The speed of light is NOT constant

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#1,281
nigel pearson said:
Someone told me it is antimatter . I am sure that has to be wrong . However .......
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It is.

NASA detected the 511kev annihilation byproduct of a positron/electron collision. Very simple.

So they have shown that a lightning strike is capable of creating a positron. No big whoops there, positrons are created all the time.. It is used in the medical profession in something called a PET scanner. Positron Emission Tomography.

The ALPHA collaboration at CERN uses a radioactive source for their positrons, if I remember correctly it was a potassium isotope. They needed the antiproton decellerator (AD) to get the antiprotons slow enough to allow them to confine the antiprotons in a modified Penning trap ( Two potential wells to trap both antiprotons and positrons prior to mixing to make antihydrogen.) Once they create electrically neutral antihydrogen, they rely on a neat combination of quadrupole, octupole, and solenoid superconducting magnets to confine HALF of the antihydrogen..of the bottom four quantum states for antihydrogen, two like magnetic fields, and two hate them..I believe they are able to confine the ones that hate magnetic fields..

So there's nothing outrageous about a stream of positrons, there are many cases of them being produced naturally.


M Gregg said:
What is anti matter?
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Matter made of antiprotons and/or positrons.

(yes, a rhetorical question I see)


jn
 
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#1,285
This is a stupid question,

Is the "mass" of light constant or does it vary with speed?

This leads to another stupid question,

If the Higgs field creates mass if it did not exist at the big bang would the speed of light still be C?

Regards
M. Gregg
 
#1,287
M Gregg said:
If light has no mass why is it limited to max value of C?
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Light is also limited to a minimum value of c; in both cases this is because photons are massless.

Is the "mass" of light constant or does it vary with speed?
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The rest mass of an on-mass-shell photon is always zero. A virtual photon could be different, but only for a short time.
 
#1,288
nigel pearson said:
I think that might be the Strange attractor also ? Some may remember I said the missing antimatter is pulling us .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
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The world at it's foundation does not have true chaos.

1. At first glance, this is obvious because quantum mechanics is a linear theory. A finite-dimensional linear system cannot be chaotic.

2. The mark of chaotic systems is exponential divergence of phase space trajectories when initial conditions are varied. Since a quantum mechanical system means unitary evolution, trajectories can't diverge exponentially.

3. Truly chaotic systems require arbitrary precision real numbers (or other uncountable [as in Cantor] set of numbers). However, these cannot have a physical manifestation due to Bekenstein's bound on entropy (equivalently, information density): Bekenstein bound - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Note that this result from QM and thermodynamics has a lot of other implications as well, such as that it's impossible to have a physical artifact, be it a computer or brain, that is super-Turing in its information processing ability, but that's a discussion for another time)
What follows from the information density limit is that chaos theory is only interesting as a rough approximation. For example, in the real world, you cannot have true fractals because there's a limit to how far down in scale you can go; true fractals have no such limit.
More relevant to your post, there are no real strange attractors either, and all physical systems' phase space trajectories either show a fixed point or a limit cycle. On large and complex systems which may appear chaotic, the limit cycle may be very long, even much larger than the age of the universe; however, it is still not a strange attractor, as such a system would violate the Bekenstein bound (that this follows is trivial to see, but ask me in case you don't).

This has been studied extensively in the subject of quantum chaos, and the consensus is that there is no quantum chaos, just chaotic-like phenomena. A corollary of this is that chaos theory has NOTHING to contribute to foundations of physics; like classical physics in general, it is an approximation useful in modeling some types of complex systems, and just like with classical physics, the relevance breaks down when you exceed the scope within which the approximation is appropriate. Given the topic of this thread, talking about chaos here is about as inappropriate as it gets.
 
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#1,289
I think the Strange attractor is a very useful concept . One important thing said in Chaos Theroy is Chaos is not random .

Our Prime minister said recently he was prepared to spend plenty of money making better weather forecasts . He was saying especially longer warnings . Some hopes . Should be nice jobs for any of us qualified in relevant fields .

Very interesting point about fractals and need for infinity .

Personally I do see number patterns as being like coincidences ( common ) . It is nice to have a branch of mathematics that says " yes that will happen , when and how not sure " . When designing aircraft wings we keep it linear . If designing a new wing we have to be a bit empirical if wanting the highest performance , Formula 1 also . If we are accurate in building them they all will work once the parameters are known . Very like finding the Nyquiste frequency of an amplifier with something less willing to share it's secrets ( turbulence ) .
 
#1,291
'Rest mass' may seem a strange concept for something which is never at rest, but think of it as the value you put for 'm' in the equations. Once moving an object gains relativistic mass; for a photon this is the only mass it has.

However, from the point of view of the photon it does not move. It just appears here and disappears there. What we see as finite time seems like nothing to the photon because of time dilation. Time stands still for a photon.
 
#1,292
This is interesting,

More stupid questions.

If the mass is 0 then how does gravity have an effect? Ie black hole..

If the mass is not effected by speed why is speed limited to max C?

Is light not effected by the higgs field? ie time stands still.
Ie is something else having an effect?

Regards
M. Gregg
 
#1,293
If the mass is 0 then how does gravity have an effect? Ie black hole..
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Gravity acts on all mass/energy, not just rest mass. The photon has kinetic energy, so gravity acts on that.

If the mass is not effected by speed why is speed limited to max C?
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Mass is affected by speed. For an object with non-zero rest mass you would need to give it an infinite amount of energy to reach c; obviously not possible. For a photon the same rule applies, except that the infinite multiplying factor due to speed is multiplying zero instead of a non-zero number. Number x infinity = infinity. Zero x infinity = number. A photon can only travel at c.

Is light not effected by the higgs field?
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As photons are massless I assume that they don't interact with the Higgs field. Photons interact with electric charge and spin.
 
#1,294
I remember an old gentleman saying he studied physics in the 1920's and got a job as an electronics engineer . When transistors came out he lost interest as it seemed to be fiddle factors to get things to work . Playing with valve for the first time in my life makes his world come alive for me . A journey I wish I hadn't taken mostly , at least my CV is full of truth now . Naturally we have advanced from fiddle factors with transistors a bit . He said when writing to hi fi World how nice to have a voice again and how unexpected to be listened to . He advocated inter-stage transformers as the next discovery for the then new interest in SE amplifiers .

Some of this stuff I read in light speed debate seems like fiddle factors to me .

Antimatter is the one thing I have confidence in . Just a feeling .
 
#1,296
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#1,297
DF96 said:
Gravity acts on all mass/energy, not just rest mass.
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As photons are massless I assume that they don't interact with the Higgs field. Photons interact with electric charge and spin.
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Indeed, almost all of the mass of regular matter which we deal with does NOT derive from the Higgs mechanism. Ordinary matter's mass is primarily the mass of nucleons (protons and neutrons) and only a tiny portion of that is the constituent up and down quarks' rest mass due to the Higgs mechanism. An up and down quark have rest masses of 0.214% and 0.510%, respectively, of the mass of a proton, yet a proton's only composed of two up and one down quarks (a neutron is two down and one up quarks). So where does over 99% of the mass of nucleons come from? The binding energy of gluon field holding their constituent quarks together.
Take away rest mass caused by Higgs and... things weigh essentially the same. 🙂 Giving mass to the universe, my @$$ !
 
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