🚀 go-pugleaf

Pentcho Valev wrote:
>On Jun 6, 1:36�pm, John Kennaugh <J...@notworking.freeserve.co.uk>
>wrote:
>> Tom Roberts wrote:

>>
>> >> [... remainder displays utter ignorance of modern physics]
>>
>> No I reject the mysticism of modern physics. A photon is a perfectly
>> ordinary particle not some mystical mathematical object. A photon has
>> mass and therefore shows that SR is wrong because SR says it cannot
>> travel at c if it has mass - and it does.
>>
>> A photon has mass because:
>>
>> 1/ Its direction is affected by gravity as with any projectile with
>> mass.
>> 2/ Its energy increases if it falls under gravity just like any other
>> object with mass.
>> 3/ Its energy is reduced when it escapes from a gravity field just like
>> any other projectile.
>> 4/ If photons hit a surface they produce pressure just as any other
>> particles with mass will.
>> 5/ It is hard to show that if you stop a photon it has rest mass but If
>> you take a very high energy photon (massive) and near stop it you end up
>> with an electron and a positron - which have mass - and a low energy
>> photon to take away any excess mass.
>> 6/ If you combine an electron and a positron then you get two photons
>> each of who's mass is equal to that of an electron (or a positron)
>>
>> The equations Waldron produces show that a photon with a given energy
>> has a given mass and that one value gives the correct answer in all the
>> above. The mass equations all balance.
>
>Tom Roberts and his superior brothers Jean-Marc L�vy-Leblond and Jong-
>Ping Hsu have already solved this problem: Divine Albert's Divine
>Special Relativity "would be unaffected" even if "it is ultimately
>discovered that the photon has a nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum
>does not travel at the invariant speed of the Lorentz transform)":
>
>http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/chronogeometrie.pdf
>Jean-Marc L�vy-Leblond "De la relativit� � la chronog�om�trie ou: Pour
>en finir avec le "second postulat" et autres fossiles": "D'autre part,
>nous savons aujourd'hui que l'invariance de la vitesse de la lumi�re
>est une cons�quence de la nullit� de la masse du photon. Mais,
>empiriquement, cette masse, aussi faible soit son actuelle borne
>sup�rieure exp�rimentale, ne peut et ne pourra jamais �tre consid�r�e
>avec certitude comme rigoureusement nulle. Il se pourrait m�me que de
>futures mesures mettent en�vidence une masse infime, mais non-nulle,
>du photon ; la lumi�re alors n'irait plus � la "vitesse de la
>lumi�re", ou, plus pr�cis�ment, la vitesse de la lumi�re, d�sormais
>variable, ne s'identifierait plus � la vitesse limite invariante. Les
>procedures operationnelles mises en jeu par le "second postulat"
>deviendraient caduques ipso facto. La theorie elle-meme en serait-elle
>invalidee ? Heureusement, il n'en est rien ; mais, pour s'en assurer,
>il convient de la refonder sur des bases plus solides, et d'ailleurs
>plus economiques. En verite, le "premier postulat" suffit, a la
>condition de l'exploiter a fond."
>
>http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/onemorederivation.pdf
>Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond: "This is the point of view from wich I intend
>to criticize the overemphasized role of the speed of light in the
>foundations of the special relativity, and to propose an approach to
>these foundations that dispenses with the hypothesis of the invariance
>of c....We believe that special relativity at the present time stands
>as a universal theory discribing the structure of a common space-time
>arena in which all fundamental processes take place....The evidence of
>the nonzero mass of the photon would not, as such, shake in any way
>the validity of the special relativity. It would, however, nullify all
>its derivations which are based on the invariance of the photon
>velocity."
>
>http://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Relativity-Beyond-Approaches-
>Theoretical/dp/9810238886
>Jong-Ping Hsu: "The fundamentally new ideas of the first purpose are
>developed on the basis of the term paper of a Harvard physics
>undergraduate. They lead to an unexpected affirmative answer to the
>long-standing question of whether it is possible to construct a
>relativity theory without postulating the constancy of the speed of
>light and retaining only the first postulate of special relativity.
>This question was discussed in the early years following the discovery
>of special relativity by many physicists, including Ritz, Tolman,
>Kunz, Comstock and Pauli, all of whom obtained negative answers."
>
>http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/dc1ebdf49c012de2
>Tom Roberts: "If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a
>nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant
>speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both
>Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains
>of applicability would be reduced)."
>
>Pentcho Valev
>pvalev@yahoo.com

