The following is not a question: Can something come from nothing?

[Chas]

That really has little to do with it. We are not talking about wave/particle duality, but about mass. Photons have zero rest mass.

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Christ Chas.

Lets just take a step back.

I cited the emission of a photon from a light bulb as creation of something from nothing.

And I refuted that. The energy lost by the electron is the photon.

You say the photon is merely the form of energy resulting from the change in energy state of the electron.

Correct.

I'm saying the photon isn't just energy.

And you are wrong. The photon is electromagnetic energy.

Your saying if it doesn't have rest mass then it isn't matter (which doesn't mean its just energy).

It does mean it is just energy. Are you saying there is matter, energy, and magic photons?

That's just to get us up to speed. I never claimed (obviously) that a photon has mass. I don't think its relevant.

It is quite relevant. It is either matter or energy, and you agree it is not matter.

Actually - of course - we can't even talk about a photon being at rest - its a photon - it travels at the speed of light - it kinda has to - it can't accelerate or deccelerate.

And if it had mass, that mass would be infinite. The mass of a particle of matter increases with velocity inversely proportional to √(1 - (v² - c²)).

Now I don't think we can simply ignore the duality issue as you are saying. Part of that duality, for example, is the simple fact that light has momentum. Energy doesn't.

Wrong. Electromagnetic waves have momentum.

I'd argue, therefore, that the energy released from the electron as it changes state is carried off by the photon but that the photon has indeed just been created out of nothing.

And you would be quite wrong. Look at what you just wrote. If the photon is created out of nothing, where did the energy released by the electron go? If the photon is the energy that the electron lost, then that is what it was created from.

That its massless merely tells us that it doesn't interact with the Higgs field. I don't think THAT's relevant. Actually, if it ever did the universe would be really fucked.

Right, it doesn't.