4 ms·
Relativistic mass isn’t really sensible as a concept. Does something moving fast gravitate more because it has more mass? No.
by qubex 3y ago
Relativistic mass isn’t really sensible as a concept. Does something moving fast gravitate more because it has more mass? No.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoExcept that it does gravitate more. Avoiding the confusion that it doesn't is one of the conceptual benefits of relativistic mass. Gravitation is dependent on the stress-energy tensor, which contains... drum roll... relativistic mass, not rest mass! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93energy_tensor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93energy_tensor For that matter, you've already noticed that the Lorentz transform becomes nonsensical as v → c when starting from rest mass, whereas the transform works just fine when using relativistic mass as the starting point, and nothing blows up, and you can avoid any confusion.