Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Mass & Velocity

Sorry Bill I am with Paul on this one this is where us QM nutters leave the GR/SR party so let me reverse the problem for you.

Question: Why doesn't a photon have infinite energy or zero energy it has a defined energy ????

You said you accept the Higgs exists and it gives mass so now you need to resolve the problem you can't use the old teaching lie that moving at the speed of light is special. Acceptance of the Higgs mechanism is profound and I am trying to show you how profound not being argumentative for the sake of arguing.

Orac; "...change the symbol m to be m_rel or m_rest so people don't get confused."

I thought I had read that "m" was used for rest mass and "M" was for relativistic mass?"

Orac: "... you can't use the old teaching lie that moving at the speed of light is special."

It's really difficult for us "old timers" to get around what was said to be correct for decades. I am trying though.

I am not impressed that scientists would "lie" as you said just for convenience. I really hope they have ceased to do that.

M to me means invariant mass what you have written may be standard in some areas of science but not all.

SI does not define a difference
http://physics-help.info/physicsguide/appendices/si_units.shtml

Mass symbols= m, M name kilogram unit=kg


The problem is there are historic papers such as Newton's which won't adhere to those standards and in new fields such as QM many different forms of mass such as invariant mass, transverse mass are added.

Even in discussion above we had gravitational mass and a few other terms so I think it best we get some definitions.

It was a simplification to not have to explain or deal with QM and they used it to constrain what they had to teach. I am not sure why teachers feel that constructing a soft lie was better than telling the truth that light had inconsistances I mean they were already teaching light was sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle and expecting children to get there heads around that.

I never lie to students I always explain up to the inconsistancies and leave them as open questions. Sometimes I get approached after class to explain further which I am always happy to do or make a time to do it if I have something I have to get to.

It's not my physics , it's just what I use to solve thing's.

or try to solve thing's.

I'm probably going to be something similar to being wrong on this
so , I will just say that this is just a thought.

we get a sunburn because of the sun's heat energy that
our skin is exposed to.

if you touch a black car in the summer time you can really
feel this heat energy.

but , if light has no mass or energy then what could possibly
be heating up the car or giving us a sunburn.

my thought is , waves , like shock waves , it could be a energy field , that is created by the light as it forces it's way through the medium that it is traveling through.

if the car is white most of the light reflects off of the car
and the waves also bounce off.

it may work because of a vibration that causes the heat.

it's just a thought , I will have to look into this QM because if what you say is true then its not based on fantasy if it
also thinks that light has no mass and no energy.

it could be an effect of it's surroundings or its environment
that causes the heat.

It is really good to see you actually thinking and openly discussing things sensibly.

I would have graded you a B+ for thinking in puting a shockwave infront of the photon you are actually getting on the right wavelength as a pun.

The problem with that explaination and you have already realised it in the discussion above is you need a medium for a shockwave.

So now I want you to think about that and lets consider a solar panel powering a satelitte in space and we need to solve this issue.

We can have an unseen medium in the vacuum of space, energy might not be real or perhaps you have a different solution.

It is important what you think not what I think so feel free to answer openly I assure you evenything you have said so far makes perfect sense to me so continue on.

Once again, my problem is not that I don't believe it, I just don't understand it. You say QM is loud and clear on how it works. But I don't understand the math that QM uses to explain how it works. So you are going to have to interpret it for me. How does it work? What is the mechanism that connects them? Just saying "trust me" doesn't help me understand it.

Bill Gill

I enjoy a good challenge.

my first thought is other light sources being the medium.

light travels in waves , supposedly , which to me says or means that a light particle occupies a distinct volume of space as it travels
from point to point.

a cross section of that volume is much larger than the light particle itself.

so light shares its path through space with other light particles.

