Binding photons together slows them down and gives them mass.

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
a reply to: AMPTAH
And how would one weigh a photon? Is it in grams or ounces?

Taels of course.

Back to basics.

But seriously folks,

If photons can be made to pick up mass, that would be a big deal.

That means what we thought we knew, we didn't know #.

Light speed can be manipulated. Gravity can be manipulated.

The "big bang" can be recreated.

Let's create a new universe while hunting for russians and become gods.

I call Aries!

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
a reply to: burgerbuddy

Only when traveling through a vacuum or 0 mass.

As soon as they hit something they add that 0 mass to the mass they have entered. So 0 mass + mass = Plus 0 mass. If you get enough of them together, you may even have gravity, which is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000, and many many more zeros latter there is a 1 at the end.

So that may be considered as mass, but only probably when looked on in waves.

There is only 3.

How many 3's would make a star?

There are only so many atoms in the whole universe.

It's been figured out.

Divine intervention, light.

I am the way, the truth and the light.

Science takes us closer to God.

a reply to: BASSPLYR
OK dude. So your saying that photons have relativistic mass, which again is a form of energy. So basically your saying absolutely nothing.

a reply to: SeaWorthy
Nah! Its more like this vid depicts, its a swartz battle, its about who has the biggest swartz. May the swartz be with you.

a reply to: burgerbuddy

Are you trying to say that if you somehow had a super duper magnifing glass and looked real close at a photon particle, when its in particle state that is. But if zoomed and magnified one trillion gazillion times, you would see a "Made In China" sign?

Yup seems all plausible like.

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
a reply to: BASSPLYR
OK dude. So your saying that photons have relativistic mass, which again is a form of energy. So basically your saying absolutely nothing.

says the guy who's added Jack # to this thread. ok.

there's a reason there's a diaspora of intelligent people leaving ats these days and you're one of them. I'm tired with trying to have conversations with the dregs of ats.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird
You should read this.
www.emc2-explained.info...-dOnuo

a reply to: burgerbuddy

light speed can be manipulated. it's called a refractive index.

a reply to: BASSPLYR
OK I will make this more simple.

Photons have mass, and energy and mass are pretty much the same thing looked at from different vantage points.... There I said it! You know what that thing called, relativity, ya its all relative.

a reply to: Deluxe
I did, but what you got to understand is that is just an interpretation and form of communication on expressing such concepts, math is a language after all, in fact one I don't typically dislike, but it is a dry boring language, so I don't particularly dab into it to much. But ultimately its just a way of communication something through, it is not the ultimate and final truth on anything. I don't take it as gospel is what I am saying.

And even that test and countless others proves that photons are really just want you interpret them to be. Or in some cases they are what you want them to be.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

it's not that simple

a reply to: BASSPLYR
I mean sure if you want to get down to the nitty gritty and minuscule and count every dam atom in a millisecond a photon passes through, ya it would be a bit much. But also, yes it can just be that simple. I much prefer the simple version of things these days, much less writing involved.

I think that if we can break down all languages, yes even math, and the whole of the entirety of the universe into emoticon expression which constitute every knowable thing ever?

Well then? Now that would be some sort of type of progress maybe even a universal language. .....

originally posted by: galadofwarthethird
a reply to: AMPTAH
And how would one weigh a photon? Is it in grams or ounces?

Mass for all particles like protons and neutrons comes from the interaction between the constituent quarks and the surrounding gluon field. Only 6% of the mass of a proton comes directly from the three up/down quarks. The other 94% comes from the constant exchange of gluons. Photons aren't doing that exchange so they have little or no mass.

Mass at these scales is measured in Megaelectron volts (a measurement of energy) since E = mc^2

Neutron = 939.56563 MeV
Proton = 938.27231 MeV
Electron = 0.51099906 MeV

Then every sub-atomic particle discovered will have a particular energy/mass.

Fusion releases energy as the new atomic nucleus weighs less than the original pair. Fission releases energy because the two atomic nucleii weigh less than the original atom. Iron is the end-stage for fusion reactions because it takes more energy to make an Iron nucleus than is released. Heavy elements can only be formed due to extreme energy conditions like supernova.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Interesting article just out today in Science Daily - somewhat related to your post. Just goes to prove nothing in science is set in stone.

Physicists create new form of light
Newly observed optical state could enable quantum computing with photons
Date:
February 15, 2018
Source:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summary:
Physicists have created a new form of light that could enable quantum computing with photons.

