how can a light particle travel at the speed of light without being infinitely heavy? Any mass accelarated to the speed of light becomes infinitely heavy.
What am I missing?
2006-10-17 05:04:23 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
A photon doesn't have a rest mass in other words you can't have a stationary photon. Rest mass is what is commonly referred to just as "mass".The mass of a photon is really just an expression of its energy. Light isn't a particle as such but thinking of a photon as a particle is a very good way of picturing how it behaves in certain circumstances, say when it triggers a photo-detector or bounces off a mirror. In other situations light is best thought of as a wave (how would that have mass ?), for example spreading out from a light source or when it is involved in interference.
2006-10-17 06:40:24 · answer #1 · answered by black sheep 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Hi. The fact that zero times infinity is still zero. A photon starts out with zero mass, so it ends up with zero mass.
2006-10-17 14:23:41 · answer #2 · answered by Cirric 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It acts like a particle (of energy) don't get stuck on semantics of things like that. It has no rest mass regardless of what it is called.
2006-10-17 13:43:14 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light has zero mass.
2006-10-17 13:27:24 · answer #4 · answered by justaguy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