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What if light had mass?

totally mind-bending but, what if light actually had mass? Like even if it was super tiny, we'd have all this mass moving around at the speed of light. Could be enough to change gravity around them, or maybe even slow them down? Space-time could be more messed up than we ever thought. Science peeps, help me out here.

Submitted 12 months ago by physics_geek_42


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High school physics is a distant memory for me, but doesn't E=mc^2 mean that light having mass would sorta break that equation? Or would it just make E, like, even BIGGER?

12 months ago by SimpleExplanations

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If photons had mass however minuscule, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics would be up for review. BLACKBODY RADIATION, anyone? The spectrum of emitted light from a body would be quite different—probably wouldn't even be a 'spectrum' as we know it.

12 months ago by ThermodynamicsFTW

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I'm not a scientist, but this makes me think... Stars give off a mind-blowing amount of light, so if light had mass, wouldn't that potentially cause stars to lose mass super quickly? Almost like a constant mass ejection. That'd change the whole stellar lifecycle.

12 months ago by Astro_Amy

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So you're saying that if light had even a little bit of mass the entire universe could be different? That's nuts. How would the sun even work? Would we all be heavier or something with light pushing down on us?

12 months ago by Curious_Carl

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Bruh, light with mass? Next you're gonna tell me up is down, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria! 😂

12 months ago by TrollInTheDungeon

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From a gravitational standpoint, it's interesting. Current models assume light doesn't have mass so it doesn't directly contribute to gravity. It does however, bend in strong gravitational fields (think black holes), which is a cornerstone of General Relativity. If photons had mass, even if minimal, they'd contribute their own gravity, which would add an entirely new layer to cosmic structures. Not only that, but their speed would decrease as they climbed out of gravitational wells due to losing kinetic energy. Dark matter might not even be a thing if light had mass since it could account for some of the missing gravitational pull in galaxies.

12 months ago by GravityGuru99

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Actually, if light had mass, the whole universe as we know it would be completely different. Even if it was a tiny, tiny mass, due to the immense speeds it travels, the kinetic energy would be huge! Light being massless is what allows it to travel at 'c', the speed of light. If photons had mass, they wouldn’t be able to achieve that speed without infinite energy according to relativity.

12 months ago by Quantum_Quandaries

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whoa dude, that's some heavy (pun intended) sci-fi material right there. imagine spaceships dodging actual light bullets that have mass, space battles would never be the same haha

12 months ago by LightChaser42