Incorrect. You are oversimplifying to an absurd degree. In no way did I equate energy with velocity. This definition of energy as something conserved through collisions is certainly NOT making it a property of matter – quite the contrary. It is just one example of how energy is something quite apart from matter in the way it moves around independently, from one form to another. This definition simply demonstrates another starting point for energy completely different from the “capability of doing work” definition which you have employed. If you want an ultimate universal definition, it would be the ultimate substance of all physical things. In much the same way water, steam, and ice are explained as 3 phases of one substance H20, all things are explained as different forms of energy.
And the accurate understanding is that matter is one form of energy as is easily demonstrated by the way a particle accelerator converts the energy of motion into the different form of energy known as matter.
Particle accelerators convert energy of motion into energy of matter. Of course this means they are also creating equal portions of anti-matter.
The reverse would be the conversion of the energy of matter into the energy of motion. This is done by the following: fission, fusion, and the annihilation of matter and antimatter. By these processes a small portion of mass is converted into the energy of motion of resulting particles (which by kinetic theory is the same as heat since the motion is in random directions). To convert this into the motion of a large body you would have to use these (fission, fusion, or antimatter) to power a rocket engine, which is not something we have managed to do yet – but we are reaching for fission powered rockets at NASA.
I understand this, but just as a thought experiment (perhaps a little self-indulgent), if I accelerated a particle until it reaches the speed of light, would the particle mass increase as I add increasing amounts of energy (thus avoiding exceeding the speed of light). Would this show that matter can be created in this way?
As I understand it, particle accelerators speed up a particle and then cause a collision that produces additional particles. Perhaps these may ‘add up’ to additional matter.
No. That is not the way physicists think of this. The matter remains the same in its own inertial frame. That so called “increase of mass” is really just kinetic energy – it is certainly NOT a creation of matter.
At velocity v, first we calculate gamma = 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2). Then the total energy increases from mc^2 to gamma times mc^2. But this our way of calculating the relativistic kinetic energy KE = (gamma - 1) mc^2. The so called “increase of mass” comes from writing the total energy as (gamma times mass) c^2, which means calling this an increase of mass is to say it has no kinetic energy – no energy of motion (which is a rather strange thing to do).
Not really. It is certainly a bit more complicated than most people understand.
There are plenty of forms of energy which are in no way confused with matter.
In particle physics, the distinction is very clear but a little more complicated.
Particles either have mass and thus travel at finite speeds or they are massless and travel at the speed of light.
Particles are either fermions (matter particles) unable to occupy the same space/state at the same time, or they are bosons (energy particles) which are able to occupy the same space/state at the same time. But not all bosons are massless. So… you can say that E = mc2 is not strictly about matter and energy, because mass cannot always be equated with matter. But… it works as a first approximation because those massive bosons are rare and short lived.
Hey, @Carol_M.
Welcome. I’ve been swamped lately, and haven’t had time to keep up with hardly any public threads. So, I’m throwing this off-topic welcome here.
See you around the Forum.
Happy New Year!
I shall add a little bit more to keep this thread going.
First I wanted to explain that this inability to occupy the same space/state at the same time is really important for matter (without which there would be no matter). It is because of this that fermions make spatial structures like neutrons, protons, atoms, and molecules. Bosons don’t do that.
Bosons are the exchange particles for the forces. And when the bosons are massive and short lived this contributes to making those forces have a shorter range of effect. Though sometimes it is just that the forces are so strong (in the case of massless gluons acting between quarks) that the energy will just create more particles (quarks) if you try to pull them apart. Besides binding quarks together, the strong force also binds neutrons and protons together because of a residual effect due to the exchange of composite massive bosons like pions, made from quark-antiquark (different color or flavor - so they don’t annihilate) pairs. Yes that is bosons made out of two fermions. LOL
A couple of points. The phrase ‘energy particles’ (bosons) seems to identify energy apart from matter? Is it possible to speak of energy as ‘something’ and is this indeed the case (I suspect it may not)?
