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Old February 18th 04, 11:02 PM
Katherine
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Ok, here's another weird one... if light is supposed to be made up of both
waves and particles, how much does it weigh?


E = mc^2. So a photon (light particle) has an relativistic mass equal
to its energy divided by the speed of light squared. For visible light,
a photon's energy is a few electron-volts (eV)

How much resistance do light
particles have on an airplane in flight?


It has some, yes. Physicists call it "radiation pressure" and it's
measureable in a lab. But in the air it's not much compared to the
pressure due to your average Nitrogen atom which is much more massive
(1,300,000,000 eV of energy).

Do you have longer range at night?
Does a light bulb weigh more when it's on or when it's off?


In a manner of speaking, yes. There's more energy present when the
light bulb's on (in both light and heat), and since energy equals mass
(ala Einstein, above), it does "weigh" more. The extra mass/energy
comes from the wall socket.

To noticably refract radio waves, I think you'd need something with a
thickness at least on the order of the wavelength of the waves. VHF
radio has wavelengths on the order of several meters.

Hope i did all that math right,

--Kath