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As a particle with mass travels away from a very massive object, the particle\'s

ID: 2075788 • Letter: A

Question

As a particle with mass travels away from a very massive object, the particle's potential energy rapidly increases and its kinetic energy equally rapidly decreases. But when a photon travels away from a very massive object, its speed must remain constant. So what changes as its potential energy increases... since photons. despite being massless, are affected by gravity? The photon splits into two. each with half the original energy. The photon eventually evaporates without a trace. The wavelength associated with the photon decreases. The photon slowly transforms into an electron and a positron. The frequency associated with the photon decreases. The photon develops a negative mass. a mass less that zero! Nothing changes the photon remains precisely the same as it travels to infinity.

Explanation / Answer

When the photon passes by the massive body, the photon deviates its original straight path. As a result, the photon looses energy, but it doesn't affect the velocity of the photon

( in newtonian mechanics, it does but quantum mechanically, it doesn't. Think of it like a disturbance in a big surface of water, as the wave from the center of disturbance travels, it looses energy but the speed remains unaffected. Photons are quantized ripples in Electromagnetic Field and they behave in kind of the same way.).

The reduction in energy is compensated by reduction in frequency.

Option 5 is correct.

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