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[Il Palazzo]

I find it fascinating that people feel so strongly about photon's mass. Nobody ever makes larum about any other of its actually mind-bending properties.
It behaves as both wave and a particle? Roger that. There can be infinite amount of them in one spot? Ten-four! They have no invariant mass? MISTER YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR GIVE ME BACK MY CHILDHOOD!

[Putnam]

I'm not sure if any particles don't behave as both wave and particle.

[kaian-a-coel]

I'm not sure if any particles don't behave as both wave and particle.

AFAIK none don't.

Also, regarding photons' mass, what I have trouble to wrap my head around is them actually having mass at all. I understand it's relativistic mass, but that's a weird kind of mass.

[Lagslayer]

I'm not sure if any particles don't behave as both wave and particle.

This is exactly my point.

I find it fascinating that people feel so strongly about photon's mass. Nobody ever makes larum about any other of its actually mind-bending properties.
It behaves as both wave and a particle? Roger that. There can be infinite amount of them in one spot? Ten-four! They have no invariant mass? MISTER YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR GIVE ME BACK MY CHILDHOOD!

1. read above
2. I feel the answer to this stems from the "mass or no mass" thing. If it has mass, must it not it also have volume?
3. photons are very, very fast, and obviously very small. Their inertia can be measured because they are so fast, despite therm being so small. If a single photon were to be slowed down enough to be weighed with other methods, our equipment would not be sensitive enough to detect it.

[Putnam]

1. ?
2. Not necessarily. Note especially electrons, whose volume has so far always been measured as "too small to be measured with our equipment".
3. Photons can't be slowed down, as they have no rest mass and thus always move at the speed of light. Photons' inertia are measured through their wavelength and such, not through momentum as understood in macroscopic objects. Photons being "slowed" are not actually slowed, but bouncing between particles that capture and re-emit them. The photons themselves are always going at the speed of light.

[Lagslayer]

But they do everything that an object with traditional mass does, except for the stuff we can't measure.

[MonkeyHead]

It might be more accurate to say that things we think of as particles exhibit photon like properties rather than the other way around - wave particle duality and all that. De Broglie first came across it via interference patterns in electron beams, after all.

This is going to rapidly advance to the whole "collapsing waveform" idea isnt it?

[kaian-a-coel]

I remember seeing an article on two scientists managing to "see" a wave/particle in its dual state. Somehow.

[Another]

That is probably like you CAN measure both position and momentum of a particle at the same time - just with finite precisions.

"Weak measurements" can provide a way to tell that a particle most likely went through e.g. left slit and still not completely destroy interference pattern with the smaller part of waveform that "went" through right slit.

[Sheb]

Mixed genomes are way commoner than previously though.

[wierd]

I seem to recall scientists establishing an upper-bound on photon density per unit of space sometime 3 years ago, before the photons actually DO interact with each other, and self scatter, and other odd things, despite being point particles.

Let me see if I can find it.

Not the best source... but meh. If it piques your curiosity, it at least helps you to dig through better publications to find authors and experiments.

[Putnam]

But they do everything that an object with traditional mass does, except for the stuff we can't measure.

Except that they go without fail at a speed that particles with rest mass can't under any circumstances except given a nonsensical (infinite) amount of energy, and they go at that speed even when their momentum is arbitrarily near zero.

[Scoops Novel]

Did ya hear? The very first soil sample by Curiosity has returned results of 2% water composition, and it's thought to be fairly representative. Here is the journal paper (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6153/1238937), and a bunch of other articles, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130926143143.htm, http://news.discovery.com/space/this-scoop-of-mars-soil-is-two-percent-water-130926.htm, http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/curiositys-sam-instrument-finds-water-and-more-in-surface-sample/#.UkTIayCHMx1, and a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNQfVYQkA6Y on the subject.

[10ebbor10]

Lightsabers are real

No not really, but apparently actually turned light solid, or something like that. Sounds like fake or misunderstood science though.

[Loud Whispers]

No not really, but apparently actually turned light solid, or something like that. Sounds like fake or misunderstood science though.

Nope, they made a new form of matter as you do. Completely legit. Also a bit old news, by internet years at least.

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