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In special relativity, an object that has nonzero rest mass cannot travel at the speed of light. As the object approaches the speed of light, the object's energy and momentum increase without bound. In the first years after 1905, following Lorentz and Einstein, the terms longitudinal and transverse mass were still in use.
The mass of an object as measured in its own frame of reference is called its rest mass or invariant mass and is sometimes written . If an object moves with velocity v {\displaystyle \mathbf {v} } in some other reference frame, the quantity m = γ ( v ) m 0 {\displaystyle m=\gamma (\mathbf {v} )m_{0}} is often called the object's "relativistic ...
For objects and processes in common human experience, the formula 1 / 2 mv 2 given by classical mechanics is suitable. However, if the speed of the object is comparable to the speed of light, relativistic effects become significant and the relativistic formula is used.
Mass–energy equivalence states that all objects having mass, or massive objects, have a corresponding intrinsic energy, even when they are stationary.In the rest frame of an object, where by definition it is motionless and so has no momentum, the mass and energy are equal or they differ only by a constant factor, the speed of light squared (c 2).
The speed of light in a locale is always equal to c according to the observer who is there. That is, every infinitesimal region of spacetime may be assigned its own proper time, and the speed of light according to the proper time at that region is always c. This is the case whether or not a given region is occupied by an observer.
Because a stationary system also has a well defined rest frame in which its momentum can be considered to be zero, defining the energy of the system also defines its mass. In general relativity, this mass is called the Komar mass of the system. Komar mass can only be defined for stationary systems. Komar mass can also be defined by a flux integral.
In special relativity, the rule that Wilczek called "Newton's Zeroth Law" breaks down: the mass of a composite object is not merely the sum of the masses of the individual pieces. [87]: 33 Newton's first law, inertial motion, remains true. A form of Newton's second law, that force is the rate of change of momentum, also holds, as does the ...
The concept of momentum plays a fundamental role in explaining the behavior of variable-mass objects such as a rocket ejecting fuel or a star accreting gas. In analyzing such an object, one treats the object's mass as a function that varies with time: m(t). The momentum of the object at time t is therefore p(t) = m(t)v(t).