"Pentcho Valev" <pvalev@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1179479086.027853.325960@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
: Androcles wrote:
: > "Pentcho Valev" <pvalev@yahoo.com> wrote in message
: > news:1179471503.611164.124340@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...

I suggest we reverse that old, worn out way of thinking and accept
action-at-a-distance as a given and then ponder over matter.

"Pentcho Valev" <pvalev@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1179479086.027853.325960@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
: Androcles wrote:
: > "Pentcho Valev" <pvalev@yahoo.com> wrote in message
: > news:1179471503.611164.124340@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...

Find a flaw in this argument:

1) We measure mass by applying force and measuring acceleration.

2) Acceleration is overcoming inertia.

2a) "Inertia" is shorthand for Galileo/Newton's first law.

"Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right
line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed
thereon."

2b) Acceleration is Galileo/Newton's second law:

"The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force
impressed;
and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is
impressed."

3) Intuitively, matter has mass; by definition, by observation, by
experience.

4) Newton's third law is conservation of momentum.

"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or the mutual
actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to
contrary parts."

5) Photons are not matter, they are the electromagnetic transfer of energy.

Photons come in pairs. For every photon there is an equal and opposite
rephoton; a restatement of Newton's third law in a different situation.

6) A photon is the wave superposition of two or more oscillators which only
move once (the so-called "quantum" of energy).

http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rephoton.gif

6a) The total energy of two photons is mc^2.

7) Asking if a photon has mass is asking if a photon has inertia.

8) The path of a photon is curved in a rotating frame:
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/fw/crls.rxml

9) By observation of 9) Photons have inertia.

10) Photons are not matter.

11) Whatever matter is, we can only detect it by it radiating energy by
reflection or its own emission.

12) Newton was puzzled by "action at a distance", yet accepted the
existence of matter axiomatically. It's a given. What he did not know of
was the periodic table, the Bohr model of the atom or electrodynamics.

I suggest we reverse that old, worn out way of thinking and accept
action-at-a-distance as a given and then ponder over matter.

The pieces of the puzzle are all there. Yes, the photon has mass. One can

Find a flaw in this argument:

3) Intuitively, matter has mass; by definition, by observation, by
experience.

4) Newton's third law is conservation of momentum.

"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or the mutual
actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to
contrary parts."

5) Photons are not matter, they are the electromagnetic transfer of energy.
Photons come in pairs. For every photon there is an equal and opposite
rephoton; a restatement of Newton's third law in a different situation.

6) A photon is the wave superposition of two or more oscillators which only
move once (the so-called "quantum" of energy).

http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/rephoton.gif

6a) The total energy of two photons is mc^2.

7) Asking if a photon has mass is asking if a photon has inertia.

8) The path of a photon is curved in a rotating frame:
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/fw/crls.rxml

9) By observation of 9) Photons have inertia.
10) Photons are not matter.

11) Whatever matter is, we can only detect it by it radiating energy by
reflection or its own emission.

12) Newton was puzzled by "action at a distance", yet accepted the
existence of matter axiomatically. It's a given. What he did not know of
was the periodic table, the Bohr model of the atom or electrodynamics.

I suggest we reverse that old, worn out way of thinking and accept
action-at-a-distance as a given and then ponder over matter.

The pieces of the puzzle are all there. Yes, the photon has mass. One can
apply a force to it and nudge it from its path. That's what a diffraction
grating or prism does.
What a photon lacks is matter. The photon is the link between
action-at-a-distance
and matter, a line of enquiry to investigate.

What *IS* matter?

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities."

"The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to
hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his
intelligence." -- Einstein.

Pentcho Valev wrote in "sci.physics.relativity":

Androcles wrote:

"Pentcho Valev" <pvalev@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1179471503.611164.124340@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...

[...]

The question:

"Does the speed of light vary in a gravitational field in accordance
with Einstein's 1911 equation c'=c(1+V/c^2) which, in the absence of a

What's the reference for this formula? As far as I know Einstein never
said this nonsense.

