Question about a thoery

IN thoery, an object that travels close to or the speed of light gains mass and gravity. i cant see that possible. if you were to launch a pencil at the speed or close to of light, how would it gain mass?? it may stretch, but that still has the same number of atoms. can someone shed some light on this for me??

Rekar

It's been shown in particle accelorator experiments. We cannot accelorate a particle with mass to C because as it approaches C it's mass increases exponentially reaching infinity before it actually reaches the speed of C so a particle with mass cannot ever travel at the speed of light. That is why only massless particles can reach 299 792 458 meters / second.

[edit on 23-1-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
That is why only massless particles can reach 299 792 458 meters / second.

And those massless particles would be the E in E=mc2? I confused

how does it mass increase....i still dont understand

A photon is a massless particle. E=MC2 is just an equasion. C is the Speed of Light(eg a Photon)

And I don't really understand it completely either. Maybe someone on here will be able to esplain better the little ole me.

[edit on 23-1-2006 by sardion2000]

From what i was tought. the mass of an object depended on how many atoms it has. to gain atoms is increasing mass, and losing atoms is losing mass. how does something(A pencil for example) gain mass as its speed increases?? is it increasing its atom count? if so, how?

Is it mass it's gaining, or weight? maybe as it reaches the speed of light, the way gravity affects it changes, but i can only see that changing it's weight, not the mass, if the affect of gravity changes anything at all, i can't be sure.
Great, now im confused.

no its not weight its gaining, all my sources clearly say mass. im still wondering this myself and have gone to ask a great many of people. even my school teachers, sent them an email with the quewstion hoping for some kind of answer to lead me in the direction i need to head to find the answer.

I think you'd need to look at einstein's papers that talk about this and demonstrate it mathematically

Its not just at very close to light speed either, its at all speeds. Whenever you speed up, apparently, your mass increases and time changes for you too.

quoted from the following webpage: www.newton.dep.anl.gov...

This question addresses Einstein's theory of Special Relativity.
If my answer does not satisfy you, there are many clear books on
the topic in any university bookstore.
When a particle/object travels close to the speed of light, and is
thus considered "relativistic", the energy of the particle is
expressed as E = (gamma)*mass*velocity. Here gamma is a relativistic
factor that is greater than unity. So, one could consider the
factor (gamma)*mass a new mass, one that is larger than the mass
of the particle when it is at rest. This is why you hear that
mass increases when you approach the speed of light. It can be
argued that it is only an appearance of greater mass, or that it
depends on how you look at the problem. In short, it is all relative.

It should be noted, however, that in order for an object to actually
reach the speed of light, it must have no mass, since E=mass*speed of
light^2. This is true of massless particles such as the photon,
the "particle" that transports light.

This is about as complete an answer as I could find...
J - DefunCtion

i can understand the slowing down of time for the object, just gaining mass...it doesnt make sense. damn them scientists and thier theories. if they would explain it, i wouldnt be pondering this, instead i would just leave it alone and at what they say it is. but they didnt give me why and how...

Originally posted by defuntion
quoted from the following webpage: www.newton.dep.anl.gov...

This question addresses Einstein's theory of Special Relativity.
If my answer does not satisfy you, there are many clear books on
the topic in any university bookstore.
When a particle/object travels close to the speed of light, and is
thus considered "relativistic", the energy of the particle is
expressed as E = (gamma)*mass*velocity. Here gamma is a relativistic
factor that is greater than unity. So, one could consider the
factor (gamma)*mass a new mass, one that is larger than the mass
of the particle when it is at rest. This is why you hear that
mass increases when you approach the speed of light. It can be
argued that it is only an appearance of greater mass, or that it
depends on how you look at the problem. In short, it is all relative.

It should be noted, however, that in order for an object to actually
reach the speed of light, it must have no mass, since E=mass*speed of
light^2. This is true of massless particles such as the photon,
the "particle" that transports light.

This is about as complete an answer as I could find...
J - DefunCtion

finally a very decent answer that i can understand. thank you

when you say "(gamma)*mass", what is Gamma? what is it refering to?

ok, i better understand this now, thanks defuntion.

Originally posted by rekar
when you say "(gamma)*mass", what is Gamma? what is it refering to?

paraphrased from:physlink.com...

Gamma is a relative factor based on the velocity of the mass. Mass at rest has a gamma factor of 1. The factor approachs infinity as velocity nears the speed of light.

I hope this clarifies it a little,
Regards,
J - Defunction

ahh, thank you very much

Answer

This is just a property of matter/mass according to relativity.

See, you are thinking mass is constant fo rmatter or atoms. But the thing we call mass isn't constant.

If you have a spcare ship with 8 bazillion atoms, each one of them simply gains mass as the space ship speeds up.

Also, the ship streches lengthwise, and time slows down. On the ship, because EVERYTHING is strenching and getting heavier and changing in the exact same way, it all looks the same.

A good way to think of it isn't that something "gains mass" but rather "mass gets bigger".

Nothing was gained, the mass of everything just went up. It is also Relative.

For example, look back from our space ship at earth, it looks like the earth is zooming off in the other direction near the speed of light and that it is the earth that is streching and gaining mass.

The point is, mass is different in different places at different speeds. But it is predictibly different.

thank you also for explaining this in more detail