Phisics-Fact/theory and fiction

[luc2010]

Photons may have very small masses or zero mass.  Which of the two that it is is not resolved.  In order to posess finite energy and for our ideas about special relativity to also be true they cannot:  travel at the exact speed of light, have greater than zero mass, and posess only finite energy.  For most situations, we treat them as having zero rest mass and traveling at the exact speed of light.

Hi,

please question?
what is the difference betwin mathematics and physics?

Best Regards
luc2010

[forest]

There is no flaw in physic law, just we avoid to recognize the energy filling all the space aoround us.

[tinman]

There is no flaw in physic law, just we avoid to recognize the energy filling all the space aoround us.

Forest
We are talking about the laws of physics that man has set for him self,and you will note that most are theories,not set law's. Nature set's the law's,not man,and we are here to see what is set in stone,and what is theory and faulse.

[MarkE]

So which is true Mark,special relativity,or they have zero rest mass,and travel at the speed of light?. It would seem by your answer that special relativity may not apply to all that has mass.

We don't know for certain.  That's why we keep conducting experiments to try and close in on an answer.

A quote from a page you recomended to answer a question on another thread.
Quote; It is almost certainly impossible to do any experiment that would establish the photon rest mass to be exactly zero.

So we would have to agree that we just dont know the answer. This brings the question-if we dont know wether or not a photon has rest mass,and !Quote: traveling at the exact speed of light,then we cannot say for sure that an infinite amount of energy is required to accelerate that mass to light speed. We can also say that we dont know if that mass will increase to an infinite amount of mass at or near light speed.

However, we do observe and can say that the energy required to accelerate a particle with known mass increases exponentially as the velocity we accelerate it to approaches the speed of light.  Those observations agree with special relativity.  We do not have any observations, ( at least not any that I know about ), that indicate above a certain velocity the exponential energy increase described by special relativity breaks trend.

If i have a 6kg bowling ball in space,and apply a continual unidirectional force of say 1kg to that bowling ball,then will that bowling ball reach the speed of light eventually without any additional force being required?. We are asuming that the bowling ball will not be hindered by any other force or mass,and is in the vacuum of space continuously.

Special relativity says that you will never quite get there.  As you get closer and closer to light speed, the amount of time it takes to accelerate by any fixed amount takes exponentially longer time.

Will that same bowling ball increase in mass as it gets closer to the speed of light?.

From a Newtonian F=mA standpoint it will seem more massive because for a fixed F, A keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.