The Standard Model - 3. Photons.

"The photons are smaller than the distance between atoms in the material." - Brain Dennis

Photons, one of the most controversial 'waves' in physics, it is also on of the most controversial 'particles' in physics.


Yup.


Its both.


A photon travels, or if you want to be smart, propagates like a wave- but it interacts with other particles, like a particle.


Photons are massless, they have a rest mass of 0 (or at least thought be). They also do not have an electric charge. They also do not decay 'spontaneously' in space.


Many people argue that a photon does have mass, and that you can work it out by using E=hc/λ and E=mc^2.


'h' is Plancks constant. 'c' is The Speed of Light. 'λ' is wavelegnth. 'm' is mass. 'E' is energy.


Lets begin. Lets work out h*c.


6.626x10-34 m2 kg/s * 299 792 458 m/s = 1.98644521 x 10-25 m3kg/s2


Now, hc divided by λ.


1.98644521 x 10-25 / 6x10^-7 m = 3.310742016 × 10^-19 J/photon


Now since Einstein states E=mass*the speed of light squared, we should be able to work out the mass of a photon by rearranging E=mc^2 to m=e/c^2.


Since E equals 3.310742016 × 10^-19. And c equals 89875517873681764 m/s.


(3.310742016 × 10^-19)/(89875517873681764) = ...


3.68369728968146969223080587318626973320286501289902 x 10^-33g


A tiny amount, but this states it has mass, since it has energy.


But, since we live in a finite universe in my opinion, an infinite amount of energy is needed for a particle with mass to travel a 'c'. This states a photon is massless.


The photon doesn't react with the Higgs field, the Higgs fields contains countless 'Higgs Bosons', which allows particles to gain mass.


We are still confused by the photon, and whether it has mass. But since we are coming closer to finding the Higgs boson, we might be able to explain why it doesn't react with the Higgs field.


But then the question, if a photon is massless - how is it affected by gravity?

Well, a photon travels in straight lines in space-time, but they are warped by the curvature of space-time. Due to nearby large masses, or black holes.

To conclude, do you think a photon has mass? Or is totally massless? I think it's massless. This year many amazing things will happen if we have found the Higgs boson, especially with the photon and other massless particles.

Thanks for Reading, Ben.