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offtheleft
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funny little topic a friend and i were on. i think it does.
Yes. Light does have mass. But we need to qualify that by providing the definition of mass as I have just used it. The term mass (as used here) is defined as the m in p = mv. When defined as such this mass is more precisley know as inertial mass. There is another definition which is also used quite a lot. If you have a point particle and you measure the inertial energy to be E and the magnitude of the momentum to be p then the quantity m0 in the expressionofftheleft said:funny little topic a friend and i were on. i think it does.
offtheleft said:funny little topic a friend and i were on. i think it does.
The FAQ asserts that the relativistic mass is defined as [itex]m = \gamma m_0[/itex] whereas relativistic mass is defined as the m in p = mv. This is an important difference.ZapperZ said:Please read the FAQ thread in the General Physics forum.
Zz.
An interesting thing is that a beam of light has no mass (I'm only referring to "proper" or "invariant" mass, which is what is usually called simply "mass"), while light propagating simultaneously and isotropically in all directions DOES have mass!offtheleft said:funny little topic a friend and i were on. i think it does.
GRB 080319B said:Search 'does light/photons have mass' on this website and you should find the answer in one of the multitude of threads on this question. Or you can go to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon#Physical_properties".
This question has been debated by scientists for centuries. According to the theory of relativity, light does not have mass. However, some scientists argue that it does have a very small amount of mass. The current consensus is that light has no mass.
Light is composed of particles called photons, which are massless. These particles travel at the speed of light and have no rest mass. The energy of a photon is related to its frequency and wavelength, but not its mass.
Yes, even though light has no mass, it can still be affected by gravity. This is because gravity affects the fabric of space-time, and light travels through space-time. Therefore, light can be bent by massive objects like stars or black holes.
Some scientists believe that light may have a very small amount of mass because of the observed behavior of light in certain situations. For example, the bending of light around massive objects could be explained by the idea that light has a tiny amount of mass. However, this is still a topic of debate and has not been proven.
The idea of light having mass has been explored in various theories, such as the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. However, the current understanding is that light has no mass, and this does not significantly impact our understanding of the universe. It is still a subject of ongoing research and debate in the scientific community.