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Reference sources and physics discussions explain that photons maintain a rest mass of zero and do not gain mass when passing through media such as glass.
As shown by Maxwell, photons are just electric fields traveling through space. Photons have no charge, no resting mass, and travel at the speed of light. Photons are emitted by the action of charged particles, although they can be emitted by other methods including radioactive decay. Since they are extremely small particles, the contribution of wavelike characteristics to the behavior of photons is significant. In diagrams, individual photons are represented by a squiggly arrow. Description
Photons are often described as energy packets. This is a very fitting analogy, as a photon contains energy that cannot be divided. This energy is stored as an oscillating electric field. These fields may oscillate at almost any frequency. Although they have never been observed, the longest theoretical wavelength of light is the size of the universe, and some theories predict the shortest possible at the Planck length. These packets of energy can be transmitted over vast distances with no decay in energy or speed. Photons travel at the speed of light, 2.997x108 m/s in empty space. The speed of a photon through space can be directly derived from the speed of an electric field through free space.
As fundamental particles (like electrons or quarks) move through the Higgs field, the field resists changes to their movement. This resistance is what we measure as "mass." The more a particle interacts with the field, the heavier it is.[2] Some particles, like photons (light), do not interact with the Higgs field at all, meaning they have zero mass. If the Higgs field did not exist, fundamental particles would not have mass and would travel freely at the speed of light.[3] Because of this, they would not be able to slow down and bind together to form atoms, meaning stars, planets, and life could not exist. The process of particles gaining mass through this field is known as the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism. The Higgs effect
The Higgs effect was first theorized in 1964 by writers of the PRL symmetry breaking papers. In 1964, three teams wrote scientific papers which proposed related but different approaches to explain how mass could arise in local gauge theories.[4][5][6][7][8]
In 2017 the Higgs boson, and implicitly the Higgs effect, were tentatively proven at the Large Hadron Collider (and the Higgs boson was discovered on July 4, 2012).
# Do photons gain mass when they travel through glass?
Tags: special-relativity, energy, condensed-matter, photons, mass
- Score: 47
- Views: 9528
- Answers: 6
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: dan_waterworth (1248 rep)
- Asked: 2010-12-14
- Edited: 2012-01-06
- Site: physics
## Question
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that photons slow down when travelling through glass. Does this mean they gain mass? Otherwise, what happens to extra kinetic energy?
I understand now that the apparent slowing down is due to electron interactions, does the glass gain weight due to light travelling through it?
## Answers
### Answer by Kostya (score: 35)
Fundamental approach
Marek's answer is summarised shortly as "no". It is based on the most "fundamental" concepts of physics -- you got fundamental quantum particles -- photons, electrons and some others. And these particles interact with each other producing all the world around us. The properties of the particles, like their mass, charge, e.t.c. doesn't change whatever you do with them. And, therefore, the mass of the photon is always zero.
This appoach is very intuitive and of course the answer is correct...
But one can look at
Everything we examined (3)
This check searched the claim as stated. It did not run a separate search for evidence against it.