Timeline for Are there any naturally occurring examples of photons without mass?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
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| Jun 10, 2015 at 4:43 | comment | added | userLTK | You might want to look up the Higgs Boson - though that's getting a little more advanced. All particles move at the speed of light and have only energy mass, no rest mass, unless they interact with the Higgs field, at which point they have mass and don't travel at the speed of light. The idea that something can have no mass and only energy seems counter-intuitive, but that's what the the science tells us. | |
| Jun 9, 2015 at 21:30 | comment | added | Ian | If you want to get philosophical, what do you mean by energy then? If you want to talk about energy you necessarily have to refer its definition. | |
| Jun 9, 2015 at 21:29 | comment | added | ruben_KAI | I've never been able to be convinced by a definition alone. | |
| Jun 9, 2015 at 21:11 | comment | added | Ian | Look at the definition of energy provided above. That should convince you that only massless particles can move at the speed of light with finite energy. | |
| Jun 9, 2015 at 21:10 | history | edited | Ian | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added explanation of energy of a photon.
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| Jun 9, 2015 at 21:00 | comment | added | ruben_KAI | so it takes an infinite amount of energy to move something with mass infinity close to the speed of light, but once something is at the speed of light it has no mass? are there other particles that move at the speed of light without any mass? | |
| Jun 9, 2015 at 20:56 | comment | added | David Hammen | @RubenBaden - By moving at the speed of light. Massless particles always move at the speed of light. And they have non-zero energy. And non-zero momentum. Welcome to the weird world of relativity. | |
| Jun 9, 2015 at 20:52 | comment | added | ruben_KAI | How can something with energy have no mass? | |
| Jun 9, 2015 at 20:47 | history | answered | Ian | CC BY-SA 3.0 |