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From: neal@denelcor.UUCP (Neal Weidenhofer)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: A question on photon decay
Message-ID: <195@denelcor.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Nov-83 19:23:30 EST
Article-I.D.: denelcor.195
Posted: Sun Nov  6 19:23:30 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Nov-83 07:43:02 EST
Organization: Denelcor, Aurora, CO
Lines: 49

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	I have a couple of items that have been bothering me for some time
about what's happening in physics lately.  If anyone is both willing and
able to explain to me what I'm missing, I'd be very grateful.  First some
background (as I understand it):

    1.	One of the earliest verifications of Special Relativity was in
	observing that certain particles produced by cosmic rays entering
	our atmosphere were reaching the ground in larger numbers than
	predicted by classical physics.  The explanation was that,
	because these particles are traveling at a significant fraction of
	c, their "internal clocks" are running slower than our clocks and
	that therefore, any given particle has a larger probability of
	reaching the ground before it decays because less time has passed
	for the particle than for us.

    2.	Many of the recent experiments in particle physics have involved
	colliding some particle and it's anti-particle (e.g., a proton and
	an anti-proton) which produces a *very* high energy photon (or 
	more than one??) which, in turn, decays to produce (hopefully) the
	particles that the experimenter wishes to observe.

My questions:

    1.	How does the photon in (2) "have time" to decay?  Since according
	to S.R., it's "internal clock" has stopped completely--at least
	for our observations, it must be decaying in zero time (as
	measured on its "internal clock") while it decays in a fixed
	finite time (as measured by our clocks).

    2.	Is this related to the fact(?) that, in at least some of these
	experiments, the photon is a "virtual" photon (i.e., so short
	lived that it's not required to conserve momentum)?

    3.	Now that physicists are debating the possibility that neutrinos
	have non-zero rest mass, has anyone considered the question that
	photons might also?  I realize that would negate many of the
	arguments Einstein used to derive S.R. and G.R., but they're both
	well enough verified by now to stand without their original
	derivations (like taking down the scaffolding when the building
	is finished.)

Thanks in advance for taking the time to point out my mistakes.

			Regards,
				Neal Weidenhofer
				Denelcor, Inc.
				<hao|csu-cs|brl-bmd>!denelcor!neal