August 18, 2008

Researchers Discover New States Of Electrons That Behave Like Light
posted by Hank Mabuse 16 years ago
  • Not boring to know that the mass of something can be removed without entailing nonexistence thereby...
  • Electrons, or the particles of electricity, fly through space like tiny baseballs. This is where the article lost my respect.
  • The reference, crude though it may seem, does imply inertia, doesn't it? Throw a baseball from a canoe and land in the fondue, maybe. Inertia is a function of mass, and these electron puppies wouldn't abide by it in the crystal, thus forsaking mass. (I pity these poor science writers, but respect them for trying to muddle through, somehow.)
  • *Digs through vault of half lost data in back brain* Wait a minute! Light rays are bent by gravity, so the photon DOES have mass, the article's wording notwithstanding. Huygen's wave theory applies here now to electrons under extreme conditions, but loss of mass most certainly does not. Bah! Rocket88 was right to disabuse this science reporter.
  • No, a photon does not have mass. There are difficulties in describing the structure of something with particle-like properties. Ordinary mass is measured in something at rest, photons are never at rest. They *do* have relativistic mass, which is something different. Particles exist in a superposition of many states rather than a discrete location, until (apparently) you measure them. Standard Model says the photon is without mass and without charge. A single photon is non-local, which is weird. Light waves are not affected by the gravity of a large celestial object, such as a star, their path is affected because the mass of the large object is curving space-time. You cannot use classical Newtonian concepts when visualising sub-atomic particles, but try writing an article for the general public without doing so. The article uses the baseball analogy because it is a decent starting point when introducing people to this stuff, imho. In fact, particle physics uses such analogies all the time to describe these geometries to newbs.
  • Thank again, Hank.
  • MANY thanks, I mean.
  • You already thanked me in most of the other multiverses.