Important Notice: Our web hosting provider recently started charging us for additional visits, which was unexpected. In response, we're seeking donations. Depending on the situation, we may explore different monetization options for our Community and Expert Contributors. It's crucial to provide more returns for their expertise and offer more Expert Validated Answers or AI Validated Answers. Learn more about our hosting issue here.

What is relativistic mass?

mass relativistic
0
Posted

What is relativistic mass?

0

A physical object at rest will have a certain mass called the object’s rest mass or invariant mass. Everyday common sense tells us that as an object is accelerated to a particular velocity, it’s mass shouldn’t increase or decrease unless more matter is added or subtracted to the object but according to the reality of modern day physics, as objects increase in velocity they are said to increase in mass. The problem here is that term “mass” is a misleading term for the more proper term of inertia or “effective mass”. It is only because inertia is a property of mass (ie — whatever you can say about inertia you can also say about mass), that the terms are often mistakenly used for one another. It is the increase in relativistic inertia plus the rest mass that becomes what is called effective mass. Although the increase in effective mass is very small at low velocities, as the velocity approaches the speed of light it becomes very large. The cyclotron offers confusing proof to some, that t

Related Questions

Thanksgiving questions

*Sadly, we had to bring back ads too. Hopefully more targeted.