And the second point - how are electrons dealt with?
I guess my comment is somewhat obscure - I could ask what is a particle to physicists and can be swamped by maths, and the collapsing wavefunction - so don’t take me too seriously, I am just a chemist. Yet all this keeps nagging me into asking, what is matter and energy, since science seems to study these, and theology says God created all of this.
Energy is certainly a thing – and quite apart from matter. Not all of it is bosons. Kinetic energy doesn’t seem to consist of bosons, for example. But even kinetic energy is a thing apart from particular matter because it moves from one thing to another in collisions, or even changes to a different type of energy completely. (I suppose calling bosons the energy particles is perhaps a little bit subjective and a different meaning that the usual use of the word “energy”. It might be better to refer to them as a the “force particles”)
Whether energy is a thing or a property is what T_aquaticus and I were wrangling over above. Everything tells us that energy is the one thing that remains through all changes, and it is everything else which is more like property of the different forms of energy, gone when the energy changes to a different form.
Electrons are fermions. The structures they form are the different orbitals around atoms which is an important part of how chemistry works (including how the periodic table is arranged).
Different forms of energy are just different properties of matter. The ability of a particle to change the velocity of another particle is a property of that matter. The ability of a particle to emit a photon is a property of that matter.
Not according to the way physicists define “matter” (or dictionaries either). Sounds like a particularly stubborn way of keeping the philosophy of materialism alive. The switch to naturalism making that unnecessary seems more reasonable to me.
ah… I see…! Your usage is probably connected to the translations of Aristotle’s hylomorphism – something which I like a great deal. But I see no reason to keep such a definition of the word “matter” when the word “energy” fits the bill of the universal stuff of which are things are a form so much better – it has the added advantage of dissolving the distinction between thing and action.
Most people will simply find your use of the word “matter” in this way to be confusing. In fact… rather than helping with the effort of distinguish between the objectivity of science and the subjectivity of religion, it lends itself to precisely the same sort of confusion we see in the OP where energy is seen as pointing to something beyond the physical. It is the antiquated terminology of the debate between materialists and the religious of previous centuries, which does not match well with the usage of the words in modern physics.
The main point is: “But energy is not itself stuff ; it is something that all stuff has.”
Also, from the same article:
" An atom is an object; energy is not. Energy is something which objects can have , and groups of objects can have — a property of objects that characterizes their behavior and their relationships to one another."
That’s what I have been trying to get across, and it appears a physicist agrees with me.
If my understanding is correct, there are still quantum effects that cause the atoms to move, so there is never a lack of kinetic energy. Atoms can also decay spontaneously which would convert their mass-energy. I don’t think cool temps will prevent this, but could be wrong.
I don’t think so. We are talking about the relative motion of particles in a system, so it is still a property of the system. Or as the article above states it, “a property of objects that characterizes their behavior and their relationships to one another”.
I don’t know what you have been reading but it seems to have given you some basic misconceptions. Einstein proved that there are two fundamental components to the universe; Space and Matter. Genesis begins by telling us that, “In the beginning God created space and matter. And the matter was without form and void”.
Matter has two distinct components; Mass and Energy. It is true that the total amount of matter in the universe is constant but they are related by Einstein’s famous equation E=mc^2. E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light in a vacuum that in this equation is squared. This equation led to nuclear power where mass is turned into energy either by fission or fusion. The sun is a large nuclear fusion furnace driven by the force of gravity on a mass of hydrogen atoms. It may be useful to lump all energy into the category of ‘Heat’ or ‘Motion’.
As for the human body, it consists of a mass that maintains a steady temperature (heat) and is in motion. That is accomplished by eating food with mass that our body biochemically turns into energy. When we die, we stop moving and we don’t eat so our energy stops. Our mass becomes available for the process of decay where other organisms use it for their energy. It may be useful to realize that a majority of the mass of the human body is water.
In terms of what else happens with regard to our ‘soul’ or ‘essence’, that is for the abstract realm of religion or philosophy. The whole thing is actually quite miraculous.