But what if light particles could be made to interact, attracting and repelling each other like atoms in ordinary matter? One tantalizing, albeit sci-fi possibility: light sabers -- beams of light that can pull and push on each other, making for dazzling, epic confrontations. Or, in a more likely scenario, two beams of light could meet and merge into one single, luminous stream. It may seem like such optical behavior would require bending the rules of physics, but in fact, scientists at MIT, Harvard University, and elsewhere have now demonstrated that photons can indeed be made to interact -- an accomplishment that could open a path toward using photons in quantum computing, if not in light sabers. In a paper published today in the journal Science, the team, led by Vladan Vuletic, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics at MIT, and Professor Mikhail Lukin from Harvard University, reports that it has observed groups of three photons interacting and, in effect, sticking together to form a completely new kind of photonic matter. In controlled experiments, the researchers found that when they shone a very weak laser beam through a dense cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms, rather than exiting the cloud as single, randomly spaced photons, the photons bound together in pairs or triplets, suggesting some kind of interaction -- in this case, attraction -- taking place among them. While photons normally have no mass and travel at 300,000 kilometers per second (the speed of light), the researchers found that the bound photons actually acquired a fraction of an electron's mass. These newly weighed-down light particles were also relatively sluggish, traveling about 100,000 times slower than normal noninteracting photons.

"It's completely novel in the sense that we don't even know sometimes qualitatively what to expect," Vuletic says. "With repulsion of photons, can they be such that they form a regular pattern, like a crystal of light? Or will something else happen? It's very uncharted territory."

www.sciencedaily.com...

Full text: science.sciencemag.org...

It is funny,

Long ago on this forum I stated that light doesn't have mass but it is capable of being arranged and manipulated in such a way to manifest mass. All matter is just clever arrangements of light.

Looks like science is finally catching up.

a reply to: stormcell
OK. So how many megaelectron volts of neutrons, protons, and electrons, would it take to make up an ounce of grapes or ten pounds of rocks? And were does the photon fit into all that?

You dont have to answer that question, even if you do, I probably wont be bothering reading all those zeros or to the power of whatever and what not. I mean sure mass at those scales are measured in megaelectron volts, but have we ever actually ever weighed them, in an actual physical term? Or only in equations terms?

Having a equation down on paper, a paper scale to sort of say, to measure something, is different then actually weighing and measuring something, I mean when you cant even accurately predict something which we are bombarded every day something as simple as a photon, and when you do have a measuring scale test its different every time, well, something may not be as constant as people seem to think.

I think more or less its that we have a theory and equation on such things, but no real actual way to really see such things. After all we cant and have not even ever seen a proton or a electron, or even a photon even though technically its all we see every day.

So far these are the best visual ranges and proof that any of that even exists, and if anything, dont let any of the were living in a hologram conspiracy nuts see that, because so far all we have ever seen is just pixels on a screen. Pun intended. In some things and ways science is very depended on faith. After all you must have lots of faith to belive in something you have never ever actually seen.

Microscope that can see down to the atomic level

Has anyone seen electrons and protons under a microscope ever?
And we still have not even ever seen an photon, even though technically that is all we ever see or are even capable of seeing, even those picture of molecuels and atomic structures are brought to you via photons, even the ink on the print or the digital picture or vid is brought to you via photons, even while your trying to see a photon particle your seeing nothing but photons even though we have not actually ever technically seen one, or at least there interpreted into a physical visible medium which human eye and mind can understand or comprehend ie light. Taking a picture right?

You see a photon is merely the most convenient thing in the universe, it even conforms itself into all kinds of shapes for your viewing pleasure. Unless you don't use photon receptors like eyes to see things and use another way, or are blind from birth and have never seen any of the things around you, well in that case you would have to take it as a matter of faith that the guy next to you is just telling you the truth of how he sees things.

You know we may be able to make a constant and measurable scale for faith, then we would for photons or neutrons and all that macro and micro stuff. And maybe the universe works on the faith that its works, and nothing else is needed. For ages people have been convinced that god exists even though they have never seen the fella. And now a days people are convinced that photons exist even though they have never actually seen one up close, you know technicalities, there everywhere.

Ah! Just messing with you. Or not, dont think none of it matters all that much anyways. So these scientists have made a new form of light, a 3 headed photon. All I am merely asking is, pictures or it does not exist, you know the motto of this site. While descriptions are one thing, pictures are another. Should not be to hard to take a picture of a photon now would it?

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
Photon Clusters.

This discovery really grabbed my interest. Some physicists found a way to bind photons together in triplets by shooting them through a cluster of super-cooled rubidium atoms. By cooling the atoms, they are able to minimize energy levels, which (if I understand correctly) creates a special medium that decreases the velocity of photons upon entry. Nothing new...Every medium has its own rate of induction. What makes this special is, the photons exit the medium in an entangled state, and bound in triplets. Furthermore, rather than re-accelerating to the speed of light upon exit, the photon clusters gain mass and move much slower. This is particularly important, because photons are normally massless particles, and they always move at the speed of light...at least that's what we thought.

My question: Is the cooled rubidium cluster a Bose-Einstein condensate??? That would be good to know.

