The Strange Properties of Mass in Spacetime

Mass is inherent to an object. Yet, strangely, the sum of the masses of objects in a system does not typically equal the mass of the system. Even systems of photons can have mass, even though photons are massless!

Physical objects in our universe possess an inherent property called mass. Mass is responsible for such certain aspects of motion, like an object at rest wanting to stay at rest, or an object in motion wanting to retain that motion, unless acted on by a force. It’s also a component of momentum which determines the amount of punch that an object delivers on impact with another object. A simplified way to think about mass is that it’s the amount of “stuff” present in a body. However, this isn’t the whole story. For example, two objects, like wads of putty, can collide with equal and opposite momentums to stick together as one larger wad at rest. Yet, in this situation, the resultant mass of the large wad is actually more than the sum of masses of the two smaller wads. Additionally, take a system of masses, which we define as a group of separated masses that are independent of each other and may or may not interact. This system can have a mass that is larger than the sum of the individual masses. Perhaps stranger still, electromagnetic radiation, like light, is made of massless particles called photons. However, if there is a group of such photons together, they too can possess mass. It turns out that mass is not simply an additive property. The sum of the masses of a system of particles, in general, is not equal to the mass of the system.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:51 Elastic Collision
00:03:30 Mass, Energy and Momentum in Spacetime
00:05:30 Inelastic Collision
00:07:14 Mass Is A System Property
00:08:39 Mass is Not Additive
00:10:56 Photons, Momenergy and Mass
00:13:24 Mass in Systems of Photons

#mass #spacetime #momenergy #particles #physics

Видео The Strange Properties of Mass in Spacetime канала Oddly Reel