I’ve heard it said that it would take an infinite amount of energy to propel something to the speed of light. Okay, that’s fine. Let physicists have their fun.
But isn’t it argued about that light has a very tiny mass? Why, then, does it not take an infinite amount of energy to propel light to the speed of light?
Am I completely wrong about all of this? Or is there an actual explanation?
Blessed are the Fundamentalists, for they shall inhibit the earth.
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Photons have zero rest mass. Therefore they must travel at the speed of light in any and all reference frames.
Photons have inertia but no mass, allowing them to travel at the speed of light. Incidentially, the speed of light isn’t the same in an atmosphere as it is in a vacuum. Cherenkov light is what happens when a photon, or another particle moving faster than the local speed of light, hits a region (such as Earth’s atmosphere) where the speed of light is a fraction of c, the speed of light in a vacuum.
“Cherenkov radiation, when it is intense, appears as a weak bluish white glow in the pools of water shielding some nuclear reactors. The Cherenkov radiation in cases such as this is caused by electrons from the reactor traveling at speeds greater than the speed of light in water, which is 75 percent of the speed of light in a vacuum. The energetic charged particle traveling through the medium displaces electrons in some of the atoms along its path. The electromagnetic radiation that is emitted by the displaced atomic electrons combines to form a strong electromagnetic wave analogous to the bow wave caused by a power boat traveling faster than the speed of water waves or to the shock wave (sonic boom) produced by an airplane traveling faster than the speed of sound in air.”
-The Encyclopedia Britannica, britannica.com.
“We can imagine no reason why, with ordinary care, human toes could not be left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found . . . it seems to us that somebody has been very careless.” Pillars v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 78 So. 365, 366.