What state of matter is light?

Question

If a black hole can bend light then that implies that light has a mass so what is the state of light?

Answer 1

Light is an electric wave but not matter!!!

Answer 2

The guy above me is right - gravity doesn't bend light itself, but rather it bends space, which light follows.

Light doesn't have mass in the common understanding of the word. Light is not matter, it's energy.

Answer 3

Light does have mass, but no "at rest mass" as it can never, ever be at rest.

But it can be affected by gravity and have a gravitational effect on other bodies of mass in the same way everything can.

A black hole doesn't just bend light - everything of mass can potentially do that (as can be seen during a solar eclipse). It's just that a black hole is so unimaginably dense, the gravitational effect it has is enormous and therefore nothing - not even light - is able to escape it (which is why it's black).

Answer 4

Light is electromagnetic energy. However, because electromagnetic energy consists of photons, which have characteristics of both a wave and a particle, a gravity field will bend them. But they are not matter.

Answer 5

It is not matter but energy with no mass. Think of gravity as the warping of space caused by the presence of mass, and that light just follows the contours of the space.

Answer 6

None.  Light has momentum, but no rest mass.  A black hole doesn't bend a light beam -- rather, it bends the space through which the light passes.

Answer 7

Technically, photons make up an ultrarelativistic bosonic gas.

It has the properties of gas: in cavity, it can be bound to a given volume, it has pressure and even temperature. The interactions between photons are very weak, which is also a property of gas.

There's a whole thermodynamics for this kind of gas and it describes many observed features exactly the same way as in "normal" ideal gas. For example, photonic gas has its equation of state, entropy, heat capacity and so on.

Hope my answer helps you!

Answer 8

light has no mass state and has NO mass. the reason gravity bends light is that gravity bends space-time its elf and so light moves across a warped path.

Answer 9

electricmagnetic radiation same as x-rays radio waves micro waves ultra violet infa red and gamma

Answer 10

Light has energy and energy has mass (E = mc^2), so any gravitational field bends light to some extent.

Light is what it is, electromagnetic radiation, and does not fit into the categories of "solid, liquid, or gas" which are the usual states of matter.

Advanced aside: for reasons that I do not begin to understand, the degree of bending under General relativity is twice what you would expect simply from the mass by applying special relativity.  This is how General relativity was verified during the total eclipse of 1919.

Answer 11

Simply put, fire is an extremely hot gas capable of giving off light. We call this light, flame. The flame, which is light, is what we see and it appears as though it is a state of matter. Some people think of fire as a state of matter, such as is water, earth and air, which are elements. Some have begun to debate and think of plasma as a fourth state of matter, however, fire it is not a state of matter.

Fire is made up of oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and nitrogen. The molecules of these gases interact suddenly, yet briefly, with other molecules in a process called oxidation, the result we see is light. We call this light fire or flame. When we see flame we think fire. Other signs of fire are smoke, heat and odor.