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Az
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MACEDONIA - It's the name of the sovereign country to the north of Greece
Apr 2000 time: 07:25
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ok, Guess what? It appears that photons have mass after all.
a quick googlesearch has came up with the following link:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/a...ers/961102.html
quote:
Now, being scientists, we do not just accept theories like general relativity or conclusions like photons have no mass. We constantly test them, trying to definitively prove or disprove. So far, general relativity has withstood every test. And try as we might, we can measure no mass for the photon. We can just put upper limits on what mass it can have. These upper limits are determined by the sensitivity of the experiment we are using to try to "weigh the photon". The last number I saw was that a photon, if it has any mass at all, must be less than 4 x 10-48 grams. For comparison, the electron has a mass of 9 x 10-28 grams.
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well, what do you know....
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TCO
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Richmond, VA
Jan 1970 time: 00:25
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel
the de-broglie equation says that all things have wavelike properties. The smaller the particle is, the more it is relevant. For example, contrary to what many people think, you can't see the electrons mooving around the nucleus in nice circular patterns. The electron is actually a cloud around the nucleus. That cloud takes different forms, for different atoms ( long story to explain ). for hydrogen for example, there single electron forms a cloud of probability, with the highest probability to find him being near the nucleus. That cloud never ends, though, so there is an infinetly small chance that electrons from your body are now actually in the alpha centauri system (!)
With my humble knowledge I see a problem to describe the wavelike features of a graviton according to the de-broglie equation, because the wave's frequency is a function of the particle's mass. But do gravitons have mass? I don't think so. |
There is a certain place where these things get metaphysical, but I think you can think of the electron not as a cloud but as a particle with indeterminate location. The "cloud" that you draw is a representation of the probability function across space. But not necessarily a smear of electron. (but this mayjust be a descriptional difference...)
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Craig P.
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The experiment shows the speed of gravity based on the onset of the deflection of the light from the distant source. If gravity were instantaneous, it would deflect sooner than it did (by, I presume, a -very- small margin).
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Rogan Josh
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Photons most certainly don't have mass, but it is impossible to comepletely prove this experimentally. All one can do is put an upper bound on the photon mass by experiment, and as the link says, that bound is really tiny.
Trust me - photons are massless.
Also, there is no problem decribing a massless particle quantum mechanically. The problem with describing the graviton quantum mechanically is not because it is massless, but because it has more angular momentum. It is spin 2, compared to the photon with spin 1.
This causes the quantum theory of gravity to be nonrenormalizable - when we calculate physical quantities with the theory we find that the results are dependent on the physics at really really high energies, which we don't know yet.
For the other theories like Quantum-Electro-Dynamics, the answers you get don't depend on the very high energy physics, so you can make predictions fine. (This property is why, for example, you don't need to do quantum mechanics to work out the dynamics of a bouncing ball....)
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shade
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of bribery.
May 2001 time: 06:25
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel
ok, Guess what? It appears that photons have mass after all.
a quick googlesearch has came up with the following link:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/a...ers/961102.html
quote:
Now, being scientists, we do not just accept theories like general relativity or conclusions like photons have no mass. We constantly test them, trying to definitively prove or disprove. So far, general relativity has withstood every test. And try as we might, we can measure no mass for the photon. We can just put upper limits on what mass it can have. These upper limits are determined by the sensitivity of the experiment we are using to try to "weigh the photon". The last number I saw was that a photon, if it has any mass at all, must be less than 4 x 10-48 grams. For comparison, the electron has a mass of 9 x 10-28 grams.
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well, what do you know.... |
we now know you don't really read what it says
This article doesn't say Photon's have a mass, It says "IF" photon's would have a mass it would have to be less then 4x10-48grams...but it can be 0...
Shade
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Eli
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Israel
Jul 2000 time: 07:25
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I actually understand most of what people wrote here. Where's my shrink?
Seriously though. Dont you think it's all too complicated? Reading all the physics mumbo-jumbo mentioned in this thread I get this gut feeling that there is something very fundamental and very simple that we miss. Some equation, law, theory, perspective, that can be explained not only to PHDs and will make these issue much simpler.
It's like we spend all our efforts on adding numbers again and again and again, and cant think of multiplication.
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TCO
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Richmond, VA
Jan 1970 time: 00:25
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quote: Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Photons most certainly don't have mass, but it is impossible to comepletely prove this experimentally. All one can do is put an upper bound on the photon mass by experiment, and as the link says, that bound is really tiny.
Trust me - photons are massless.
Also, there is no problem decribing a massless particle quantum mechanically. The problem with describing the graviton quantum mechanically is not because it is massless, but because it has more angular momentum. It is spin 2, compared to the photon with spin 1.
This causes the quantum theory of gravity to be nonrenormalizable - when we calculate physical quantities with the theory we find that the results are dependent on the physics at really really high energies, which we don't know yet.
For the other theories like Quantum-Electro-Dynamics, the answers you get don't depend on the very high energy physics, so you can make predictions fine. (This property is why, for example, you don't need to do quantum mechanics to work out the dynamics of a bouncing ball....) |
They don't have mass? Or don't have rest mass?
Shouldn't they have a mass based on their energy?
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