Oh I guess you mean something like solar sails, which get their momentum from light. But I might be wrong with this one it's been long since I've read things like this, I've gained more interest in other fields of science. Iit also could be massive solar particles which give momentum, not photons - like I said I'm not sure.

But yeah in that sense (if what's written above IS true), they could be pushing, but since it's uniform (coming from your assumption that photons are in every part of the universe), the net push would be zero. Also, there actually ARE photons in every part of the world; cosmic background radiation. Now it's wavelength is in the microwave range. That is uniform too.

But could you really give an example which has something related to the starting point for your chain of thoughts?

This post was edited by Holod on Sep 19 2011 01:36pm

I was first thinking on how gravitation works, thaught about how space-time curves drag mass, based on Einstein relativity. I thaught that space was curved( and full of void), then I realised that this nothingness was in fact always full of light.

If my thaughts and calcs are right, there is a force of 92 648 calories per hour ( easier than electron-volt to compare to an effort : 1h of bike = 500 calories) pushing on the earth toward the sun, always toward it inside the gap between the sun and the earth ( if i'm right, this exact place is less contracted between photons) because this gap is not involved in the photons gravity of the rest of the universe behind the bigger object.

A black hole bends the surrounding light, yet emits none. Therefore, we have this ball of mass which is emitting no visible photons, yet is greatly affecting the surrounding photons through a seemingly invisible means. Using logic, we can infer that mass affects photons, but photons do not much affect mass; as photons have no mass themselves (any kind of mass would need infinite energy to attain light speed).

If anything, certain wave theories suggest that the massless-particle/wave phenomenon of light may be able to effect mass through wave transfers of energy. But that would be a pushing force; whereas gravity is exclusively a pulling force. There was actually an experiment with very high powered, photon-dense lasers that were pointed at several elements in absolute darkness to see the effects; absolutely nothing happened where motion was concerned except for heat-motion.

In short, light has zero effect on gravity. Hope this helps.

No but what I wrote about solar sails is right afaik, photons do "push" matter; radiation pressure. That's how solar sails should work. Just found the term I was looking for.

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

And also, I totally forgot the fact gravitational force is a pull-only one -,-
That further lowers the chances for OP's speculation to hold true.

This post was edited by Holod on Sep 20 2011 09:59am

Wow, are seriously trying to imply that the photon momentum (p=hbar.*k, where k is the wave number) is not real??

You are probably thinking of some crappy 'experiment' from some stupid TV show where they most likely used a weak laser on some heavy objects, so that naturally nothing would happen. Photon momentum is a very basic QM relation which has been understood by everyone for over 100 years now (since Einsteins paper on photoelectric effect). But you don't even need QM, it has been clear even for Maxwells contemporaries that classic electromagnetic waves will exert radiation pressure - without it you would violate the second law of thermodynamics.
There are simple experiment (you don't even need lasers) where you can directly measure the pressure on some mirrors , I've seen one in the lab courses of my university, and I bet that you can find them in high schools, too. Radiation pressure is of utmost importance for a lot of different astrophysical applications (modelling stars, solar wind simulation, calculation of solar orbits,...), there are tons of applications (solar sails, laser cooling,...), so you can be damn sure that radiation pressure is a well established fact.

Calm down buddy.

Re-read what I said:


Wave transfers of energy is a broad term for radiation pressure; radiation pressure is indeed a real phenomena, just look at solar wind. But the op was speaking specifically of photons, which are more in line with particulate matter as opposed to waves. And since photons are mass-less and don't carry any kind of exotic energies, there is no way they could exert any form of pulling force.

/e I'll try to find the experiment for you. Note that heat-motion is a form of radiation pressure. Besides the expected heat-motion, no other movement was detected.

This post was edited by neosoph on Sep 20 2011 10:40am

If we accept that gravity affect light... example : A beam of light is bent toward a black hole and can't escape its event horizon. You can think that light is not really just flying arround, but piled up
Its an approximation, less the millions details, of the force that 13.7 billions lights years of light exert on earth less the quantity of old light beams hidden behind the sun when the earth is alligned with it, in fact its always alligned from a certain perspective.

Ok so we don't accept the gravity affects light?

Then explain me how a black hole bend light?