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This is my
response to Mr. Dale (post 63) and Dr. Jamil’s
(post 54):
It took about
50 posts worth mudslinging, irrelevant rambling,
name calling and accusations of one kind or
another before the discussion got on the right
track. I know there are plumbers, electricians
and garbage collectors unions where non-union
people are not allowed to enter the trade. But I
did not know that there was physicist’s union as
well that frowns upon a physician treading on
the physicist’s turf … … … just kidding, of
course
J.
Now the
interesting part – the real science - Physics:
I am afraid I
cannot agree with the material presented in the
article by Michelson H. Morley, submitted by Dr.
Jamil (post 54). It does not look like that the
author has any idea of today’s physics or
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. I am not
familiar with this author, but when I read the
name casually for the first time, I thought of
Michelson-Morley’s famous experiment which was
performed during the last decade of 19th
century.
Contrary to
what the author of this article thinks, Einstein
did not put a cap on the speed of light, that is
what he and others had observed. It was shown
repeatedly that an additional velocity vector
could not be added to whatever speed they
measured leading them to believe that the
measured speed is absolute.
Regarding the
mass of the photon – yes, that has been the
source of a big headache for the physicists for
a very long time. The duality of light, being a
wave and a particle has not been easy to
reconcile with.
The Gamma
factor, about which (M H Morley) has raised
question and objection, is not Einstein’s
invention, Lorentz showed that before him. The
special Theory of Relativity used it as a given
entity. Furthermore, the real confusion the
author has is about the photon mass, rest or
relativistic. In fact, as I have already said
else where, the rest mass of photon is just a
term because the photon does not exist at rest.
It is always on the go at the speed of light in
the given medium. So the mass that we consider
is the relativistic mass. People have reported
the derived values of photon’s rest mass (of the
order of 10^-50 gm), but in practice one does
not have to bother about it, hence the Lorentz
equations need not apply making the Gamma factor
redundant. All this special consideration is
allowed for photon because of the very nature of
it.
Mr. Dale
wrote:
1)
a photon has a rest mass of zero.
2) a photon carries non-zero energy.
3) because (even in Newtonian physics) this
leads to a division by zero in calculating the
velocity, the photon can only travel at the
speed of light (an "infinite" velocity because
time stops at that speed).
4) a photon carries inertia and is affected by
gravity. Its inertial mass is non-zero,
equivalent to its energy (as per e=mc^2, or if
you prefer, m=e/c^2, which shows how incredibly
small the inertial mass of a photon is).
Actually, the
photon does appear to have some mass at rest,
but as I have described above, it has no
practical important, we are only concerned with
relativistic mass. Since item (2) talks about
energy, there has to be a mass to have energy.
The item (4) further supports what I have
stated, the inertia is associated with mass.
Regarding the effect of gravity on photon;
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity tells as
that it gets deflected due to curved space.
While the Newtonian mechanics talks about the
force of gravity, the General Theory of
Relativity talks about the influence of curved
space due to a large mass.
I agree with
Mr. Dale’s response in general except I have
offered a few additional considerations.
I am sorry to
say, in my opinion, it will not do a great deal
of good to Dr. Jamil to follow the material such
as presented in Morley’s article that he has
forwarded to us in post 54.
Regards,
Javed I.
Chaudry |