I think so - that's the main reason they cool clusters of atoms down close to absolute zero. Temperature is a measure of electron energy state. So right at this level, electrons are so lethargic it might take two or three photons to kick them up into another energy level, which the electron then emits tangled together. Each photon can be considered to be a magnetic and electric field perpendicular to each other, so they could end up overlapping and being out of phase to each other by 120 degrees, almost forming a solid particle as no field would ever be zero. Then they would have some mass and slow down below the speed of light by the laws of Physics.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: Deluxe

Well, think about pair production. If two colliding gamma photons produce a positron-electron pair (which) both have mass, how can photons be absolutely massless. There has to be a ground state non-zero mass that we have yet to measure. That's what this experiment implies IMO.

Deluxe gave a great response to this, but I think what mostly confuses people is how something can have no rest mass yet contain some energy. Anything with rest mass cannot reach the speed of light because the faster something moves the more its rest mass will increase, and at the speed of light the mass becomes infinite, which is why no object with some rest mass can reach the speed of light, it would require an infinite amount of energy to move an infinite mass.

A photon moves at the speed of light because it has no rest mass, the only mass a photon has is due to its momentum, if a photon were to stop moving it would have no energy and essentially stop existing, so they never stop moving. However, I can understand why this idea is strange... how can a photon even exist like a particle if it has no physical mass to speak of? All energy has some mass associated with it, so photons do have some type of mass, a relativistic mass, providing them with momentum.

I remember back in high school our science teacher showed us a demonstration where he had a small windmill structure inside of a vacuum sealed glass container and he shone a laser onto the structure, asking us to predict whether we thought the photons would cause the windmill device to turn. And from I recall it did in fact start turning, and he proceeded to explain that the photons have a momentum and were able to impart their kinetic energy into the atoms of the structure.

My guess as to why photons would slow down when bound together is that the binding energy holding them together could add some extra mass to the system, or maybe their movement somehow becomes more restricted so they appear to move slower but are really just taking a more elaborate path. Also keep in mind the energy photons do contain is near the bear minimum of what a particle can contain, because energy always comes in quantized wave-packets and the only energy they have is relativistic.

So maybe single photons do feel the Higgs field very slightly, and by combining photons and increasing the amount of energy you make it more like a normal particle with a larger amount of energy. At the end of the day what really matters is the amount of energy contained in the particle, because mass and energy are essentially the same thing. So by bunching together enough photons, even though each one has almost no energy, multiple photons start to form something with considerable energy.

originally posted by: AMPTAH


Next, photons can't gain mass, this too is a load of baloney. They give no evidence of this mass. How did they measure this? Well, you can "infer" there must be a mass, if you accept the photons travel slower than "c" in a vacuum. Because, anything traveling less than the speed of light, must have a mass. But, there's no way to measure this directly. So, it's all crap.

Well, mass, and every other physical quantity, is measured by its apparent effect on other things. So if something 'appears' to get mass, then in those circumstances it does have mass. Even the Higgs field works this way, by entangling and interacting with otherwise massless elementary particles they are slowed and gain dynamics which "looks like" inertia---is the mass real or not?

But it is true that in the current experiment the effect is a collective one and mediated through the interactions with the atoms. Optical light is significantly longer wavelength than the size of an atom (and maybe interatomic distances in the bose-einstein condensate? I don't know) so there are collective effects in that regime. If they were using x-rays or smaller wavelengths it almost certainly wouldn't work.

It's good to remember what the meaning of a photon is---it's an elementary excitation of the 'radiation field' (i.e. propagating electromagnetic waves that take energy to long distances). When you apply the rules of quantum mechanics only certain energies & wavelength combinations are allowed, in distinction to classical Maxwell physics. Here, the expansion of the quantum wavefunction must be a complex combination of the E&M and bose-einstein matter wavefunctions (the latter is an exotic state of matter and never encountered in Nature and usual circumstances) so that the interactions are unusual and novel. That's whats the experiment is about. (Yes, because of the way QM works, the meaning and practical 'thing' of what a photon is in a coupled experiment (it's the name we humans give to the eigenfunctions in which you expand the wavefunction naturally) is different than in free space.)

Unfortunately I can't (currently) think of any practical uses at the moment because forming the BEC of matter is difficult and rare.

originally posted by: More1ThanAny1
It is funny,

Long ago on this forum I stated that light doesn't have mass but it is capable of being arranged and manipulated in such a way to manifest mass. All matter is just clever arrangements of light.

This is entirely untrue. The matter fields of the SM are distinctly different in nature and existence than the EM field.

Looks like science is finally catching up.

No, this new experiment is an experimentally spectacular demonstration of quantum principles as would mostly be known in the 1930's.

What this experiment shows is that quantum mechanics is true and that it's the quantization of the underlying fields, when including their interaction, and the effect on the wavefunction which determines the properties of physics, and that what we call 'particles' are clever 'rearrangements' and manifestations of the underlying fields when considered with all interaction terms.