I'm surprised no one questioned me about how lasers produce recoil (even if it is ridiculously low).
Light is weird......
Relativity is weird.....
To a photon, it gets anywhere, instantly, due to time dilation. I've also heard it said that from the frame of reference of a photon, due to dilation as you approach the speed of light, to the photon the universe is a dimensionless point.
Going less abstract here:
momentum = mass* velocity.
Einstein showed up energy= mass *c^2, and that mass can be converted to energy, and vice versa.
Its what nukes do, and particle accelerators can take energy and turn it into mass (though given the small amount of mass converted to energy in a nuke, and the much lower power ratings of particle accelerators compared to nukes, the mass gained is only measurable at the atomic/subatomic level).
So then would energy traveling at high speed have momentum? based on the photon, it seems yes.
Its also been shown that photons can accelerate other objects, and exert a force upon striking.
Its been shown they behave like waves, and particles, but the same has been shown for electrons, which unequivocally have mass.
So what is the difference between a particle with only energy, and only mass?
Wtf is mass anyway? Is mass like water, and energy like steam or something? composed of the same building blocks?
Does a photon have mass like some version of the product of x*1/x, taking lim x->0 of x*1/x gives a value of one, when x=0, you get zero*infinity, and if you take the limit as the value of zero*infinity, you get one.
You could also get 2 if you take the limit of x* 1/2x - its still 0 * infinity at the limit, except now based on the limit, you sya the product is 2 - which is why you don't say the limit is equal to the product of the value at the limit - though this works for every case when you don't divide by zero, limits are the only way to "investigate" behavior of things at zero.
So does infinite speed* zero mass = a number greater than zero for momentum?
From the point of view of an observer going at light speed, they go arbitrarily fast.
Suppose you had a ship that could accelerate to 0.999999.... % the speed of light, and send it to a star millions of light years away, the journey takes a very short time for them, but millions of years to an observer on earth.
If you could accelerate arbitrarily close to light speed, in an arbitrarily short period of time, you could be anywhere in the universe in an arbitrarily short time, from your point of view.
One second you are on earth, observing an alien species that just discovered the radio, the next second, your ship is there, but they have evolved and advanced by millions of years, and laugh at your pathetic technology when you get there (it took you a second by your time to get here?! lol, we'd get there in 0.001 seconds, haha noob!)
Light speed is basically infinite speed(to someone on a space ship going at a high percent of the speed of light, they may perceive their acceleration rate as constant), and yet, due to relativity, not infinite at all, at the same time.
If you actually reach the speed of light, time stops for you.
But yet, you arrive at your destination (likely plowing right into the planet, as you'd have no way of decelerating if you actually reached the speed of light, and didnt just get very close - and the planet would be blown to smithereens).
How can you cover all that distance, without any time passing for you?
simple you have infinite velocity, where distance travelling is v*t, t = zero, v = infinity?
But there is also spatial dilation... if you reach the speed of light, from your point of view, all distances have reached zero, you got to your destination with no time for you passing, because to you, there was no distance to travel...
But if there is no distance to anywhere, are you everywhere at once from your frame of reference?
If so, why do you only impact into that planet/star, at a single place?
Relativity, light having momentum, etc, all make my head hurt.
But the simple, testable conclusions, are that light has momentum, and can exert a force.
Even at this level, it starts destroying classical things like F=MA
And it only gets worse from there...