On May 19, 10:00 am, The_Man <me_so_hornee...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On May 19, 9:31 am, RP <no_mail_no_s...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On May 18, 1:58 am, Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com> wrote:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/browse_frm/thread/d28e668a...

On Oct 25, 1995, John Baez wrote in sci.physics:

"Nonetheless, it's a fact that a photon has a nonzero momentum."

A curious person asked:

"Are you therefore asserting that it has nonzero mass? If not, why
not?"

John Baez replied:

"You can see that I did not assert anything about the photon's mass. I
know what the photon's mass is, but I never talk about it around here
because the endless discussion of the photon's mass is boring, boring,
boring."

While I don't agree that the topic is boring, I do agree that it isn't
easy to understand, so I'll try to explain it. Photons don't exist.
Nothing that doesn't exist has mass.

You state as a fact what seems more like an opinion.

If special relativity is opinion, then I retract my statement :)

Photons have (spin) angular mometum. If photons "don't exist", the law
of conservation of angular momentum falls apart. Along with it, the
understanding of which electronic transitons occur, and how often they
occur (what we call "selection rules")

Photons don't have anything, because they don't exist. Momentum is
globally conserved, not locally conserved. The solution to the
radiation reaction problem is that there isn't a reaction, just an
action. Electrons are foward acting particles. The past light cone
contains events that influence the electron, the foward light cone
those events that it influences. There is no experimental evidence of
electron recoil under the influence of its own emitted radiation.
Before replying please note a distinction between a single electron
and an array of electrons, the latter of which produces feedback
effects.

If you can explain why s-> d transitions don't occur, or why p->p
transitions don't occur, or why d->d transitions for high spin Fe 3+
occur with such a small probability, I'm all ears.

The atom is an electronic structure in equilibrium. Some states are
unstable and others impossible.

Please explain why my computer cannot
emit a 5terahertz signal.

From the relativistic (Minkowskian) viewpoint, there doesn't even

exist em radiation period, not even in the form of classical em waves;
charges interact directly with one another, and the delay that we see
is a result of our mistaken Galilean observational perspective.

But EM interactons never propogate faster than c.

"In our theory c play the role of infinity".

Please distinguish between "directly" and "instantaneous".

Time
is other than what Newton said it was, that is, it is not the same
time here as it is there. The em field of a charged particle subtends
space and time, rather than space alone.
There exists a coordinate system in which the field of a charged
particle remains perfectly rigid, but in that system the field extends
through time as well as space, which is contrary to our "assumed"
perspective of things existing only from moment to moment.

I've heard the photon-mass debate a million times in this NG, to the
point that it really is boring, boring, boring, but not the subject,
just argument itself. It's the SOS. The QM approach, empirically valid
as it may be, is not an explanation of things, it is only a
statistical quantification. QM physicists

ALL physicists are QM physicists :-)

should refrain from offering
up philosophical interpretations as fact, and especailly as
counterargument to arguments against their philosophical
interpretations.

Often they don't, agreeing with Dirac "Just shut up and calculate."

So it was Dirac who said that? In a previous thread it seemed that
nobody could come up with a direct reference.

However, being that QM is the most tested and most accurate model of
the universe ever created, we are fond of using it to poke holes in
other's philosophical musings.

Well and good. I don't argue against its empirical merit.

The curious person could have asked:

"Are you therefore asserting that the speed of light varies in a
gravitational field in accordance with Einstein's 1911 equation
c'=c(1+V/c^2) which, in the absence of a gravitational field, becomes
c'=c+v, where v is the relative speed of the light source and the
observer?"

This is simple algebra, and I've never seen a worse example of
deriving a solution. If V=0, then the equation reduces to c' = c. That
you blindly quote this stupidity over and over is good reason to
suggest that you're nothing other than a troll in this group.

John Baez would have replied:

"You can see that I did not assert anything about the variable speed
of light. I know how the speed of light varies in a gravitational
field, but I never talk about it around here because the endless
discussion of the variability of the speed of light is boring, boring,
boring."

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