If photons are massless, why are capable of being moved?

Question

I mean there is something there, so it must have mass.

Answer 1

they do have mass. just not the same kind.

its its very very small

Sometimes people like to say that the photon does have mass because a photon has energy E = hf where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency of the photon. Energy, they say, is equivalent to mass according to Einstein's famous formula E = mc2

Answer 2

A photon moving through space is pure energy in the form of an electromagnetic wave. It has no mass. It is not that it is "capable of being moved", moving (at the speed of light) is what it does. As a crude analogy, consider a wave on the surface of the water. It has no mass either, it's only movement.

When the electromagnetic wave interacts with matter, it exchanges a specific (quantized) amount of energy at a single point. In this interaction, it is convenient to think of the energy as a particle: the photon.

Answer 3

As I understand it, photons are not truly mass-less - the fact that they can be hoovered up by the intense gravitational field of a black hole is proof enough for me.

I had this discussion with a physics teacher and he drew an answer to my own question out of me. Given the sort of masses of the electron, proton and neutron that comprise the atom, the physical mass of the photon produced as a bi-product of excitation and inter-band jumping would (by comparison) be so tiny as to be negligible. Since a photon at rest or in motion isn't considered to have any measurable interaction with the proton, neutron or electron it is considered to be massless.

When you drill down to the point of bosons, quarks, colours and other sub-atomic particles in the dark realm of quantum mechanics, you may again find that the mass of individual photons is so tiny as to have no known effect on reactions.

Hope there's something here for you

Answer 4

The concept of movement is independent of mass. For instance, heat is said to move from the hot body to a cool body.. heat does not have mass. Sililarly when you drop a stone on a still water surface, the wave formed appears to move. The wave does not have any mass per se.

A photon likewise should be imagined as an electromagnetic wave packet

Answer 5

Not in the conventional sense. When a photon stops moving, it stops *being* a photon. When a photon IS moving, it's speed is always the speed of light.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Photons do have mass, they just don't have REST mass.

If you look up the concept it will begin to make sense but keep in mind mass and energy are interchangeable as per Einstein's most famous equation.

kind regards

Answer 8

photons are only used as a description of light so that it can prove that it can be reflected (portrayed as the photon bouncing off the reflective surface). However, light is also described as a wave that can move. So in theory, because light is both a wave and photons, photons can move.

Answer 9

Every energetic matter formation has a natural symmetry (not exactly a symmetry by common terms), as a double semi-loop in wave formation, which is part magnetic (corpuscular) and part electric (wave). This is because these two parts form a closed path, along which energy flows. This is an essential duality of all natural energetic matter formation.

energetic matter, by its unidirectional, peculiar revolving and rotating motion, within its own energetic path, creates the wave formation. This wave formation is dominated by two behaviors, magnetic and electric. This movement itself is a beautiful expression of nature.

In phase transitions this energetic matter moves in a revolving and a rotating motion. Yet the quant's structure (the wave formation's form) remains constant. The sole change that takes place is in the spatial proportions, between the magnetic and electric loop.

ultimately...they move because they are energetic and can be excited into different energy levels depending on the transmission of light. It is the concept by explaining that heat radiation is emitted and absorbed in distinct units.

Answer 10

Photons can behave both as waves and particles. When they are observed as particles, they take on charactoristics of particles with mass.