Do Photons Have Mass?

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  • Do Photons Have Mass?

    Posted by Kasim on October 24, 2020 at 7:54 pm

    In response to a question on Quora: Some people today have a misconception that photons are tiny little balls; I answered as follows:

    You’re implying that the truth is that photon’s are NOT tiny little balls.

    I’m saying that they are. Let me explain: just because they’re too small to measure their volume, doesn’t mean that they don’t have a volume; nor does it mean that they don’t have mass. Einstein said that when a light source shines, it loses mass. The usual explanation is that some of the mass was converted into light that escaped from the light source, thus reducing its mass. I can argue that the missing mass is within the photons which implies that photons are particles with the mass that was in the light source.

    Einstein also said that when an object absorbs light, it gains in mass. Again, the usual explanation is that the energy of the light was converted into mass. Einstein said that energy and mass are different sides of the same coin i.e. no conversion takes place. This corroborates the fact that there’s mass in the photon. Besides, Einstein said that pure energy will curve spacetime giving rise to gravity. I can say that it’s the mass in the photons that gave rise to the gravity.

    If you think of photons is composed of equal numbers of oppositely charged particles, they will generate the electric field component; and their movement will generate the magnetic field component; thus the photon will have the electromagnetic property. The charged particles means that the photon is itself a composite particle.

    Louis de Broglie postulated that moving particles with mass will display wave properties; and this was proved with electrons instead of photons in the double-slit experiment. The conclusion is that the photon is a particle with mass that displays wave properties i.e. the Particle-Wave Duality theory is false because the photon or electron is a particle and a wave at the same time.

    To understand this, consider a static electric charge – it generates an electric field around itself. If that charge moves, it also generates a magnetic field around itself as well. This means that the magnetic field is an emergent property of moving charges. The conclusion is that a photon is a particle and its wave characteristic is an emergent property of moving particles. See the similarity? Perhaps de Broglie’s wavelength can e explained in terms of electromagnetism.

    Believe it or not, I haven’t introduced any theory of my own; I simply put 2 and 2 together. These theories that I put together are already established and accepted.

    So the conclusion is that light is a stream of particles which are tiny little balls. This means that the people who think like that, are right. It’s your perception that’s wrong. You didn’t come up with that on your own, did you? Of course, not. You’ve been taught that by people who also got the wrong end of the stick.

    Just remember that there’s a Crisis in Cosmology because of a plethora of false theories that are taught in High Schools and Universities; which end up in serious fields like Cosmology bringing it down while they were at it – and are still doing it.

    ——– END ———

    I picked a segment which I used as the title of this discussion. What do you think?

    Steffen replied 3 years, 4 months ago 6 Members · 13 Replies
  • 13 Replies
  • By:Andres

    Member
    October 24, 2020 at 8:51 pm

    hello Kasim, first of all thank you for inviting me to this group! As a brief explanation of my position on this issue, it must be nessessary FOR photons to have mass (as a fundamental force of nature which is equal to mass X acceleration) in addition that photons can attract mass as well (which is how gravity can potentially be explained outside of standard mainstream science). I would also conclude that photons are composed of “tiny balls” (particles) however connected to itself as a force through the electromagnetic spectrum waves and frequencies, I explain this phenomenon (although confusingly) in A treatise on a Grand Unification Theory….😎

    • Kasim

      Member
      October 24, 2020 at 10:17 pm

      Hi Andres, and thank you for taking part in this discussion. I’m glad that your thinking is along the lines of my own thoughts. I too am developing a Theory of Everything but I’d like to know more information about your treatise on Grand Unification Theory, please.

      In the meantime, we have to disprove that photons are massless. At the moment I’m using their statements and theories to prove that photons have mass. Sooner or later, we need our own independent proofs.

  • By:Andres

    Member
    October 25, 2020 at 12:02 am

    Hello there! If you want a free copy of my treatise, (or anyone else in this group wants one) just ask or send a message (I need a email address for me to send a copy though). I highly recommend that before you develop your version of the “Theory of Everything” that you first read my treatise and it’ll make sense as to why I make this statement. I m in the process of publishing this work however I cannot to d a decent source to do so (I hope that I do though)

    WITh regard to providing evidence for whether or not photons have mass (I made a discovery that may be correlated with this issue and is within the treatise) I highly agree however it would be difficult to weigh light (although I have a rather peculiar proposal that I have to include in volume 2 )

  • By:Andres

    Member
    October 25, 2020 at 12:03 am

    Hello there! If you want a free copy of my treatise, (or anyone else in this group wants one) just ask or send a message (I need a email address for me to send a copy though). I highly recommend that before you develop your version of the “Theory of Everything” that you first read my treatise and it’ll make sense as to why I make this statement. I m in the process of publishing this work however I cannot find a decent source to do so (I hope that I do though)

    WITh regard to providing evidence for whether or not photons have mass (I made a discovery that may be correlated with this issue and is within the treatise) I highly agree however it would be difficult to weigh light (although I have a rather peculiar proposal that I have to include in volume 2 )

  • Franklin

    Member
    October 26, 2020 at 4:35 pm

    I would be clearly in the “no” camp as I see photons as a wave phenomenon. I think the photon structure is a wavefront in the shape of something like a rod. The wavefront is what you see crashing on the beach, but instead of a continuous wavefront, the photon has some finite width and contains a quantized amount of energy. The orientation of the wavefront accounts for the transverse polarization component. That’s just how I see it.

