4chan archive /sci/ (index)
2012-09-05 11:41 5030630 Anonymous (YellowLight_1372223.jpg 720x540 14kB)
Hey there's a question that's been bugging me all day and I cant seem to figure it out. The question is, what form of matter is light. Thanks for any answers in advance

2 min later 5030637 Anonymous
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=light+wikipedia

2 min later 5030639 lkj
Light is electromagnetic radiation, it isn't considered matter.

19 min later 5030666 Anonymous
>>5030639 A photon carries energy. e = mc^2

23 min later 5030672 lkj
>>5030666 Photons have no rest mass, so you're using the wrong part of the equation. The energy of a photon is given by E = pc or E = hf. Also mass and matter are not the same thing.

24 min later 5030673 Anonymous
>>5030666 Matter must have volume.

30 min later 5030684 Anonymous
Could you make something explode through shear pressure from visible light, or does even visible light generate heat which would just melt it?

31 min later 5030691 lkj
>>5030684 I don't know about making something explode, but you might be interested in this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail

32 min later 5030692 Anonymous
>>5030666 A simplification. E^2=p^2*c^2+m^2*c^4 >>5030673 The electron has no known size.

33 min later 5030696 Carl
define matter. sometimes people classify the force carriers as matter, sometimes they dont. the distinction is arbitrary. particles come in 4 types, scalars, spinors, vectors and tensors. usually only the spinors (electrons, quarks) are considered matter while the vectors are not (photons, W+- & Z bosons) because the cause the forces. but these particles also are just particles like the electron, they have mass and everything. you can also reverse tha argument and say that photons and such are matter and that electrons are force carriers, but that would be silly.

39 min later 5030710 Anonymous
>>5030696 > reverse the argument You just blew my fucking mind.

41 min later 5030714 lkj
>>5030710 You can do a lot of stuff like that with relativity as well. Like you can model our solar system as geocentric and the math works out, it just looks like shit and you have to invent a lot of pseudoforces.

46 min later 5030734 lkj
>>5030714 and by relativity I just meant frames of reference

49 min later 5030742 Anonymous
>>5030692 >The electron has no known size lol wut?

55 min later 5030757 lkj
>>5030742 Electrons aren't little marbles that orbit the nucleus. They're very wavelike, so it's difficult to even define what "size" would mean in the context of an electron.

55 min later 5030759 Carl
>>5030742 exactly what is said. its a field.

1 hours later 5030780 Anonymous
>>5030757 but they are. in the context of an electron, size would be 2.82 x 10-15 m. It's more useful to refer to them as waves, but they have an actual size. >>5030759 no, they make up the field. they are actual particles though.

1 hours later 5030789 Carl
>>5030780 no. particles are quantized disturbances in the field. the field is the fundamental object. you are also talking about the classical electron radius based on a classical relativistic model of the electron. the classical electron radius is roughly the size the electron would need to have for its mass to be completely due to its electrostatic potential energy - not taking quantum mechanics into account

1 hours later 5030797 lkj
>>5030780 You can derive the "radius" of an electron at a specific energy level by equating the energy of the electron to the electrostatic potential of a perfect sphere with uniform charge distribution. This is not a good model of the electron however and completely falls apart when you start doing QM.

1 hours later 5030799 Anonymous
>>5030789 they have actual mass. The uncertainty principle just makes us treat them as waves, because we can't do anything thinking of them as particles. Electrons do not travel at C, they have rest mass.

1 hours later 5030801 Anonymous (ultimate_facepalm2.jpg 2893x1875 1466kB)
>>5030780 >but they are. in the context of an electron, size would be 2.82 x 10-15 m. It's more useful to refer to them as waves, but they have an actual size.

1 hours later 5030805 Anonymous
>>5030797 as I said, it is more convenient to treat them as waves. doesn't mean they aren't actual particles though.

1 hours later 5030807 lkj
>>5030799 when did he say anything about mass? Of course they have mass.

