[demadone (OP)]

Vern, that is quite possible. I've always believed that atoms are made of energy. In fact we might just be on our way to make matter out of energy if we understand this secret. Photon energy or not but it must be something in those lines.

[Vern]

So if light is the equivalence to mass?

Does space 'bend' inside a particle accelerator?
And photons near the Sun traveling away, shouldn't they create gravitational effects too?

Have we measured that?

I don't know how we could determine whether space bends inside a particle accelerator.

We know that there is more gravity than there should be in most galaxies. I don't know if the calculations account for the thousands of years worth of photons and ions thrown out by those galaxies. That is a good question, but we generally assume that the amount of gravity resulting from the thrown out debris would be small relative to the total mass of the galaxy.

[Vern]

Vern, that is quite possible. I've always believed that atoms are made of energy. In fact we might just be on our way to make matter out of energy if we understand this secret. Photon energy or not but it must be something in those lines.

I think recent experiments produced particles of mass from energy alone. I'll look for the research notes.

[demadone (OP)]

I think I would like to lay my hands on that information. It might just bring an end to all these lies about black holes.

[Vern]

I think I would like to lay my hands on that information. It might just bring an end to all these lies about black holes.

Ok; here it is.  BTW they are not lying; they are true believers; but being true believers they have a stake in the outcome of debates about the existence of Black Holes.

OUT OF PURE LIGHT, PHYSICISTS CREATE PARTICLES OF MATTER
September 16, 1997
A team of 20 physicists from four institutions has literally made something from nothing, creating particles of matter from ordinary light for the first time. The experiment was carried out at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) by scientists and students from the University of Rochester, Princeton University, the University of Tennessee, and Stanford. The team reported the work in the Sept. 1 issue of Physical Review Letters.
Scientists have long been able to convert matter to energy; the most spectacular example is a nuclear explosion, where a small amount of matter creates tremendous energy. Now physicists have succeeded in doing the opposite: converting energy in the form of light into matter -- in this experiment, electrons and their anti-matter equivalent, positrons.
Converting energy into matter isn't completely new to physicists. When they smash together particles like protons and anti-protons in high-energy accelerator experiments, the initial particles are destroyed and release a fleeting burst of energy. Sometimes this energy burst contains very short-lived packets of light known as "virtual photons" which go on to form new particles. In this experiment scientists observed for the first time the creation of particles from real photons, packets of light that scientists can observe directly in the laboratory.
Physicists accomplished the feat by dumping an incredible amount of power -- nearly as much as it takes to run the entire nation but lasting only for a tiny fraction of a second -- into an area less than one billionth of a square centimeter, which is far smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. They used high-energy electrons traveling near the speed of light, produced by SLAC's two-mile-long accelerator, and photons from a powerful, "tabletop terawatt" glass laser developed at Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The laser unleashed a tiny but powerful sliver of light lasting about one trillionth of a second (one picosecond) -- just half a millimeter long. Packed into this sliver were more than two billion billion photons.
The team synchronized the two beams and sent the electrons head-on into the photons. Occasionally an electron barreled into a photon with immense energy, "like a speeding Mack truck colliding with a ping pong ball," says physicist Adrian Melissinos of the University of Rochester. That knocked the photon backward with such tremendous energy that it collided with several of the densely packed photons behind it and combined with them, creating an electron and a positron. In a series of experiments lasting several months the team studied thousands of collisions, leading to the production of more than 100 positrons.
The energy-to-matter conversion was made possible by the incredibly strong electromagnetic fields that the photon-photon collisions produced. Similar conditions are found only rarely in the universe; neutron stars, for instance, have incredibly strong magnetic fields, and some scientists believe that their surfaces are home to the same kind of light-to-matter interactions the team observed. This experiment marks the first time scientists have been able to create such strong fields using laser beams.
By conducting experiments like this scientists test the principles of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in fields so strong that the vacuum "boils" into pairs of electrons and positrons. The scientists say the work could also have applications in designing new particle accelerators.
Spokesmen for the experiment, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, are Kirk McDonald, professor of physics at Princeton, and Melissinos, professor of physics at Rochester. Also taking part in the experiment were William Bugg, Steve Berridge, Konstantin Shmakov and Achim Weidemann at Tennessee; David Burke, Clive Field, Glenn Horton-Smith, James Spencer and Dieter Walz at SLAC; Christian Bula and Eric Prebys at Princeton; and seven other physicists from Rochester, including Associate Professor David Meyerhofer; graduate students Thomas Koffas, David Reis, Stephen Boege, and Theofilos Kotseroglou; research associate Charles Bamber; and engineer Wolfram Ragg.
________________________________________
CONTACT: Tom Rickey, (716) 275-7954.

[lightarrow]

Excuse me Vern, but if in that experiment they needed electrons (massive particles) to convert photons into other massive particles, then we already knew that gamma photons with energy exceeding 1022 KeV generate couples electrons/positrons when colliding with a nucleus.
Furthermore, if we can use mass to convert photons into more mass, then it would be much more simple just to take a piece of black paper and put it under the sun (as I already wrote in a recent thread).

