does anyone believe the existence of negative mass? was dirac right?
What if the predictions of the Dirac equation are right but the standard interpretation since 1934 has been only half right?
What if the single "unified force" is very much single and still at work today, not just in the earliest moments of the universe?
What if Richard Feynman was right and gravity is only a pseudo-force?
What if dark matter is an illusion caused by misunderstanding gravity?
What if mass can be negative as well as positive?
What if dark energy can be explained by the repulsive effects of negative mass?
What if Donald Hotson, Malcolm MacGregor and Paolo Palazzi were heading in the right direction?
What if Lee Smolin was right to hint that neutrinos and photons might be symmetric aspects of the same thing?
[Citation put in by Peter] These questions were directly sourced from the website Dirac was Right Let's discuss and see if we are actually heading in the right direction!
Easy Math Editor
This discussion board is a place to discuss our Daily Challenges and the math and science related to those challenges. Explanations are more than just a solution — they should explain the steps and thinking strategies that you used to obtain the solution. Comments should further the discussion of math and science.
When posting on Brilliant:
*italics*
or_italics_
**bold**
or__bold__
paragraph 1
paragraph 2
[example link](https://brilliant.org)
> This is a quote
\(
...\)
or\[
...\]
to ensure proper formatting.2 \times 3
2^{34}
a_{i-1}
\frac{2}{3}
\sqrt{2}
\sum_{i=1}^3
\sin \theta
\boxed{123}
Comments
Indrasis,
Never copy and paste material from a website without citing where it was taken from. No matter what intention you copy it with, it is still plagiarism. If you cite where your questions come from it also helps people participate in the future discussion.
@Indrasis - that's a lot of questions! Pick one and I am happy to disucss it with you. Each of those questions has a wealth of background and context and trying to deal with all at once would be almost impossible. So choose your favorite question you'd like to have answered and we'll start there.
So ...As I understand conjectures about negative mass. The logic goes something like this: mass as defined by gravity, can either be thought of as active gravitational, passive gravitational or inertial. I think that means that active gravitational mass would be defining an objects mass by the effect it's gravitational attraction has on other objects e.g the Universal law of gravitation. I think passive gravitational mass means defining the mass of an object based on the magnitude of the gravitational force another object can exert on it. Inertial mass would be defining mass by it's resistance to changing velocity, which I believe you would define in terms of it's conservation of momentum.
To me all these definitions of mass seem like different expressions of each other But supposedly there is logic that can tell you it might be physically meaningful to switch the direction of one of those definitions of mass, e.g. have negative inertial mass and positive gravitational mass.That makes no sense to me.Why did people think negative mass exists?
@peter...sorry, i did not know that. As a matter of fact, am new here. Will keep it mind from next time!
Log in to reply
Keep it in mind for the future. We will post more explicit and accessible guidelines and rules soon. Please jump on in and lead the way on whichever of those questions you posed is most interesting to you. I am sure others have opinions as well.