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vidyanaik
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whether light has mass?if yes what is the reason behind it?
shuidi said:light is wave ,it has no mass
threadmark said:"Light (photons) has no rest mass. But it has relativistic mass and momentum.
More details for questions can be seen in this link.
http://crib.corepower.com:8080/~relfaq/light_mass.html"
This paper is wrong, photons are massles bosons and momentum cannot be applied nor can be describe as having momentum. You could say they have magnitude but not momentum.
filegraphy said:To my knowledge, a photon does not have mass. If it had mass it could not travel at the speed of light. This is because it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it to that velocity. And if a massive object traveled at the speed of light it would have an infinite amount of mass.
vidyanaik said:but what would you like to say about the photoelectric effect?Light there acts as an impulse...i suppose impulse is created by only those bodies with mass
Drakkith said:Whats the difference in magnitude and momentum in this context anyways?
Feldoh said:It's very important. Which way is the momentum "flowing"? The direction is actually given by a tensor, horribly named the Maxwell stress tensor.
Drakkith said:I'm not sure i understand what your saying. Is the momentum of the wave the amount of energy it carries? Is the magnitude the direction?
Yes, light does have mass.
The reason behind light having mass is due to its dual nature as both a particle and a wave. As a particle, it has mass due to its energy, and as a wave, it has momentum which is also a component of mass.
It was determined that light has mass through various experiments, such as the photoelectric effect and the Compton effect. These experiments showed that light has both energy and momentum, which are components of mass.
Light's mass is incredibly small compared to other objects. It is estimated that a photon (a single particle of light) has a mass of about 9.109 x 10^-31 kilograms, which is about 1 billion times smaller than the mass of an electron.
Yes, light is affected by gravity even though it has mass. This is because mass and energy are equivalent, and gravity affects all forms of energy, including light.