/sci/ - Science & Math

Some particles do and some don't, according to Special Relativity. To put it in very simple terms, particles with mass experience time because it is impossible to accelerate them to the speed of light and dilate their "lifespan". Massless "particles" such as photons don't have a "lifespan" per se because they already exist at the speed of light. Tachyons are theoretical particles that travel faster than the speed of light, and hence have and imaginary mass.

>>2250024

Photons and electron arent made of anything, they are fundemental. Neutron is made up of quarks.

Photons have no lifespan.

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>>2250056
>Photons and electron arent made of anything, they are fundemental. Neutron is made up of quarks.

>Photons have no lifespan.

Unless, of course, we find otherwise later on.

But try to hold what you said as a dogma of faith.

>>2250069
Shall we end every single sentence we ever say with "as far as we know" now? Good luck with that.

Everything has a lifespan, that is, everything has a probability of decaying into something else. For example a photon has a probability of decaying into an electron and positron.

>>2250069

There are theories that predict proton decay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay

>>2250105
Yes, the photon self energy. The photon, will turn into an electron and positron, and then turn back into the photon.

You can get all sorts of complicated, interactions with self energies and shit. However, just becuase something "may decay", in the feynman diagrams doens't mean that it is taken into account when we consider lifespan.

The misconception you have is that decays correspond to a "unique physical behavior". Either it decays or it doens't......lol. However, the actual path of the photon isn't one of its physical possibilities, it is all of its physically possibilties simuluaniously (see Quantum Field Theory).

A photon in leading order need not decay. It is perfectly stable, and "could" continue forever unchanging. Hence it is considered to have no "life span".

>>2250117
>doesn't know the difference between a photon and a proton

>>2250154
>implying there is a difference just because you have a shitty lisp

>>2250161
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton