light

[leahcim]

@Chronos

Not exactly. Particles with no rest mass also have an infinite gamma factor, so an attempt to define their “relativistic mass” as gamma times their rest mass is mathematically ill-defined.

Only because we already know that these particles have to move at c. Someone who’s on the at the “we can’t go faster than light because things get too heavy” isn’t going to see a problem with a photon going whatever speed it wants to, and having a relativistic mass of zero except when it’s going at exactly the speed of light (in which case it’s still indeterminate, not infinite, so we might think, “hey, take the limit”).

I’m not saying any of this is true, just that it’s where “Newtonian mechanics + speed makes heavy” theory leads to.

[Find_Friends]

There’ s a lot to digest here, so I’ll have to get back to you on this. Meantime, though, a certain Mr. Bob Berman said something very interesting in the latest Astronomy mag that relates well to what I had already said. Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to read the full article.

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ETA: That may have been confusing. The link only takes you to the introductory paragraphs.