If it takes INFINITE ENERGY to actually reach the speed of light, well,
how does light do it?

And another thing:how is it that we actually see with light?

I mean, the usual explanation is that light particles bounce off an
object and then hit our eyes which somehow then duplicate the image of
the object for our brains.

So does light "scoop up" some atoms from the object and massage it into
our eyeballs?

Seriously, just how does light do what it does to help us see?

I don't see why a billiard ball of a photon hitting another billiard
ball of an atom should then somehow excite the image of that atom when
the photon in turn hits the atoms of our eyes....

Prisoner at War wrote:

Light has no mass, so it is entirely capable of reaching the speed of light
without infinite energy (as this infinite energy only applies to things
with mass).

It reflects off things. Read about QED if you want to know how.

No, it just bounces off. See above.

Prisoner at War wrote:

http://www.bartleby.com/173/15.html

< that the Academy recognised the particle
nature of light? The Nobel Committee says
that Einstein had found that the energy exchange
between matter and ether occurs by atoms emitting
or absorbing a quantum of energy,hv .

Benjamin Kreuter wrote:

Wow, no mass! Hmm, that's odd. No mass. What does it mean for
something to have no mass? Is light an "object"? It's energy. Does
that mean it's not an object?

But why aren't there different speeds to light? Or are there -- like
x-rays travel faster than gamma rays due to their frequency/wavelength
(???)....

???

Thanks for the ref; I'll check it out.

Prisoner at War wrote:

Electromagnetic radiation is generally described as a self-propagating
wave in space with electric and magnetic components. These components
oscillate at right angles to each other and to the direction of
propagation, and are in phase with each other. Electromagnetic
radiation is classified into types according to the frequency of the
wave: these types include, in order of increasing frequency, radio
waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet
radiation, X-rays and gamma rays. In some technical contexts the entire
range is referred to as just 'light'.

...a time-varying electric field
generates a magnetic field
and vice versa.

"Prisoner at War" yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1166199519.500928.179460@73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com...

It is assumed, that only applies to objects having mass. Photons don't have
mass.

Prisoner at War wrote:

Photons are massless and *only* exist propagating at c.

See: Physics FAQ
http://edu-observatory.org/physics-faq/index.html

It takes over an hour to get to Saturn...

Prisoner at War wrote:

It only requires an infinite amount of energy for a massive object.
Light has no mass, so it can travel at c. In fact, it has no choice
because it has no mass.

No. Our eyes are sensitive to light and convert it to electro-chemical
signals that are sent to the brain via the optic nerve. The brain then
interprets what we think we see.

Prisoner at War wrote:

It only requires an infinite amount of energy for a massive object.
Light has no mass, so it can travel at c. In fact, it has no choice
because it has no mass.

No. Our eyes are sensitive to light and convert it to electro-chemical
signals that are sent to the brain via the optic nerve. The brain then
interprets what we think we see.