Einsteinian Photons should be infinitely heavy!
I am continuing my series on mathematical fallacies.
Here is another one! You all know what I am talking here. Don't exit the page thinking this is outside the syllabus!!
I have always wondered about light and the light particles, the so called photons.
Photons are small, very small particles that make up light as per your Quantum physics! Now they are moving at the speed of light, obviously!
Turn to Einstein's relativistic equation which says that the mass of a moving object will depend on the speed at which the particle or object is travelling. The equation goes like this:
where m is the mass of the moving object, m0 is the mass of the same object at rest, v is the velocity at which the object is moving and c is the speed of light.
Well, we all know when an object moves close to the light speed the mass of the object should become infinity. Just substitute v with c when v reaches c, you get infinity as the result whatever be the initial mass of the object!
However, small the object might be, however minuscule the weight of the object might be, if it moves at speed of light, then the mass of the object would become infinity.
That is, every photon will be infinitely heavy! And when light falls on you, you will die immediately! Well that is not what is happening!
How do you explain this?
Or one simple explanation could be Einstein was wrong!! Easy way out!
Theorists give multiple reason for this. Do come up with reasons. I will write it after your comments. Or in my next post which further extends this fallacy.
Here is another one! You all know what I am talking here. Don't exit the page thinking this is outside the syllabus!!
I have always wondered about light and the light particles, the so called photons.
Photons are small, very small particles that make up light as per your Quantum physics! Now they are moving at the speed of light, obviously!
Turn to Einstein's relativistic equation which says that the mass of a moving object will depend on the speed at which the particle or object is travelling. The equation goes like this:
where m is the mass of the moving object, m0 is the mass of the same object at rest, v is the velocity at which the object is moving and c is the speed of light.
Well, we all know when an object moves close to the light speed the mass of the object should become infinity. Just substitute v with c when v reaches c, you get infinity as the result whatever be the initial mass of the object!
However, small the object might be, however minuscule the weight of the object might be, if it moves at speed of light, then the mass of the object would become infinity.
That is, every photon will be infinitely heavy! And when light falls on you, you will die immediately! Well that is not what is happening!
How do you explain this?
Or one simple explanation could be Einstein was wrong!! Easy way out!
Theorists give multiple reason for this. Do come up with reasons. I will write it after your comments. Or in my next post which further extends this fallacy.
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