Question
What has negligible mass?
Answers
GPT-4o mini
In physics, several entities can be considered to have negligible mass:
1. **Photons**: These are particles of light that are massless and carry electromagnetic radiation. They travel at the speed of light in a vacuum.
2. **Gluons**: These are the exchange particles for the strong force in quantum chromodynamics. They are also considered massless.
3. **Gravitons** (theoretical): These are hypothesized particles that mediate the force of gravity in quantum field theory; they are presumed to be massless.
4. **Waves (like sound waves)**: While waves themselves don’t have mass, the medium through which they travel does. However, the wave itself does not possess mass.
5. **Elementary particles**: In some contexts, certain theoretical particles or states can be considered to have negligible mass.
In practical terms, in most everyday contexts, very small objects (like individual atoms or molecules) can sometimes be treated as having negligible mass when their contributions to larger systems are insignificant. However, in fundamental physics, the entities listed above are primarily what is referred to when discussing negligible or effectively zero mass.
1. **Photons**: These are particles of light that are massless and carry electromagnetic radiation. They travel at the speed of light in a vacuum.
2. **Gluons**: These are the exchange particles for the strong force in quantum chromodynamics. They are also considered massless.
3. **Gravitons** (theoretical): These are hypothesized particles that mediate the force of gravity in quantum field theory; they are presumed to be massless.
4. **Waves (like sound waves)**: While waves themselves don’t have mass, the medium through which they travel does. However, the wave itself does not possess mass.
5. **Elementary particles**: In some contexts, certain theoretical particles or states can be considered to have negligible mass.
In practical terms, in most everyday contexts, very small objects (like individual atoms or molecules) can sometimes be treated as having negligible mass when their contributions to larger systems are insignificant. However, in fundamental physics, the entities listed above are primarily what is referred to when discussing negligible or effectively zero mass.