Does negative mass repel objects?
topic :)
Posted Apr 28, 2011, 8:01 PM UTC
47
The closest thing, conceptually, to "negative mass" that exists is simply pressure. And pressure gravitates in the same manner than mass does.
3
(Because they're the other on-diagonal terms of the stress-energy tensor and there's a sign flip in the metric between space and time.)
3
What else would we mean by negative mass, if not that?
Nothing has been observed with this property, of course.
1
Negative mass is completely hypothetical. Your question is like asking "do unicorns like to eat carrots?". If unicorns existed there's a chance that they would like carrots, but, unicorns don't exist, so it's not a useful thing to think about. If negative mass existed, then yes it might have the property of repelling other objects. But the question doesn't contain any physics at all.
So...do they?
My unicorn eats carrots.