I'm going to propose that the path's of these other light particle's would be like a barrier of sorts , I see it but I
can't put it in words other than it's like tunnels or like drinking straws except the straws have no mass , here's an if , if light travel's in waves then as it changes it's position there must be some energy coming from some where in order for that change to occur.

we know that we can use a magnifying glass to concentrate the
suns radiant heat on an object here on earth.

the magnifying glass bends these straws so that they all
meet or focus on a small area.

so we know that heat is a result of these straws intertwining
with each other.

we know that sun light can also be concentrated onto a solar
panel and this causes more output from the solar panel.

and we know that a solar panel converts the light waves into energy.



I'm going to guess that the shock wave is the result of light waves interacting with less intense light waves from other
sources of light in the universe.

the medium is light.

just a thought though.

I would not presume to redefine "infinite", but I think it's important to be aware of the way in which words are used, and how they may change.

Even in my own notes, I like to establish a degree of clarity; especially as I tend to write my notes as though I were talking to someone.

The following is a snippet from notes I wrote a few years ago:

Is there a difference between “infinite” and “limitless? Etymologically, infinite is simply endless. It has been argued that something can, therefore, be said to be infinite if it has a beginning, as long as it has no end. However, this line of reasoning is spurious, as the concepts of beginning and end are dependent on the orientation of the observer. For example, if you are journeying across the Atlantic from Europe to America, the Atlantic Ocean begins at the coast of Europe and ends at the American coast. When you turn round to come back, though, the situation is reversed. Similarly, in the case of time, the concepts of beginning and end depend on the perceived direction of that elusive entity, the “arrow of time”. There is another difficulty which, in a way, is an even greater problem; that is the difficulty of terminology. We tend to talk of infinity and eternity as though they were measurable in terms of time and space. They are not. Eternity and infinity are not measurable, so time and space, which are essentially finite measures, have no relevance with reference to the “infinite”, but, because of our finite state of being, it is very difficult for us to take time and space out of our thought processes.

“Limitless” can be quite different from “infinite”, because, although infinity can rightly be said to be limitless, all that is limitless is not necessarily infinite. For example, in an infinity of nothingness there could, in theory, exist a universe. The surrounding nothingness would place no limit on the amount of matter or energy that could be added to that universe, nor would there be any limit to the extent to which the universe could expand. Nevertheless, however much was added to the universe, or however great was its expansion, it would always be finite. Its potential might be said to be infinite, as it has an infinity of nothingness into which it can expand, but even this is not strictly correct. It can never reach infinity; therefore it does not have the potential to become infinite. As we have seen, there is no limit to its possible growth or expansion, so it can correctly be referred to as limitless, but never infinite. Perhaps “limitless” would be a more accurate word to use in the case of the so called “infinite series”. There is a difference! “Infinite” has no beginning and no end and cannot be measured. “Limitless”, on the other hand, can go on increasing indefinitely, but it will always be measurable and will never become infinite, however long it continues to increase. Even if we argue that it can continue growing infinitely, all we are saying is that it will never stop growing. Certainly, it would never become infinite. I have used the word “limitless”. I should add that "unbounded" can be considered as synonymous with "limitless" in most cases, but it can become bemired in semantic difficulties.

I like that, Paul, its the sort of "thinking on your feet" reasoning I tend to use, usually when dog walking.

If this were my line of thought I would hit my first obstacle at:



The mental image this produces is of a particle moving through space along an undulating path, but is that an accurate image?

Light (according to QM) is either a particle or a wave, it seems we cannot observe both at the same time (yet?), so if we want to think of light as a wave, should we temporarily dispense with the particle?

I'm going to say I believe it is both a particle and a wave.

the particle travels along a wavy path.

you could see the particle if you slow it down.

if you then watched the particle you would see the wave that the
particle follows or is forced to follow because of other waves caused by other particles.

this could be important , or may be trash , the whatever
that causes the particle's to follow a wavy path could be
the result of the straws compacted together , compressing
each straw inwards which builds and maintains gravity at the center of
the straws.

the further away from the light source the weaker the gravity becomes as light travels in a straight wavy path.

so the increasing distance from the light source increases the circumference of the straws lessening the gravity at the center of the straws because less pressure is focused inwards.

causing the light particles to follow a wave that is further
from the center of the straw.

which lessens the light intensity.


the above of course , says that gravity does not require mass.

it says that gravity only requires pressure.

which I have a problem with unless it can be shown
to be true.

