Thread: electrons

can electrons move faster that their radiation.if they can then it means that they can move faster than light or maybe i am bullshiting.

Comments? Suggestions?
Contact Daryl or e-mail her at village@studentvillage.co.za.

StudentVillage © 2006
Page rendered in 1.81 seconds
Powered by TinyMCE Gallery 2.1

I think the following answer is quite satisfatory:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasc...9/phy99372.htm

Electrons have mass so they always travel less than the speed of light and have kinetic energy approaching infinity as their speed approaches the speed of light. Since velocity is relative this means that the energy of the electron also depends on how fast you are moving, but because it has mass, if you have exactly the same velocity as the electron, so that relative to you it is not moving at all, the electron has no kinetic energy but it does have rest-mass energy.

By their radiation I assume you mean photons according to the photo-electric effect. Photons have no mass so they always travel exactly at the speed of light. However the energy of the photon also depends on how fast you are moving. As you approach its velocity (being massive you cannot reach that velocity), its velocity relative to you does not change (the relative velocity remains the speed of light), but the energy of the photon decreases towards zero (no energy at all).

lol... Photons IS light, don't get to difficult.. just say light travels at the speed of light :-D

Originally Posted by Zwolver

lol... Photons IS light, don't get to difficult.. just say light travels at the speed of light :-D

It is not so tautological as that! The photon is not the only massless particle. There is also gluons, the exchange particle of the strong force, which also must travel at the speed of light even though gluons are not light. There is also the theoretical particle called the graviton which is also believed to be masses and thus to travel at the speed of light.