1 hours later 5030810 lkj
>>5030805 Serious question, have you ever learned anything about QM?

1 hours later 5030816 Anonymous
>>5030799 >they have actual mass. completely irrelevant, and false since we now have a higgs. >The uncertainty principle just makes us treat them as waves, because we can't do anything thinking of them as particles. the uncertainty principle is becasue its a wave. >Electrons do not travel at C, they have rest mass. again, irrelevant. fields dont have to be massless. do you know any quantum field theory?

1 hours later 5030818 Anonymous
>>5030807 >The electron has no known size >exactly what is said. its a field >>5030810 yes, clearly it is you who hasn't. particles can behave both like particles and waves. doesn't mean they're just a field and can't be thought of as an actual particle.

1 hours later 5030820 Anonymous
>>5030816 >completely irrelevant considering that's how the whole argument was about, it is hardly pointless.

1 hours later 5030822 lkj (laughingsluts.jpg 446x400 42kB)
>>5030818 >>The electron has no known size >>exactly what is said. its a field I don't see the word "mass" anywhere there. >yes, clearly it is you who hasn't. particles can behave both like particles and waves. doesn't mean they're just a field and can't be thought of as an actual particle. thank you for answering my question

1 hours later 5030825 Anonymous
>>5030805 Strike that, reverse it. It's more like it's convinient to think of them as particles, but that doesn't mean they aren't actually waves.

1 hours later 5030828 Carl
>>5030820 you are the only person bringing up mass here.

1 hours later 5030832 Anonymous
>>5030822 >>5030828 well guess i misunderstood him. Point stands though, electrons are particles.

1 hours later 5030836 lkj
>>5030825 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementarity_(physics)

1 hours later 5030838 lkj
>>5030832 Nobody here has argued against that. You just don't understand what a particle is.

1 hours later 5030860 Anonymous
>>5030838 Carl seemingly did >>5030759 and >>5030789 . sounds like he's saying the particles don't actually exist, they're just the name for a location on the field unless i'm understanding wrong.

1 hours later 5030869 patachu (woh.png 1310x721 43kB)
>>5030759 >>5030780 well, electrons, and fermions are the closest things to bosons. was just thinking, maybe wrongly; what if in fact the electron is just a wave, an effect that happens around atoms or just a fluctuation; in some kind of 3-dimensional tissue; a bit like you represent gravitation in relativity with mass of planets and stars... but on the atomic scale.

1 hours later 5030871 lkj
>>5030860 As Carl already said, particles are quantized disturbances in quantum fields. The object exists as a field until it interacts with another object. The interaction between the two fields creates disturbances, which we know as particles. This is abbreviated as fuck but I know next to nothing about QFT.

1 hours later 5030875 Anonymous
>>5030696 Hello, AL Good job stealing Carl's name btw

1 hours later 5030892 AL
>>5030875 my last 5 names were stolen from someone else. might as well jump on the Carl train too. and how did you know that was me too? you are freaking me out.

1 hours later 5030905 Anonymous
>>5030892 WE ARE ALL CARL

1 hours later 5030911 Anonymous
>>5030892 If you don't want your name/pass stolen just use a secure trip

1 hours later 5030915 Anonymous
>>5030892 I can recognize all /sci/ tripfag personalities. It's a talent I developed from lurking here so long.

1 hours later 5030916 Anonymous
If you created a directed flash of visible light with enough pressure to break a 1 foot cube of cement, what kind of secondary effects would you see.

1 hours later 5030922 Anonymous
>>5030915 Intriguing... can you tell if the namefag Carls and the tripfag Carl are the same?

1 hours later 5030934 Anonymous
>>5030922 If you're talking about Carl !!dFf2PUolAtC, he is obviously a different person.

2 hours later 5031085 Anonymous
>>5030869 Look, it took me ten good minutes to understand your post and...diagram, Interesting but wrong: Atoms looks like a lake and you see waves on tha surface of water when you throw rocks on it. That's why Mathematicians should stay away from physics. According to it neither the nucleus exist.

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