Okay lets start with the simplest Higgs mechanism we can setup the reality could be more complex but lets start simple. The link to universe wide connection will become obvious.

Okay so lets say the world can not be resolved infinitely small eventually you reach a distance the planck distance at which our world becomes granular I am sure you know this concept.

At these scales if we could get down there world begins to look like fly screen. The Higgs tends to live between the gaps in our fly wire mesh because it is repelled by its spin much like magnets or like charges repel each other or if you prefer reverse it our world is floating a Higgs ocean whichever way you want to think of it matters not.

When you attempt to move an object if it has spin and interacts with the Higgs you get a sort of drag you see this in electric fields and magnetic fields where movement is resisted. Even in a more simple sense if you made a cube out of flymesh and tried to drag it thru water you would see considerable drag because of the flow being forced thru multiple small holes.

Lets leave it that simple for the moment and discuss the ramifications.

First it should be obvious that after all those years of removing mediums in space it is back in a sort modified fashion. We don't like to call it a medium because it really isn't "in our world" like a traditional sense and some all those years ago tried to make a case. It does however have some similarities that it permiates everywhere.

Secondly the whole mechanism does not work without accepting QM spin. You can't half believe in the Higgs mechanism for it to work it requires that QM spin and interactions are correct and more importantly it is a fundemental interaction.

This above statement is profound and we once discussed this. The implication is Special Relativity is a macroscopic description of a fundemental QM interaction. This means you can't just tack QM in as some weird thing that happens in the universe it is providing the entire basis for what Special Relativity is defining in relativistic mass increase. In other words QM is more fundemental than SR.

In the scenario we have created above there is nothing stopping a particle in one part of the universe communicating to a particle in another part of the universe via the higgs ocean. If that speed was incredibly fast it would appear to us that remote parts of the universe were simultaneously communicating ... does that sound familar?

What we have done above is created a model scenario that is easy to visualize for a layman, unfortunately the mathematics of QM does not necessarily answer structure issues we need real world experiments to fill in that detail.

I think that enough for one post lets see what you make of that before we discuss reality and energy.

I like the idea .. I have a conference to attend and prep for and need some time to think and ask some questions.

The obvious quick one that comes to mind is why is space dark if it is built of light or are there limits to how dull it is?

my first choice of a response would the capability of our eyes
to see the straws made of waves.

Good explanation, Orac, thanks. Even I could follow that!

I particularly liked the bit about "simultaneously communicating". No prizes for guessing why.

Paul, I assume from your response that you are thinking of all the other waves in the EM spectrum as potentially interfering with the light waves in the visible part of the spectrum. Right?

In most of the matter we see around us, particles are bound together by forces. Presumably, the energy involved in these forces creates mass. What role, if any, does the Higgs have in the creation of this mass?

I think I kind of see what you are saying, but I still have some questions.

Most experiments in quantum entanglement have been performed with photons, because in many ways they are the easiest to work with. As I understand it photons do not interact with the Higgs field. That is why they travel at the speed of light. So how do they communicate through the Higgs field?

What is there about the Higgs field that allows "instantaneous" communications?

It seems to me that there was a recent discussion here about an experiment that showed that for at least some reactions you could detect the arrow of time. That is you could make a movie of the reaction and then when it was played back you could tell if it was being shown backwards. How does this work with the Higgs field presumably being able to communicate backwards in time?

Bill Gill

you had me for awhile , I was trying to figure out
what you were replying to.

but I clicked my name and it took me to the post in question.

there isn't much in space for light to reflect off of , this
is why space looks dark , except for the stars and the moon and whatever we can see.

we only see a tiny part of the spectrum so this greatly reduces the amount of what we do see.

if we could see gamma light then we would see things like the
below.