What is energy and how does it influence matter?
October 13th, 2009 | by Michael |
admin asked:
I know it is possible that sub-atomic particles are made of energy-like things called quarks. According to my understanding of them they are more like energy than they are like matter. Unfortunately I have a very basic understanding of these particles and their relationship with energy. I have books about sub-atomic particles but they don’t really talk about the influence energy has on matter.
I know it is possible that sub-atomic particles are made of energy-like things called quarks. According to my understanding of them they are more like energy than they are like matter. Unfortunately I have a very basic understanding of these particles and their relationship with energy. I have books about sub-atomic particles but they don’t really talk about the influence energy has on matter.
Anyone wanna give me a crash course on energy? How would you define it and its effect? Thanks in advance.
CLAUDE
One Response to “What is energy and how does it influence matter?”
By eyeonthescreen on Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
Actually quarks are matter (mass is a better term); they are the fundamental building blocks of protons and neutrons. But from the well-known E = mc^2, where m is mass and c is light speed in a vacuum, we can easily see that all mass is equivalent to energy E.
That is to say, we don’t need to differentiate between mass and energy because they are just different states of the same thing. In fact, we often, and more correctly, say “mass-energy” when talking about matter because they are equivalent.
On the other hand, we know that some particles do not behave like mass should behave. Photons are examples of such particles. For one thing, photons can travel at light speed; mass cannot.
Mass cannot travel at light speed because, at that velocity, all mass has infinite inertia…which is why we frrequently call mass “inertial mass.” For example, if we accelerate a proton to 99.99% of light speed, its inertial mass M will be 70.7 times m the rest mass of the proton when it is not moving. This does not mean the proton’s mass grows in size, but it does mean it will be 70.7 times harder to move and/or change direction than when it was at rest.
The power from nuke power plants and bombs comes from converting the mass states into energy states. What happens when we split or fuse mass particles (like plutonium or hydrogen) is that some of the mass loses its inertia and changes into energy. As a result, the sum of mass before the fission or fusion reaction is always greater than the sum of mass after it. And that mass difference is manifest as energy like heat, nuke radiation, light, and so on.
E = mc^2 is a two-way street. We can and have created mass from energy in the lab. We can only do it in the lab because it takes an enormous amount of energy to make even the tiniest bit of mass. An interesting aspect of the energy to mass conversion is that we cannot make mass without also making anti-mass (i.e., anti-matter). For example, we cannot create an electron without creating the positron…the anti-electron. But the anti-matter is short lived and soon disappears as something else, like photons and/or some normal mass.