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Showing posts with label Lifetime of Photons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lifetime of Photons. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Big Bang Light Reveals Minimum Lifetime of Photons

The notion of the speed of light as the cosmic speed limit is based on the assumption that particles of light, called photons, have no mass. But astrophysical observations cannot rule out the slim chance that photons do have a tiny bit of mass—a prospect with wide ramifications in physics. For instance, if photons weigh nothing at all, they would be completely stable and could theoretically last forever. But if they do have a little mass, they could eventually decay into lighter particles.