Mass

I understand the answer, strictly speaking to be no.

A massless particle would, on the whole, be absorbed if it reacted with the mass at all, and an "equivalent" (in energy content) particle(s) would be eithier emitted or held static within the original mass.

 

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Uhhh ???

I was not aware that Gravity actually pulls anything. Please forgive my ignorance here, and I'm not trying to sound critical or to cause any sort of argument, but it was my assumption that mass "falls" into a gravitational field, not that mass is "pulled" by a gravitational field.

If light passes by a gravitational field, it either passes on by due to the escape velocity required to escape the field or it stays within the field behind a point called an event horizon. Any other mass that falls into a gravitational field that does not move at escape velocity is forever falling into the field. Us for instance. We are continually falling into the gravitational field created by the mass of our Earth.

Is this not correct?

Darrell

 

Without having the proper education in this matter, this is how it appears to me as well. However, I'm trying to understand the exchange. Is it the wavelength of the photon that interacts with the electron? Does this interaction cause a disturbance of the electron itself? Does such a disturbance cause the electron to emit another photon of a different wavelength dependent on both the specific wavelength of the electron and the wavelength of the impacting photon?

Darrell

 

Gravity:
Pulling or falling, it doesn't make much difference. You can think of it as something falling into a well or masses being attracted to each other, it amounts to the same thing. Though gravity is a 'pull' field as opposed to a 'push' field. This is just a mathematical description as the equation denoting force in a gravitation field is negative indicating a pulling. As oppsed to an electric field where two electric charges 'push'. Light is affected by a gravitational field, despite its masslessness (you wont find that in any dictionary) don't worry about this.

Electrons absorbing light (Quantum Electrodynamics):
When an electron is in a potential well, that is when some electric field is holding it in a defined space. The electron is only permitted to have certain values for common physical observables such as (position, momentum, angular momentum and energy). When a photon interacts with an electron, these values will change hence an interaction will only occur if the photon has values that will allow the electron to move to another allowed state. Once in this 'excited' state, the electron will return to a less excited state, to do this is must again change to another set of allowed values, it does this by emitting a photon. To an outside observer it will appear that the same photon (or in compon scattering a similar photon) has rebounded or otherwise been deflected, much like a billiard ball. Usefull things to search for more detail are compton scattering, any qualitiative description of atomic physics and lasers (one of the more interesting practical applications).

 

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I guess its hard to describe anything that operates on a scale so much smaller than any of our sense. Like describing blue to someone whos never had sight. Although the Weyl equations will tell you everything about

 

Thank you all very much for your input on this. There is so much more I would like to know, but for now I am satisfied to know that light does not really "bounce".

-- edited --

I edited out the above paragraph because it sounded kind of silly ... please forgive the change for those who have already read it.

Again, thank you all for the responses here.

Darrell

 

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