Okidoki.
How much mass does light have?
In the same question comes another - Does light have mass?
2007-01-07 10:20:15 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
In answer to the second portion of this i can reveal that Light does indeed have mass.
If it didn't there would be no Northern Lights because the Earths magnetic field would NOT have anything to react with.
Also Light bends around a high gravitational field such as a planet, or a Black Hole.
If something can be affected by gravity or a magnetic field then it most definately has... mass!
Proved by direct observation as well as scientific theorem!
2007-01-07 10:29:04 · update #1
there is still some controversy over what light even is. some say that light is a wave, some say that light is a particle. if light is a wave it may or may not have mass. if light is a particle it will indeed have mass. light behaves both as a particle and as a wave. there has not been (as far as i know) a measurement of how much light weighs, but i think almost all will agree that it does have some immeasureably small amount of mass.
2007-01-07 10:33:14 · answer #1 · answered by Aubrey D 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light does not have mass. If it did, it could not move at the speed of light according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
The northern lights prove nothing because what you are seeing and what is interacting is not light but plasma particles of the sun which have been carried out on the sun's magnetic field to interact with our magnetic field.
Light sometimes acts like a particle and some times like a wave (as in interference fringes) and can be thought of as an energy pod that alternates between a magnetic and an electronic state (as in electromagnetic phenomena.)
2007-01-07 10:39:50 · answer #2 · answered by Mike1942f 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light does not have mass. And to further your confusion I will throw this fly into the ointment. In the extreme depths of the ocean both light and sound waves are redirected by the pressure of the ocean. Sound positively has no mass, and yet it is still redirected.
2007-01-07 12:00:38 · answer #3 · answered by USN Retired 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light has zero rest mass, but it's never at rest. It can be affected by gravity and it has momentum which are properties of particles, but it is not a particle, it is an electromagnetic wave.
2007-01-07 12:12:07 · answer #4 · answered by ZeedoT 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light does not have mass.
2007-01-07 10:22:46 · answer #5 · answered by Polo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light does and does not have mass, depending on when where and how.
2007-01-07 10:58:20 · answer #6 · answered by pbmaze 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