Brane Dead said:Anyone tried to imagine a world with negative mass? A mixed world of normal mass and negative mass does not seem so bad in the sense that a negative mass moon would surprisingly still orbit the earth! Might be problems in making atoms though...
ceptimus said:If the Moon had a negative mass, but the Earth a positive one, then the force of gravity between them would be a repulsive one - the Moon would be pushed farther and farther away. I don't see why the O.P. said it would still orbit - unless he meant that the Earth would have a negative mass as well.
chronon said:The force would be repulsive, but acting on a negative mass it would accelerate the moon towards the Earth.
ceptimus said:Hmmmm... I get it. But it would still push the Earth away from the moon. Right?
ceptimus said:If the two masses had the same magnitude, but opposite signs, they would maintain their initial separation, while accelerating away across the universe.
ceptimus said:Hmmmm... I get it. But it would still push the Earth away from the moon. Right?
In fact this leads to a seeming absurdity. If two bodies had no initial relative velocity, then the negative mass one would fall towards the positive mass, while the positive mass would 'fall' away from the negative one.
If the two masses had the same magnitude, but opposite signs, they would maintain their initial separation, while accelerating away across the universe.
Negative mass is a hypothetical concept in physics where mass has a negative value instead of a positive value. This means that it would have the opposite properties of regular matter, such as repelling instead of attracting other objects.
Currently, there is no evidence to support the existence of negative mass in our universe. It is purely a theoretical concept and has not been observed or created in any experiments.
If negative mass were to exist, it could potentially have practical applications in areas such as propulsion systems for space travel or creating artificial gravity. However, more research and understanding of negative mass would need to be established before these applications could become a reality.
Negative mass is often discussed in relation to dark matter and dark energy because it could potentially explain the phenomena that these theories seek to understand. However, it is important to note that negative mass is just one of many proposed explanations and there is no conclusive evidence to support any of these theories.
One of the biggest challenges in exploring negative mass is the lack of concrete evidence or understanding of its properties. Theoretical physicists continue to study and debate the concept, but until it can be observed or created in experiments, its possibilities will remain largely speculative.