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Do higher energy photons have the same trajectory around planet/gravity as low energy photons? I.e: If you were shooting photons from the same position wrt a planet would their path be the same?
Doeis it depend on photon's energy or on energy density? How big is a photon? And if you are talking of a laser beam, instead of single photons, does it really depend on wavelenght or on intensity? The latter, I presume; a photon's energy doesn't seem relevant to me.nuby said:Do higher energy photons have the same trajectory around planet/gravity as low energy photons? I.e: If you were shooting photons from the same position wrt a planet would their path be the same?
Fredrik said:As long as the spacetime curvature caused by the photon is negligible compared to the curvature caused by the planet, then yes.
N721YG said:Can a photon cause a spacetime curvature? Please explain and include a link.
Interesting but "negligible" may be an understatement. It may be worthy of it's own thread for the rubber room folks but if it can't be measured, it probably should not be introduced as fact in this type of thread. That's my take on what I read. But again, I am very much a layman.yenchin said:Negligible but yes...
Assuming (but not still proven, as far as I know) that a photon creates a spacetime curvature, according to the fact that it has energy, what counts is not *energy* but *energy density*.N721YG said:"The energy and momentum of a photon depend only on its frequency ν or equivalently, its wavelength." The entire spectrum travels at the speed of light and should follow the curvature of space/time. One possible exception being examined is a "gamma ray anomaly" but there is nothing conclusive. I am a layman so any other input or corrections are welcome.
lightarrow said:Assuming (but not still proven, as far as I know) that a photon creates a spacetime curvature,...
...a continuous laser beam between a source and an absorber, which has specific cross section and lenght. If it's red but with high intensity, it will bend spacetime more than if it's blue but with low intensity.
It is undoubtedly true that general relativity theory says that photons cause spacetime curvature. I'm no expert but I doubt anyone has been able to experimentally confirm this, because the amount of curvature would be unfeasibly small to measure. You'd need an amount of energy that was a significant fraction of a planet's mass multiplied by c2 to get a big enough effect.N721YG said:You say "but not still poven" and then say "If it's red but with high intensity, it will bend spacetime more than if it's blue but with low intensity". Is that a yes and a no? Can we say some think the math shows that Photons can bend spacetime but it has never been observed? There are many theories that deserve attention but until observations support the math, shouldn't we be careful not to present it as fact? I am new here and what to learn and would just like to have the facts straight.
DrGreg said:It is undoubtedly true that general relativity theory says that photons cause spacetime curvature... because the amount of curvature would be unfeasibly small to measure. You'd need an amount of energy that was a significant fraction of a planet's mass multiplied by c2 to get a big enough effect.
...If there were no curvature, it would mean the whole of general relativity were wrong, but we have no evidence to doubt its accuracy yet.
"If it's red but with high intensity, it will bend spacetime more than if it's blue but with low intensity" is "the light beam", not "the photon" as I wrote. They are not the same thing. You don't need to talk about photons, to find (from GR) what I said.N721YG said:You say "but not still poven" and then say "If it's red but with high intensity, it will bend spacetime more than if it's blue but with low intensity". Is that a yes and a no? Can we say some think the math shows that Photons can bend spacetime but it has never been observed? There are many theories that deserve attention but until observations support the math, shouldn't we be careful not to present it as fact? I am new here and what to learn and would just like to have the facts straight.
lightarrow said:"If it's red but with high intensity, it will bend spacetime more than if it's blue but with low intensity" is "the light beam", not "the photon" as I wrote. They are not the same thing. You don't need to talk about photons, to find (from GR) what I said.
About if photons bend spacetime or not, I don't know because I don't even know what is a photon...
Mass is not the source of gravity in GR, the stress-energy tensor is. There have been half a dozen posts on this in the last week.N721YG said:I thought GR had to do with mass
DaleSpam said:Mass is not the source of gravity in GR, the stress-energy tensor is. There have been half a dozen posts on this in the last week.
Fredrik said:Try this one. Note that the stress-energy tensor has 16 components, but only 10 of them are independent. One of them is the energy density.
Ok, then, please, telle me:N721YG said:But...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
In physics, the photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation.
lightarrow said:Ok, then, please, telle me:
1. where is the photon between source and detector
2. how big is it, width, lenght, thickness
3. which shape it has
4. what is made of.
