Phys_Student Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 I am very sure this has been and will be discussed time and again but i hope you have enough patience to please answer this one more time. If the photon is masless, how can it possess momentum and energy ? The 2 things just seem to go together. When they say massless they do mean mass = 0 right ? And when AH COmpton derived the formulas to calculate momentum of a photon, he used the equation E=mc^2 right ? So therefore, the photon must have a mass, because E / C^2 = never 0 ... I am a really confused high school physics student, please help me out, dont let me rot in the darkness. thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Tycho?] Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon#Photons_in_matter I'm sure if you use the search function you will get some of the time this has been discussed before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 The whole equation is E2 = p2c2 + m2c4 , where m is the rest mass. For a photon, m = 0 so p = E/c Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klaynos Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 Just to take what swansont said one step further. E=hf, so p=hf/c=h*Wavelength Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now