Challenge to mathematicians and scientists

We aren't talking about momentum, though. We are talking about photons, which are particles.

 

Particles do not carry momentum....?

Whodathunkit.

 

I don't understand your analogy.

I'm not claiming that photons ARE gravity.


I'm not claiming that photons are a blackhole.

I'm also not claiming that any object that is affected by the mass of another object must then BE that other object.

I am observing that gravity affects bodies that have mass and that gravity affects photons.

I don't have the mathematical background to show a proof that photons have mass, but I have read papers that have those proofs, however small. "Non-zero photon mass"

Do a google scholar search on the limits of photon mass in an extraterrestrial envronment, or what may be more relevant to the op, mass-energy transfer and absorption when a photon interacts with another object.

You'll find extensive work on the upper bound of what is termed "massive" photons, necessary for the conservation of an electric charge.



Don't forget that science, unlike religion, is allowed to change and be refined as new knowledge is acquired.

Classicially, photons have zero rest mass? So what? How is that relevant when a photon cannot be at rest?

 

I think you are trying to bait and switch the discussion. Momentum is considered mass in mathematical equations? Oh well.

Do you have a counterpoint that addresses photons specifically and not momentum generically?

 

I am more curious now.... what calculations did you use to derive that answer?

 

So far we have only been talking about 'real world' shadows and what might cause such. Interpret a shadow? Do you perhaps mean discover the source generator of that shadow?

 

As my reply was directed at this:

I do not see where the "Bait and Switch" transpired.

Photons do not create a shadow, the solid object blocking them however....does.

 

Where, in the two quotes of John that you used, did John mention photons making shadows?

 

No. When you look at the kind of phenomena that a human would interpret as a shadow, you'd see that they're areas with less photons of certain features coming off them. That is nothing more than a specific structure/pattern/constellation of photons. Nature doesn't interpret a shadow as one object, the laws of nature will not know that a shadow is one object in the same way as it would interpret for instance a rock to be one object. The idea that a shadow is coherent is only the product of a mind, and specifically a mind that likes to interpret things on the basis of sight, as it would other objects.

 

No need to slip into Anthropomorphism. Since when did the laws of nature take on the human quality of knowing? Or when did nature take on the human ability to interpret?

 

When one considers the content within this thread, and the statement made by John it makes perfect sense.to anyone of even a minimal comprehension, which may explain why you seem confused.

 

Confused are you? I completely understood what John was saying. Your maneuver however is very amateurish. Work on it (practice) some more.

 

It doesn't, that's why shadows can perform actions that physical objects could not, like traveling faster than the speed of light.

 

You still have not proven that shadows can move faster than the speed of light.

 

I'm trying to come up with an easily imaginable example.

Let's say you have a flashlight (a strong one) and you're in a circular room that has a radius of one light year. You shine the flashlight so that you cast a shadow on the wall. In one year, you will have a shadow upon that wall. Let's say, a minute after you start shining the flashlight, you move it (or yourself) so that you now cast a shadow on the opposite wall.

One year after you started the flashlight, there will be a shadow on one side of the room. One minute after that, at one year and one minute after you started the flashlight, your shadow will be on the other side of the room. If you've moved your flashlight continuously (making it the same shadow), your shadow will have moved to a position two light years from the initial position (and covered 3.14 light years of distance) in one minute, making it much faster than the speed of light.

 

Imaginations are not proof.

 

Yes, they can be. Thought experiments. Of course, you have to make sure your thought experiment is sound, but I am confident mine is. The point is that if you took the time to build a room like that, that is what would happen. What would happen to engineering and architecture if we were not able to imagine what would happen if we built certain things?

 

It is true that Science comes to believe that photons are massless as they build a model of Reality based upon Facts which they can demonstrate exist for all observers willing to experience the same conditions.

The Facts are used to construct theories which they come to have a degree of faith in, as they find more evidence which supports their model.

There is no discipline, including mathematics which does not rest upon some assumptions we call the initial axioms.
All that is true.

But I you question in the discipline of Science whether photons have mass, the answer must be zero otherwise everything else in the model of Relativity is also wrong.

Since we have evidence that suggests zero is possibly and most likely correct, there is no reason or evidence to warrant saying photons have mass.
So, inside the discipline of Science, the correct answer is still zero

 

But gee whiz Swensson... thought is a subject on this forum that is frowned upon because of the subjective nature of thought. I can see your point as to how imagination can be a tool that aids in the design of something but that too would be leaning toward the notion of 'intelligent design'. I mean after all, what type of test equipment are you going to use that would validate the thought experiment?

 

\\\


haaaaahaaa...

....that is a funny observation...

 

You are making a serious error, namely confusing a lack of something (light) with the presence of something.

 

Please explain your reasoning behind your allegation of an alleged 'error'. A plate of glass will weigh more with a thin film of water upon its surface than when it is absent that thin film. Water is substance that has weight(force)... photons are particles having weight(force).... Remove all the water from the surface and you have only the weight of the glass.... remove just a portion of the water and you have the weight of the glass and the weight of the remaining water. Remove all the photons and all you have left is the weight of the glass... remove only a portion of the photons and you have the weight of the glass and the weight of the remaining photons.

Where is the error? What is the error? Prove that there is an error.

 

Actually, light has a momentum component to the energy it carries in a photon, and that momentum is what is effected by gravity, which can bend a ray as it travels through Space:


Photons do not have mass, but they do have momentum.

The well published and commonly recognized E = mC^2 is a special case.

The proper general equation to use is E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2c^2

So in the case of a photon, m=0, in the above equation, we see that, where momentum is represented by the letter p,
E = pc, or p = E/c.

On the other hand, for a particle with mass m at rest (i.e., p = 0), you get back the famous E = mc2.


http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/960731.html

This is also the explanation for light pinwheels that can be seen to move when bombarded with photons in a vacuum which makes resistance very low.

 

I am not so sure about that.

If one was on the surface of the Sun, and in order to demonstrate to people on w-earth how fast a shadow moves, they put up their hand to block the rays, the light which had already been on its way to earth would take 8 minutes to get there.
The light before one blocked the sun would not reach earth for 8 minutes, so on earth, they would not yet see the shadow which was coming.

Before the shadow would actually appear to those observers on earth, the speed of the shadow would still be the dame as light.

 

Then you are attempting to refute what these people have to say?
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...oton_mass.html

The above article points out that the 'tradition' that photons are "mass less".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon#cite_note-13
The above notation shows that it is a 'belief' that a photons mass is zero.

Really now CD.. who is more knowledgeable of the subject .... you or they?

The very title of the page you supplied "imagine the universe" is a keynote advertisement of what they are doing.. imagining the universe.