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ICSE Class 7 Answered

What is the mass of a photon, people say that its massless, if it was massless, then won't it accelerate to infinite velocity if it is ejected from a light bulb, because the bulb gives it some energy, and if it had mass, most of the energy would be used to accelerate that mass, as kinetic energy is (mv^2)/2 but as there is no mass,therefore, the v should increase to infinity, in order for the equation to still hold valid, therefore, the photon is either stationary with the frame of reference, or is moving at infinite velocity, but still we can see that light travels at the speed of light, so it should have some mass which limits it to move at that speed, and does its mass change when it's moving? because if its mass didn't change then it should have accelerated more than the speed of light, but it doesn't no matter how much energy you provide a photon, I,e photons of radio waves and photons of gamma rays all travel at the same speed. please clarify my doubt, and please don't tell me that I don't know special relativity and Lorentz transformation, I have asked all my teachers at school they tell me that I don't know special relativity so I won't be able to understand it... please give me the answer to this question.
Asked by Adlin | 16 Mar, 2016, 12:24: PM
answered-by-expert Expert Answer
In relativity, there are two masses that any particle or object can have. One is its rest mass and the other is its motional mass.
So, when people say that photon is massless, it only means that its rest mass is zero. That is to say, the mass of a photon at rest is zero.
When the photon moves, it indeed does have a mass which does not let it move with infinite speed and limits its speed to the speed of light.
Hope this clears your doubt.
Answered by Romal Bhansali | 16 Mar, 2016, 01:04: PM
ICSE 7 - Physics
Asked by As9994973 | 31 Jan, 2018, 07:44: PM
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