DaleSpam said:Mass is not the source of gravity in GR, the stress-energy tensor is. There have been half a dozen posts on this in the last week.
In general relativity, a point mass deflects a light ray with impact parameter b by an angle alpha = 4GM/c2b. ...
The Dagda said:To further explain this point, in general relativity mass and energy are the same thing essentially. E=mc^2, ...
N721YG said:I tried this formula in google and it did not work, E=(mass of Earth)c^2. What is the energy of Earth? And show me an equivalent equation to
(G * mass of Earth) / (radius of Earth * (c^2)) = 6.95453588 × 10^-10
that uses energy rather then mass.
Thank you
lightarrow said:I don't even know what is a photon...
N721YG said:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
In physics, the photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation.
The answer you got was really lame. He just told you what everyone knows. I would find that annoying too. But if you meant to suggest that only a person who can tell you the location, size and shape of a photon can claim to know what a photon is, I have to disagree. The answers to 1-3 are all "not well defined" (which was probably your point), and I'm not sure that question 4 even makes sense.lightarrow said:Ok, then, please, telle me:
1. where is the photon between source and detector
2. how big is it, width, lenght, thickness
3. which shape it has
4. what is made of.
You said "in general relativity mass and energy are the same thing essentially."The Dagda said:I don't understand what you are asking me, are you questioning the validity of e=mc^2 or just that the Earth doesn't have a uniform mass?
N721YG said:You said "in general relativity mass and energy are the same thing essentially."
I am not trying to say anything but am trying to understand.
Are you saying:
Earth mass = 5.9742 × 1024 kilograms
and
Earth energy = 5.9742 × 1024 kilograms
if not,
Earth energy = ?
Fredrik said:The answer you got was really lame. He just told you what everyone knows. I would find that annoying too...
... So it definitely takes more than a single university course in quantum mechanics (or a quick look at a Wikipedia article ) to really know what a photon is.
N721YG said:I am new to these forums and came here to learn. Twice in my post I indicated I am a layman when it comes to physics. I usually do not try to answer questions unless they are basic and within my understanding.
Lightarrow indicated he didn't know that light is a photon and I gave him very basic reply and pointed him to a link he could get a better understanding. You on the other hand told him
"So it definitely takes more than a single university course in quantum mechanics (or a quick look at a Wikipedia article ) to really know what a photon is."
While you claim my post was lame, yours post was a lot of words that said NOTHING to answer the question.
I didn't come here to be insulted and if a degree in physics is needed to fit in I will leave.
The Dagda said:If you could take all the matter on Earth and convert it over to energy entirely efficiently then yes. But let's just say that a proton and an anti proton if they collided and taking account of their energy in total in theory have equivalent energy to mass according to e=mc^2.
Put it this way if you restricted the energy in a box and didn't let it escape and you could convert energy to mass then it would be equivalent to e=mc^2.
The frequency cannot be less than 1? Why?N721YG said:I understand that a photon could be the length of the known universe with a frequency from 1 through gamma rays. It has 0 mass and exhibits both wave and particle properties. In flat space (vacuum) it travels at the speed of light and that speed is relative to it's current location (frame). The link I provided has a lot of information.
I agree with you. However, if we could know where a photon is and how much is its volume (and I'm NOT saying that such answers can be found) we could try to compute if, how and how much a photon bends space. The volume would be required to have the energy density (the parameter in the stress-energy tensor).Fredrik said:The answer you got was really lame. He just told you what everyone knows. I would find that annoying too. But if you meant to suggest that only a person who can tell you the location, size and shape of a photon can claim to know what a photon is, I have to disagree. The answers to 1-3 are all "not well defined" (which was probably your point), and I'm not sure that question 4 even makes sense.
lightarrow said:I agree with you. However, if we could know where a photon is and how much is its volume (and I'm NOT saying that such answers can be found) we could try to compute if, how and how much a photon bends space. The volume would be required to have the energy density (the parameter in the stress-energy tensor).
lightarrow said:The frequency cannot be less than 1? Why?
The speed is c even in a curved spacetime.
However, we were discussing if a photon bends spacetime, and I wrote that I don't even know what a photon is. Let's say that you find that a photon is "a quantum of excitation of the electromagnetic field". Does it help you to understand if it bends spacetime? To me, it doesn't.