8: Collide. Create. Annihilate.
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- 8.5: Photon Used to Create Mass
- It should not be surprising that a photon can deliver energy without having any mass of its own. After all, an electron does have mass of its own; yet an electron traveling sufficiently close to light speed can impart to its target an amount of energy ten, a hundred, or a thousand times as great as its own mass. Not mass but momentum governs the size of punch that either photon or electron can deliver.
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- 8.6: Photon Used to Create Mass
- Particles other than the photon can also create particles. A particle of any type can carry enough energy to create particles similar to or different from itself. Each such creation must not only follow momenergy conservation laws of special relativity, but is also subject to the law of conservation of total electric charge and other conservation laws, as described in elementary particle physics.