    • Kasim

      Member
      October 26, 2020 at 4:51 pm

      I have sympathy with that point of view because the water in water waves doesn’t move; it’s just momentum and energy that moves. Similarly, with sound waves, it’s not the air that moves, just the energy and momentum that does, which gets translated into sound by detectors.

      However, you put your finger on the qualities that possibly make it a particle i.e. the photon has some finite width and contains a quantized amount of energy. In that case, light wouldn’t need a medium to propagate in; whereas a wave does.

      Adherents of the wave theory of light insist that the aether exists for the light waves to propagate in. My answer is in the form of a question: have you ever seen a wave split into an electron-positron pair?

  • David

    Organizer
    October 27, 2020 at 11:55 am

    @ThePres @Franklin : the particle model does not have a photon. The photon is a single particle that somehow “magically” carries frequency. That is impossible. Even Newton abandoned that idea. The Particle Model describes light as waves of same particles traveling together in groups and those groups form a frequency. That was my father’s discovery in May of 2015. That was the “last piece of the puzzle” in our Particle Model.

    • Kasim

      Member
      October 27, 2020 at 1:37 pm

      I have replied to your post at length. The gist of it is that I define frequency of light as the number of pulses passing a reference point per second; and each pulse can have many photons. The wavelength can then be the distance between pulses. It also means that the propagation is longitudinal as Nikola Tesla suggested, and not transverse.

      This is a work-in-progress, though.

    • Steffen

      Member
      December 20, 2020 at 1:25 pm

      @David I have to agree that it sounds most plausible that light “waves” are just periodically recurring clusters of emitted photon particles. The wavelength would be the time the emitting material needs to accumulate energy before it can emit a new photon particle. After all, the material loses excess energy when emitting light. The ability of the material to absorb external energy and expel internal energy should determine the frequency of emitted photons.

      For example, cold materials emit infrared light, while hot materials emit visible red or even higher frequency light. The hotter a material is, the less energy it needs to absorb externally before emitting more photons, because its internal heat energy is also converted into energy usable for photon emission.

      A wave would also be unable to transfer momentum, even if it were a longitudinal wave, as a wave passing through somewhere always reverts things to their initial position after affecting them. Thus, solar sails would be impossible using popular light waves.

  • Robert

    Member
    October 27, 2020 at 1:29 pm

    The Particle Model for light is a stream of G1 particles with a repetitive pattern. I tried one particle, then three particles. Three could make white light if each had a different spin. But then I could not make dispersion work.

    This stream of G1 particles has many G1s at the peak that determines the intensity of the light. The spacing between peaks is the wavelength. The distribution of G1s in the stream can represent a sine wave, square wave or impulse.

    The shape of the G1 is most likely spherical. The G1 has mass so it can interact with the rods and cones in the retina of your eyes. But the mass is not in kilograms because it can’ be measured using G1 gravity. G1 gravity particles can only collide with G1 light.

    The G1 does replace the electron but there is no charge. The mass of the electron is measured using a very unique instrument, the e/m Apparatus. The value of mass is best stated in terms of electron volts (EV). In the future, I hope there will be a new standard of mass that applies to lower level particles and atoms.

    • Kasim

      Member
      October 27, 2020 at 1:46 pm

      Although I’m not familiar with your model, it has striking resemblances to my own except that I use photons and your model doesn’t. But I’m happy that you’ve adopted the Newtonian corpuscular theory as I did, and concluded that frequency is the number of corpuscles or pulses passing a reference point per second; and the wavelength is the distance between pulses.

      Whereas you have access to experiments, as an armchair physicist, I don’t and can only make logical assertions based on established facts that I’m comfortable with. You could say that I start from first principles and don’t adopt more complex ‘facts’ until I’ve exhausted all the alternative ways of combining simple facts like electric and magnetic forces. But all these are done theoretically i.e. in my head.

      • This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by  Kasim.
      • David

        Organizer
        October 27, 2020 at 1:51 pm

        The biggest different in our models is that we say that the distance between single photons is not light. It must be groups of particles. Single photons creating a frequency in our opinion doesn’t work. Also, our particle is the same particle for gravity, light, magnetism, and electricity.

        Also, be careful: the photon has a particular definition in mainstream science. If I were you, I would change the name because if you change the attributes of the particle, even mainstream will say it is different. Our particle for light, gravity, etc. has a different name. Just a suggetion.

        • This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by  David.
        • Kasim

          Member
          October 27, 2020 at 3:57 pm

          Thank God for that because that’s what I feel since I believe that there’s only one fundamental force of nature which is the EM force mediated by the photon. Now you’re suggesting that this particle that represents all phenomena is different from the photon defined by the mainstream. I can go along with that. But can you tell us what you’re calling it, please?

          However, your particle doesn’t have charges which sounds strange because an electric field is generated by an electric charge which comes in 2 varieties: positive and negative. The electric field has equipotentials which have perpendicular forces i.e. the electric forces. Am I expected to learn a new paradigm?