Weighing Photons Using Bathroom Scales: A Thought Experiment

Abstract

Jay Orear, in his introductory physics text,1 defined the weight of a person as the reading one gets when standing on a (properly calibrated) bathroom scale. Here we will use Jay's definition of weight in a thought experiment to measure the weight of a photon. The thought experiment uses the results of the Pound-Rebka-Snider2,3 experiments, Compton scattering experiments, and the Eötvös experiments.