Why the photon is massless

Blog 20150827

With regard to Blog 20150819, Bill Westmiller writes:

BW: A good response and explanation of the speed variance, but I'll take exception to one of your statements:

GB: "Sound, like light, does not have mass ..."

BW: While it is true that sound is a characteristic of the medium, so has no inherent mass, the kinetic energy is passed from one molecule of air to another. It is the mass of that molecule that determines the speed of the sound, so there is always kinetic energy (and therefore, mass) engaged in the process.

Light, IF it is considered a wave, must also be passing kinetic energy from one "molecule" of the "aether medium" to another. Therefore, that medium must have mass and motion. Unlike air, no massive aether "molecule" has ever been detected in any light experiment.

[GB: I beg to differ. All the particles that we consider “molecules” are enormous complexes of aether particles, which, when they are not complexed, produce gravitation as well as the medium for light.[1] The MM87[2] experiment was looking for a “fixed aether,” which is philosophically impossible per the Fourth Assumption of Science, inseparability (Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion). There are plenty of experiments supporting the existence of aether, with the Sagnac experiment being perhaps the most famous.[3] Measurement of the mass of individual aether particles has an inherent difficulty because we generally use aether particles (in the form of gravitation) to measure mass. With all things in the universe being infinitely subdividable, this problem will always be with us. To measure the mass of aether_-1 particles directly, we would need to use aether_-2 particles. I doubt if that will ever happen. Elsewhere, I speculate that calculations that use Planck’s constant can be used indirectly to obtain the mass of the aether particle (10^-47 g).]

BW: It was that experimental failure that required the invocation of arbitrary Lorentz Transformations to explain how light could still be a wave, but aether mass could never be detected. That, in turn, led to the "bedeviling petard" of Special Relativity.

However, there are a multitude of experiments which demonstrate that light is some kind of massive particle with motion, including the home novelty radiometer with four vanes that rotate when exposed to light:
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/radiometer

[GB: This gadget gets its motion from the impacts of aether particles in the same way that the impacts of water molecules can knock you down at the beach.]

BW: Einstein's only saving grace was his mathematical formulation describing Hertz's "photoelectric effect" (which got Albert his only Nobel Prize). That doesn't work unless light is a massive particle (photon) in motion, independent of any medium.

[GB: The photo electric effect that you mentioned is another proof that the light is simply the motion of particles in the medium we call aether. The PE effect results when one of these particles collides with baryonic matter in such a way that we can detect it. This is analogous to the collision that occurs when nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere hit your ear drum, allowing you to sense the effect as the motion we call sound.

Light is not “some kind of massive particle with motion,” in the same way that sound is not “some kind of massive particle with motion.” The confusion stems from the inability of some folks to distinguish the difference between matter and motion. Some, like Captain Bligh, apparently will never get over it.]  

BW: Of course, that doesn't explain what kind of particle or groups of particles compose the mass of light, nor what proper motion they include. I'm working on that.

[GB: Sorry, but light, like all other motions, does not have mass. As with all wave motion, only the particles through which light waves travel have mass. Sound and water waves are motions in the atmosphere and in the ocean. Those motions do not have mass—only the individual particles (nitrogen and water molecules) have mass. Although this is quite simple, the contrary belief is so deeply rooted that it has become second nature to us. It amounts to the “soul” of regressive physics.]

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[1] Borchardt, Glenn, and Puetz, Stephen J., 2012, Neomechanical gravitation theory, in Volk, G., ed., Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, 19th Conference of the NPA, 25-28 July: Albuquerque, NM, Natural Philosophy Alliance, Mt. Airy, MD, p. 53-58. [ http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_6529.pdf]

[2] Michelson, A.A., and Morley, E.W., 1887, On the relative motion of the earth and the luminiferous ether: American Journal of Science, v. 39, p. 333-345.

[3] Sagnac, Georges, 1913a, The demonstration of the luminiferous aether by an interferometer in uniform rotation: Comptes Rendus, v. 157, p. 708–710.

---, 1913b, On the proof of the reality of the luminiferous aether by the experiment with a rotating interferometer: Comptes Rendus, v. 157, p. 1410–1413.