Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lagslayer]

I am challenging the interpretation of those tests. Common interpretation is that light has no rest mass, and that, therefor, gravity should not affect it by itself, and yet, it clearly affects the path light takes. So they conjure up the idea that space is warped by gravity, and try to make time this tangible thing instead of an abstract concept.

We know light has momentum, and we agree that mass and energy are directly linked, except when it comes to light. They say that light has no rest mass, but I say that we simply don't have equipment sensitive enough to weigh it yet. I also argue that time is not tangible, as that would create too many paradoxes. The only way to make that work is to conjure up a new dimension, which we also have no other evidence of. I argue that a black hole is just a super dense ball of matter/energy, and that since light has momentum, and therefor mass, that enough gravity would be able to alter it's trajectory. We don't see things come out of a black hole on a regular basis because that stuff doesn't have enough momentum to escape the enormous gravity. At least until the black hole itself reaches critical mass. It has enough gravity to crunch together atoms, but each stem down in size has more energy. Eventually it's going to try and crush something too small and cause an explosive reaction. Try to squeese atoms together too tightly, and you get an explosion. But if there's already too much gravity to escape, the material stays there and collects more gravity. Allowing gravity to accumulate further, even the quarks and stuff the sub-atomic particles are made of will start overcrowding, which, following the observed pattern, would also explode their bonds eventually. And then the stuff that is made of, and so on and so forth. Gravity increases linearly, but the increase in bond energy increases exponentially every level you go down. Eventually, it will overtake the gravity, resulting in a rather large explosion we call the big bang.

I argue that my explanation has the benefit of simplicity. It doesn't need to conjure up a bunch of new stuff to make it's base assumptions work. Isn't the simplest explanation usually the best one, after all?

[Helgoland]

It doesn't need to conjure up a bunch of new stuff to make it's base assumptions work.

Well yeah, it does: Light having a rest mass, mostly, and implicitly that c does not have the 'maximum speed' properties given by the theory of special relativity.

[Sergarr]

I am challenging the interpretation of those tests. Common interpretation is that light has no rest mass, and that, therefor, gravity should not affect it by itself, and yet, it clearly affects the path light takes. So they conjure up the idea that space is warped by gravity, and try to make time this tangible thing instead of an abstract concept.

We know light has momentum, and we agree that mass and energy are directly linked, except when it comes to light. They say that light has no rest mass, but I say that we simply don't have equipment sensitive enough to weigh it yet. I also argue that time is not tangible, as that would create too many paradoxes. The only way to make that work is to conjure up a new dimension, which we also have no other evidence of. I argue that a black hole is just a super dense ball of matter/energy, and that since light has momentum, and therefor mass, that enough gravity would be able to alter it's trajectory. We don't see things come out of a black hole on a regular basis because that stuff doesn't have enough momentum to escape the enormous gravity.

I argue that my explanation has the benefit of simplicity. It doesn't need to conjure up a bunch of new stuff to make it's base assumptions work. Isn't the simplest explanation usually the best one, after all?

That doesn't really work because light has a different relationship between it's momentum and energy compared to objects that have rest mass. You'd have to explain that one first.

Also there's no evidence of there existing a "slowed down" light, which would be there if light actually had rest mass, due to photon-photon interactions causing some of them to slow down and others to fasten up. You would get a lot of that "slow" light if you simply put two flashlights and pointed them towards each other, yet we don't have that.

Also how do you explain the speed of light being measured invariant to the system of measurement being used, down to a stupidly precise amount? That puts a ridiculously low upper bound on the mass of the photon.

And there are other uncountable problems with that argument, starting from the fact that it fucks up quantum mechanics.

And you do not want to fuck up quantum mechanics, as it is one of the most well researched field of modern physics, and the simplest proof for it working is the computer you're currently using.

[Tylui]

So you're doubting all of GR then. The new "conjured" dimension is just the dimension of time, and it's no more intangible than the other three dimensions of spacetime, namely empty space. We can't touch space; just the stuff that occupies space at a particular time. We can't touch time, just the stuff that occupies time at a particular space.