[Vern]

That was back in 1997 when there was a big debate going on where one group insisted that a nucleon must be part of any mass producing process. I think this experiment was to rule out the need for the nucleon. That's why they could get away with using an electron to create the great amounts of energy.

Previous experiments had used electron positron collisions to create more electrons and positrons and the particle zoo of particles. Using photons as one of the collision partners was just icing on the cake, I guess.

Yep; they could have just absorbed light into paper, but paper had nucleons in it. []

[demadone (OP)]

What's all this about black paper producing mass under the sun. Is that true?

[Vern]

What's all this about black paper producing mass under the sun. Is that true?

Actually, anything that absorbs energy must convert the energy into mass. In fact the only way we can observe photons of energy is to convert them to mass. So I like to think of photons as potential mass.

So; yes that is true.

[demadone (OP)]

Did you read it somewhere? I just want to know about this concept. Or it's just your hypo?

[demadone (OP)]

What's all this about black paper producing mass under the sun. Is that true?

Actually, anything that absorbs energy must convert the energy into mass. In fact the only way we can observe photons of energy is to convert them to mass. So I like to think of photons as potential mass.

So; yes that is true.

I agree with you about the photons perhaps being potential mass. My only worry about that is their potential of being a wave particle as well as an environment in which waves move? By that I mean they can move in a vacuum unlike sound. That tells me they may not be the very basic building blocks of mass.

[Vern]

Did you read it somewhere? I just want to know about this concept. Or it's just your hypo?

No; this is the mainstream scientific thought. I try to make sure that all my personal speculations are clearly marked as speculation.

[Vern]

Back at the turn of the 20th century most people thought that:

The final irreducible constituent of all physical reality is the electromagnetic field.

I suspect that is true. However, I'm not sure that is the current mainstream scientific thinking.

[demadone (OP)]

Vern, I'm not too sure about the electromagnetic spectrum being the irreducible part of matter. If I understand you correctly, you mean to say if we continue dividing into the atom the final result will be the electromagnetic spectrum (or part of it).

Let's look at an example. Let's say a light bulb is emitting visible light. The bulb is powered by a hydro power source. Now since light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, then if what you say is true then a certain mass is being lost as light. But under perfect conditions, the system can run on forever. As a result light is being converted from kinetic energy of the water powering the turbine.

So since no mass loss is involved, then your conclusion should have a stronger backing.

I'll let you know my assumption after your answer.

[Vern]

Let's look at an example. Let's say a light bulb is emitting visible light. The bulb is powered by a hydro power source. Now since light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, then if what you say is true then a certain mass is being lost as light. But under perfect conditions, the system can run on forever. As a result light is being converted from kinetic energy of the water powering the turbine.

That's all true except the speculation doesn't require that a certain mass is being lost as light. Energy is added to the system in the case of the light, and that energy is radiated out as light.

The speculation simply states that the light bulb, or anything else for that matter, is reducible to pure electromagnetic energy.

[demadone (OP)]

Let's look at an example. Let's say a light bulb is emitting visible light. The bulb is powered by a hydro power source. Now since light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, then if what you say is true then a certain mass is being lost as light. But under perfect conditions, the system can run on forever. As a result light is being converted from kinetic energy of the water powering the turbine.

That's all true except the speculation doesn't require that a certain mass is being lost as light. Energy is added to the system in the case of the light, and that energy is radiated out as light.

The speculation simply states that the light bulb, or anything else for that matter, is reducible to pure electromagnetic energy.

I think electromagnetic energy is different from the electromagnetic field. That got me confused a bit. I agree with you that energy is the building blocks of particles. What type of energy I am not sure.
What happened to your photon energy theory?

[Vern]

What happened to your photon energy theory?

It is completely intact and a condensed version resides in the New Theories forum.

I'll link it here via an edit[]

I think electromagnetic energy is different from the electromagnetic field. That got me confused a bit. I agree with you that energy is the building blocks of particles. What type of energy I am not sure.
What happened to your photon energy theory?

I agree with you. It is the changing amplitude of the electromagnetic field that is seen as energy and as mass. You only need to localize it to make it mass.

[demadone (OP)]

Energy is added to the system in the case of the light, and that energy is radiated out as light.

By the way I think the electromagnetic spectrum is as a result of the rotational behavior of the sub-atomic particles and depends also on the type of particles. Radio waves from electrons etc

[Vern]

The electromagnetic spectrum is simply a range of all the frequencies. I guess I agree but the fields are radiated when the particles accelerate or decelerate or cross electromagnetic field lines.

Edit: Our last posts crossed. I was editing as you were posting []

[demadone (OP)]

You seem to know a bit about this. It seems quite conclusive then that energy is the building blocks of sub atomic particles. I'm trying to read more about the 4 fundamental atomic forces.

I wonder if there is a 5th. One which acts at larger distances than gravity but is so strong that it can pull galaxy clusters together.

I imagine that if we were protons being held by the strong interaction force then we would know nothing about gravitational force because it is negligible in comparison. But outside the realm of the nucleus, gravity is considered very strong. What if there is a force that acts at larger distances, not emitted by gravitons. It would be what people are calling today as dark matter. And I was not surprised to hear that it is found near visible matter.