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# Soumo's doubts in Physics

This note is for discussing my doubts in physics.

Note by Soumo Mukherjee
1 year, 6 months ago

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Does charge need to be associated with mass?

Does charge has inertia?

"There is no known fundamental principle that forbids the existence of a mass-less charged particle, but such a particle has never been observed." - Somewhere on Internet

@Michael Mendrin , @John Muradeli help · 1 year, 6 months ago

Right now, there are only two known massless particles, photons and gluons. While photons do not carry electromagnetic charge, gluons do carry color charge, Gluons are the carriers, or bosons, of the strong nuclear force, while photons are the carriers, or bosons, of the electromagnetic force. So, don't confuse the different kinds of charges here.

This "somewhere on the internet" where that statement came from is Yahoo! Answers, not exactly a repository of accurate information on particle physics. · 1 year, 6 months ago

Yes, we can't rely on YA. But then we have Mr. Mendrin here :)

My doubt aroused in this problem. The second statement.

John might require help from you. · 1 year, 6 months ago

That's funny; I was just trying to track down the answers to those questions yesterday. In some models, apparently, it is theoretically possible for a massless charged particle to exist, although none have ever been detected. As for charge having inertia ... well, I suppose it does if we look at it as "electrostatic mass". However, I'd like to see what Michael has to say regarding both questions before I venture any further on these matters. · 1 year, 6 months ago

Brian, supposing there was a massless particle with an electric charge. How do we make sense out of its "infinite acceleration" in any electric field? Then we'd have to artificially invoke the concept of a massless particle that still possesses an inertia. Well, I'm not aware of any feasible models of particle physics that would have such a thing--massless particles that act as if they nonetheless have mass! That's not to say that such models cannot theoretically exists, I just don't know of any. · 1 year, 6 months ago

Ah, o.k., thanks for setting me straight, (yet again). :) I was reading so much conflicting commentary and speculation on the subject I didn't know what to think. :P · 1 year, 6 months ago

Yeah Mendrin's your guy. Though I find that claim 'somewhere on the internet' quite stupid, since photons are the electromagnetic force-transmitting particles, that are massless. Though they don't have a 'charge' of their own; they ARE the charge.

As far as the relationship between them, I think there is one; check out Gravitomagnetism. I just know about the name, nothing else xD

Cheers! · 1 year, 6 months ago

So according to parametric definition of dimensions "an inflated swimming tube" is a $$2D$$ object?

@Michael Mendrin · 1 year, 6 months ago

As answered elsewhere, since a torus can be defined with $$2$$ parameters, it's a $$2D$$ object. · 1 year, 6 months ago

Yeah I'm afraid so - and it was annoying for me to get used to this. But this is VERY important if you're going to study the temporal dimensions: Our universe is 4th dimensional, EMBEDDED in a 5th dimension. Otherwise all notions of 'probability' would lose meaning and our life would be a tape play-through.

But of course you can adjust your terminology and definitions to suit your needs - depending on the problem. Here's my rule of thumb: If something's 'set in stone', pour cement over it, rewrite. · 1 year, 6 months ago