[Lagslayer]

If photons are truly so small, then the miniscule amount of light coming out of the 2 flashlights would not have enough photons interacting with each other to produce a noticeable effect (with current equipment, at least). The field of photons would have to be much denser.

Even if the photon has an infinitesimally small rest mass, that's all it takes to make gravity affect it.

If the rest mass is so small, you could still get accurate results just assuming it doesn't have any at all, at least for the scale of current applications.

[Bauglir]

I think this would work best if you drew up the set of equations that demonstrate this new physics, and explain how to apply them to get the same results as GR in the situations where GR has apparently been confirmed. Remember that the simplicity of your equations is what you'd actually apply the ol' Razor to.

[iceball3]

Lagslayer, if "slowed down" light actually existed, wouldn't we actually, you know, have some? The measured background radiation seems to be moving at c as per normal, and it has been influenced by gravity for incredible amounts of time.

[Lagslayer]

Just substitute a ridiculously small number for the mass of a photon instead of 0. It won't even be noticeable most of the time, certainly not for things we can generate here on earth.

[Helgoland]

A particles mass goes up hyperbolically as its speed approaches c, though - so no matter how small the non-zero rest mass of a photon, at the speed it moves at it would still have infinite mass.

[Sergarr]

If photons are truly so small, then the miniscule amount of light coming out of the 2 flashlights would not have enough photons interacting with each other to produce a noticeable effect (with current equipment, at least). The field of photons would have to be much denser.

Even if the photon has an infinitesimally small rest mass, that's all it takes to make gravity affect it.

If the rest mass is so small, you could still get accurate results just assuming it doesn't have any at all, at least for the scale of current applications.

It would have to be stupidly small: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon#Experimental_checks_on_photon_mass

(for comparison: neutrino's mass is about 10^13 times bigger than the upper bound on photon mass).

A particles mass goes up hyperbolically as its speed approaches c, though - so no matter how small the non-zero rest mass of a photon, at the speed it moves at it would still have infinite mass.

You appear to be using "relativistic mass". I'd suggest you to add word "relativistic" before "mass" to avoid confusing people not-in-the-know.

[Lagslayer]

If speed really does approach an asymptote, perhaps photons move slightly slower than that, but still be really, really close.

Though that brings up another interesting question. If there was something out there faster than that theoretical maximum, how would we even be able to detect it? Maybe the matter we observe just sort of peters out at that point, but perhaps something more exotic could surpass it? But that's another can of worms, and I have no idea how it would work, having no basis of reference.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this but I'm curious

Is Primal Scream Therapy an effective way of dealing with stress and repressed anger?
Asking on the neuroscience side if this


For those who don't know and can't guess, what I've seen is Primal Scream Therapy is re-enacting a traumatic event and releasing the anger usually in the form of violent uncontrolled screaming

I don't think it would help but I could be wrong

[Helgoland]

If speed really does approach an asymptote, perhaps photons move slightly slower than that, but still be really, really close.

Though that brings up another interesting question. If there was something out there faster than that theoretical maximum, how would we even be able to detect it? Maybe the matter we observe just sort of peters out at that point, but perhaps something more exotic could surpass it? But that's another can of worms, and I have no idea how it would work, having no basis of reference.

It would have imaginary (as in imaginary numbers) energy - now I'm a big fan of making predictions based purely in formal mathematics, but I have no idea what a particle with imaginary energy would behave like.

EDIT: Imaginary mass, not energy. My bad.

[ChairmanPoo]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this but I'm curious

Is Primal Scream Therapy an effective way of dealing with stress and repressed anger?
Asking on the neuroscience side if this


For those who don't know and can't guess, what I've seen is Primal Scream Therapy is re-enacting a traumatic event and releasing the anger usually in the form of violent uncontrolled screaming

I don't think it would help but I could be wrong

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Tylui]

Photons are little wiggles of electric field, which affect its wiggles of the magnetic field, and vice versa. Now imagine that it's wiggling with some squished space on one side of it, and expanded space on the other side(ie. in a gravitational field); it wiggles faster on one side than the other, and therefore bends its trajectory.