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RE: A final song for OPERA: 6 years of neutrino data, nice events and an exemplary open data policy
I totally get it that since it's been proven that neutrinos change flavor as they travel then their masses have to be non-zero, however it still baffles me how massless particles actually exist. So that basically means that the portion of their mass that is independent of their motion is zero? What happens when velocity is zero? Are there any other known massless particles besides photons and gluons?
Sorry for spamming you with questions! I enjoyed this read.
Have a great day!
I am not sure to follow the question. I will however try to answer. Special relativity is our framework, not classical mechanics. As a consequence, any massless particle travels at the speed of light and their motion is far from being zero.
There are for now no other known massless particles besides photons and gluons (as gravitons have not been discovered yet; will they ever be?).
Makes perfect sense then. Thanks for taking the time to respond and yes, you did answer my question :)
So gravitons are assumed to be traveling at the speed of light? I believe there's a lot to come in the future given the rate at which technical knowledge is produced every year.
Gravitons, if they exist, would be massless and thus travel at the speed of flight. This is correct. The problem is that is is not clear they exist :)