• ttayh@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      They have momentum, but not mass (ignore the other explanation, like yes, E=sqrt(m0^2 c^4 + (pc)^2), but so what? m0=0 for photons)

      As you can see, momentum, p, is p=E/c, and we know that the energy for light is proportional to its frequency, f, E=hf (h is Plank’s constant). So, p=hf/c. When light is absorbed by a material momentum (and energy) conservation apply and it imparts p onto the object. If light is reflected it imparts 2*p, showing this is left as an exercize to the reader

    • BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      They have mass. Everything that has energy has mass. They don’t have inertial mass but it’s just part of the equation

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        2 days ago

        I think you are stating that backwards.

        You can definitely say that everything with mass has energy. And yeah the two are kind of interchangeable.

        But that does not mean that a photon HAS mass. It just means that we can calculate how much mass its energy is equivalent to.

      • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        They have momentum, not mass, in relativistic physics you need something more complex than p=mv to describe momentum.

        • BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Energy=mass always. Theoretically you can make a black hole out of light, or you can turn that photon energy into inertial mass by running light in a closed loop.

          • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            No lol, there’s a momentum component to that equation which is just conveniently 0 for massive objects at rest, photons don’t have a rest reference frame and are governed by E=pc.