Guest clarke Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 Hi, what would be the physical consequences if the mass of the electron had a value twice that observed? Clarke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YT2095 Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 considering the electron has a negligable mass and is variable dependant upon its charge, you`de have to look at Highly charged types to work out the effects. Swansont will probably know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed84c Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 well photons and electrons are interchangeable so i guess it would have consiquences for the mass of a photon, i.e give it rest mass. This would mean that photons couldnt travel at the speed of light. Well that mabye true but im sure YT can prove its balls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YT2095 Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 Well that mabye true but im sure YT can prove its balls.ROFLOL, I`m really concerned as to WHY you`de think that? I`m no Physicist by a long chalk, I gave my best answer in post #2 for now, Swansont or one of the other Physics guys/gals would give a more informed answer than I can. Fact is, I don`t know what would happen beyond what I`ve already stated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed84c Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 well if an photon and electron are interchangeable and 1 photon can turn into 1 electron and vice versa, as quoted by quantum mechanics, then if you double the mass of an electron you increase its mass by the mass of an electron and then the same goes for the photon it increases mass by the mass of an electron and hence the rest mass orginially at 0 would be come the mass of an electron. Well that s a just a guessing idea im not saying its right atall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 Hi' date=' what would be the physical consequences if the mass of the electron had a value twice that observed? Clarke[/quote'] Well, you'd change all of the orbital sizes and energies for atoms. Ionization and excitation energies would change, as would molecular sizes. But since it would change for everything, I'm not sure the relative behavior of anything would be that different. e.g. visible light would be at a different wavelength window, but there would still be a range of wavelengths that corresponded to minimal absorption in water vapor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 well if an photon and electron are interchangeable and 1 photon can turn into 1 electron and vice versa, as quoted by quantum mechanics, ... Where does QM say an electron and a photon are interchangeable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 considering the electron has a negligable mass and is variable dependant upon its charge' date=' you`de have to look at Highly charged types to work out the effects. Swansont will probably know [/quote'] Electrons have a constant mass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed84c Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 it says something about a mass of virutal ellectrons in a vacuum and every so often one photon will interact to make an aelectron and also positron (as per the esclusion principle) these can anailate to make another pgoton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Severian Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 Changing the mass of the electron would not change the mass of the photon. The masslessness of the photon is protected by a symmetry (U(1)) so the quantum corrections to its mass are zero (for any electron mass). Otherwise one might imagine that it would change the photon's mass by exactly this process, so nice try ed. As YT said though, it has such a small mass anyway that I don't think it would make a big difference to anything fundamental. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed84c Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 oh well im surpidsed that it had anyrelevance at all so thats no bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted October 22, 2004 Share Posted October 22, 2004 it says something about a mass of virutal ellectrons in a vacuum and every so often one photon will interact to make an aelectron and also positron (as per the esclusion principle) these can anailate to make another pgoton yes, a photon of sufficient energy can create an electron/positron piar. But that's very different than an electron and a photon are interchangeable. When they annihilate they produce two photons. This has nothing to so with the Pauili exclusion principle; it's because angular momentum, charge and lepton number are conserved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest clarke Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 What would be the change, by thinking about the effects on atomic spectra? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YT2095 Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 Electrons have a constant mass. unless I`m mistaken, this is not the case, charge/velocity alter it`s mass as I stated. http://www.matter.org.uk/glossary/detail.asp?dbid=128 http://www.chez.com/etlefevre/rechell/ukmachar.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Severian Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 YT: In the first link, that is just a bad definition of 'mass'. This is something which is constantly taught badly in schools. What they are calling 'rest mass' is actually what scientists refer to as 'mass'. The other (link 1's) definition is frame dependent because it depends on the electron's velocity. In the second link, the electron mass ('rest mass' in the parlance of link 1) does indeed change with energy because of renormalisation in quantum mechanics. This is correct, even though most of the other stuff on that page is complete speculation! Its dependence on energy is logarithmic though, so it doesn't change very fast. I can explain this further if you like, but it gets quite complicated.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 YT: In the first link' date=' that is just a bad definition of 'mass'. This is something which is constantly taught badly in schools. What they are calling 'rest mass' is actually what scientists refer to as 'mass'. The other (link 1's) definition is frame dependent because it depends on the electron's velocity.[/quote'] Plus they got the mass wrong by 30 orders of magnitude and they don't appear to know the difference between velocity and speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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