discipline yet.

No different to how observations of Newtonian mechanics is within the Einsteinian superset.

So for Einstein, the increasing mass module to his overall theory is simply very convenient. We simply have not had sufficient empirical observations to conclusively prove anything solid in this "increasing mass" phenomenon.

No different to how Newtonian mechanics explained all observations until an inconsistency was found observing planetary movement with a higher level of precision.

The "Stopping Light" article listed earlier in the thread, which saw light being "stored" in matter spin also makes a parallel link between matter and light, and not entirely different to the manner e=mc^2 links the pair.

[WebFeet]

The most common "proof" of existence of mass, such as inertia, gravity and space-time curvature may therefore just be observed properties of a more fundamental phenomenon. In fact mass itself might just be an observed derivative property as such, and may not deserve a primary measuring unit (gram).

The electron and the positron

Both of them have the same mass, the same spin and the same amount of energy - 0.5MeV.
The only difference is the charge. The electron is negative, the positron (the anti particle of the electron) is positive.

Bring the two of them together and they annihilate each other resulting in two photons, each of 0.5MeV.

Every other property that distinguished the electron from other particles has gone. Likewise with the positron.

The simplest way to view this is that mass, spin and charge are all properties of the energy that went into making up each of the particles. The mass and spin would have had the same values, so would not have cancelled each other out.
The charge, on the other hand, was opposite and could have cancelled out the other.

This seems to imply a hierarchy to the properties of the particles.
1. Energy
2. Configuration of the energy - charge
3. The properties relating to the configuration - mass

Without some form of configuration of the energy, there can be no mass - the photon. Once the energy has some form of configuration it becomes a system, comprising of more than just its component energy.