I believe that what you quote is saying a different thing to what I am
talking about. What is being discussed in your quote is I think a case
of hedging their bets and saying that if instead of having zero mass a
photon had a minute mass, all it would mean is that the theoretical
constant c would not be the speed of light and that photons would have
to travel at very slightly less than c.

What I am saying, and what Waldron showed mathematically is that a
photon has substantial mass.
The energy of a photon is made up of two terms

                     W = 1/2 m c^2 + 1/2 m v^2

The first term is internal energy the second kinetic energy where v is
the speed of the photon relative to the observer. Waldron speculates
that the internal energy is due to rotating charge (equal positive and
negative).

If the observer is stationary w.r.t the source v = c and W = m c^2. This
is of course equal to Fo x h. so you get the equation

                     Fo x h = mc^2

from which one can calculate the mass. The value calculated using that
equation is consistent with the effect of gravity on a photon and the
momentum of a photon and even the total mass of the two photons produced
by electron positron so called "annihilation". According to Waldron's
maths mass, charge, and energy are conserved in such an interaction. The
mass of the two photons is the same as the mass of the electron and
positron.

The quotes you give - speculating that photons might have a minute mass
reminds me of the dubious history of the neutrino.

Having discovered the quantized nature of the photon it was assumed that
all matter must consist of discreet lumps. When it became apparent that
the energy states of electrons orbiting the nucleus were also a series
of fixed values it became an article of faith that energy must be
quantized in the atom. Unfortunately it was found that the energy of
beta particle ejected from radioactive atomic nuclei varied smoothly
over at least a ten-to-one range. The beta radiation is apparently not
quantized when dogma said it should be. Based on the modern approach
which says never accept a theory is wrong - invent a new particle
instead the idea of the neutrino was born.

Pauli saved the day, by postulating the existence of a neutrino or
"small neutral particle" which had about the same mass as an electron
but no electric charge. Such a particle, he suggested, would not show up
in any ordinary particle counter or photograph. So: if one neutrino were
to be emitted along with every radioactive beta electron, nobody would
ever be able to detect the fact; but the invisible neutrino would carry
away energy too, so that it and the beta electron, between them, could
possess the quantized line spectrum of energy that faith demanded.  (The
failure to quantize the sharing of this energy between the neutrino and
the beta electron in fixed proportions was not explained).

When first invented by Pauli they had about the same mass as an electron
(so as to share the missing energy equitably, on average); then suddenly
it was proved that they could have no rest mass, but must be like some
kind of non-radiant, undetectable photon. However, to make up for that
they must be spinning - "but not mechanically, of course, since there is
no structure there to spin".

Neutrino detectors work on the principle that what is detected must be a
neutrino because "it can't be anything else". I suspect that had no one
invented a neutrino then people would be queuing up wanting to get their
papers published suggesting what is being detected. Theory says that it
is almost but not quite impossible to detect a neutrino so the numbers
'detected' are very small. Even so only 1/4 of the number which should
be detected are, so it has been decided that they must be able to
transmute into one of at least 4 different sorts of neutrino, only one
of which shows up in the detector. That poses a problem in that if they
are massless and travel at c as previously thought then according to
relativity their clock is stopped and there is no way they can at some
'time' change from one manifestation to another. So now it is assumed
that they do have a tiny mass and travel at just less than c - so that
their clock can run and at some time they can - for no apparent reason -
change into a different sort of neutrino.

You couldn't make it up could you.
-- 
John Kennaugh
The problem with maths is that an awesomely impressive equation may be
describing an incredibly silly idea.