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Mon 31 Jan, 2011 07:14 pm
I am confused. Evrey were I look they say light has no mass. But yet it can be diviated by gravitational pull. They also say that black holes are so dense that light cant even escape. Can someone explain to me how that can happen to something that has no mass?
@peter jeffrey cobb,
"This world we live in is but thickened light."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
@Butrflynet,
That's not exactly what he said about it.
Emerson put it this way in “The Scholar”: “For as the solidest rocks are made up of invisible gasses, as the world is made of thickened light and arrested electricity, so men know that ideas are the parents of men and things.”
ok, I can't resist.
Does light have Mass?
Only if it's Catholic.
ok, so shoot me.
anyway, below is a cut and paste of a simple answer for you...
Light does not have mass, but light travels through space, and it is space itself that gets distorted by mass - in a black hole space gets very distorted.
You can think of a straight line on a piece of paper, The line is fixed on the paper - it is straight. If you bend or even crumple the paper, the line on the paper has not changed in terms of its position on the paper, but the paper itself is 'distorted'. This is complicated stuff an dis NOT easy to imagine.
@chai2,
Ok so does the vacuum of space itself have mass to be distorted?
@peter jeffrey cobb,
I mean Its hard to Imagine anything being pulled one direction or another if it dont have mass. Does that make sense?
@peter jeffrey cobb,
And how about the Bose-Einstein condesate experiments were light was slow down. Was that because of? I mean isnt something thats being forced to slow down, Wouldnt that have mass?
photons have zero mass. that's all there is, no mas.
Roberto Duran said so.
@peter jeffrey cobb,
peter jeffrey cobb wrote:
Ok so does the vacuum of space itself have mass to be distorted?
The empty space gets distorted by the mass of something else, something that has mass.
@chai2,
chai2 wrote:
peter jeffrey cobb wrote:
Ok so does the vacuum of space itself have mass to be distorted?
The empty space gets distorted by the mass of something else, something that has mass.
ok But then isnt empty space something? Not just emptyness. I mean for something to get distored You have to have something there right? Or can you pull on nothing? So if theres something there does it contain some kind of mass?
@dyslexia,
Looking up duran right now
@peter jeffrey cobb,
Aha
yes he seems like a good Boxer. Is that the same one youre refering to?
@peter jeffrey cobb,
Light does not have mass. Based on simple relativity and general relativity, light and space-time do not have mass.
@peter jeffrey cobb,
peter jeffrey cobb wrote:
chai2 wrote:
peter jeffrey cobb wrote:
Ok so does the vacuum of space itself have mass to be distorted?
The empty space gets distorted by the mass of something else, something that has mass.
ok But then isnt empty space something? Not just emptyness. I mean for something to get distored You have to have something there right? Or can you pull on nothing? So if theres something there does it contain some kind of mass?
the something else that has mass does not have to be right in the middle of that empty space.
We are talking about amounts and distances that are incredibly large, or small.
@rosborne979,
I guess my questiong then is more How can tug, pull, grab, hold, slow down, something if theres nothing to hold on too? Well I heard "the frabric of space". Well what is that fabric. Is it something thats realy there? Or is it simply something thats trown out there to explain these distortions of light and empty space? Does this fabric fit in anywere when yall do your physics equasions to add up the mass of the universe? I hear that that equasion is missing quite a bit of mass. Hope you are having a wonderfull day
@chai2,
Yes I undestand the distances involved are vast or in the micro level. And that we just recently in the past 100 years Finaly discovered that were even other galaxies around. So we are infants in the knoledge of that field.
@peter jeffrey cobb,
Another cut and paste that explains some things:
Quote:Have you ever wondered what outer-space is made out of? Scientists know some of what space is made of, but they’re still learning and discovering new things all the time!
It’s currently believed that only a small amount (about 5%) of outer-space is made of “normal matter,” meaning the little tiny units (atoms) that also make up planets, stars, and things on Earth, including humans. We can’t see these tiny units when we look around on Earth, but they make up everything we know! A small amount of them also make up our Universe.
The rest of what makes up outer-space is much harder for scientists to figure out because it’s unlike anything we have here on Earth! Scientists have identified some different kinds of matter (“cold dark matter,” “hot dark matter,” and “dark energy”) that are difficult to understand because they can’t be touched or directly seen; scientists mostly know they’re there because they can measure their pull of gravity. If it sounds hard to understand, that’s okay – scientists are still trying to understand it all too!
http://www.whyzz.com/what-is-space-made-of
As an example, neutrinos are invisible to the naked eye but have a tiny amount of mass -- since there are many of them, that mass adds up.
More on neutrinos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino
@peter jeffrey cobb,
peter jeffrey cobb wrote:
Yes I undestand the distances involved are vast or in the micro level. And that we just recently in the past 100 years Finaly discovered that were even other galaxies around. So we are infants in the knoledge of that field.
and....?
so if you understand we are dealing with such a small space, do you understand that objects albeit very small, exist in between these areas of nothing, and so have an influence?
@chai2,
Ahh ok now I think I understand what you were trying to explain. Youre saying its not space itself or light thats getting pulled and warped. Its the small amounts of matter in space itself that gets tugged. And not space. Is that what you mean?
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