What does it take to convert energy into mass? (Strange Universe Series)
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ETpro (
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November 15th, 2010
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Energy, such as light into mass… easy! It takes a plant with the ability to photosynthesize.
what is “Strange Universe Series”?
@tigress3681 Is energy actually converted into mass in photosynthesis? Check the balance of chemicals the plant takes in (C02, H20 and nutrients from the soil) to the complex sugars it produces, and the oxygen it expires. Is there a net gain in mass?
@coffeenut I’m fascinated by all the strange things we find as we dig ever deeper into our universe. This is the 14th question I have asked about some facet of it. As more questions kept coming to ming, I decided to name it the Strange Universe Series of questions and post links to the earlier ones. They are building toward a game of 20 questions with the last one being the one that truly has my noodle warped.
Depending on what answers that brings out, that may be the end of the series or just the beginning.
@ETpro I was just about to thank you for the correction by deleting my answer but it wont let me =(
@tigress3681 Oh well, that gets that one out of the way so now we can get down to cases about how we convert energy into mass.
What if… Matter is a form of energy just like heat or light are forms of energy. Perhaps matter is merely a very stable form of potential energy! (spending too much time thinking on this and rereading physics literature) GL, I’ll be checking back on this out of curiosity!
Apparently black holes convert energy into matter. Near the surface of a black hole, matter-antimatter particle pairs apparently pop into existence; then one particle falls into the hole, while the other escapes. This was predicted by Stephen Hawking but there are no experiments (that I’m aware of) that have proven this phenomenon.
However wasn’t matter and antimatter particles created in one of the particle accelerators? It seems to take a very large amount of energy to just create the smallest amount of mass. The large Hadron Collider produces around 30,000 electron volts yet very little mass was created. The largest lightning strike only produces around 150 electron volts and we know how powerful a lightning strike is.
I’m guessing we would need to find a way to generate a very large amount of energy first. Perhaps there is a large energy source in the quantum vaccum known as “outer space” where someday we could devolope the technology to use this unlimited enegy for our own needs in the future.
Since it is theorised that mass is the result of energy interacting with the Higgs field, it would be good to manipulate that.
Btw, I think it is more prudent to find ways to outsmart nature, not try to bring it into submission with brute force.
@Paradox I’m familiar with Dr. Hawking’s ideas on partticle creation near the event horizon of black holes. There is some hope that this can either be confirmed or disproved experimentally with the LHC. However, I do not see how the minimal effect of conversion at the event horizon of a black hole would make a convenient shield for anything we did not want swallowed up by the black hole.
@ragingloli Nature seems exceedingly smart. How do we do that?
@ETpro
For example, manipulating the higgs field to control at what point energy turns into matter, instead of expending massive amounts of energy in particle accelerators.
I suppose the former would take less energy than the latter.
Or take space travel for example.
If we just used brute force, we would have never made it into space as scientists at the time said that the amount of fuel required to give enough thrust would have also made the rocket to heavy to make it into space.
In that case, outsmarting nature was the multi staged rocket.
@ragingloli Extremely high energy photons being bent in toward a black hole’s enormous gravity well seem capable of interacting with the W and Z bosons can experience spontaneous symmetry breaking releasing them as massive bosons. Until the Higgs boson is either confirmed or ruled out at the LHC, being able to control this will have to reamin on standby.
@ETpro @ragingloli Ok, so side question. Is it possible that a human carries within him/her the capability to manipulate and alter the rate at which matter vibrates? If all we can see and touch is vibration, if each color, texture and sound is actually a vibration unique to that particular composition, ie; Al-13, Si-14, is it then feasible to try to excite the molecules to attract another to the chain and thereby change the basic element? Would this explain water into wine? How about the rate at which tumor vibrates? Could sound be used to alter that composition and destroy it?
It seems to me that we’re right on the cusp of understanding applications here, and how cool would it be if rather than needing a huge underground machine that uses mind boggling amounts of energy to fuel for each operation, if people themselves weren’t the repository of the capability and we just don’t know it yet?
Use energy to split helium into hydrogen isotopes.
Voilà. There’s your additional mass.
@Trillian That’s an intriguing thought that I have no idea how to answer. If we do have the capacity to do this, I’d certasilnly love to unlock my ability to touch to socmic tuning fork.
@mattbrowne HE-4 is by far the more plentiful form of helium and is an extremely stable atom. It would take a great deal of energy to pry it apart to get two hydrogen isotopes. Where would the extra mass show up? I think in practice, fission of helium would likely yiled hydrogen isotopes and a bit of HE-3 but no mass. Fusion of the hydrogen back into helium would get us back to a bunch of HE4 minus all the energy we used to split the HE-4 apart to begin with.
@ETpro Thank you for at least answering me. I’ve wondered about this for a long time.
@Trillian I wish I knew more about it. I get what you are driving at. Most of what we see as solid matter is actualy empty space made up of tiny particles surrounded by far tiniter things that are part particle and part wave, and their vibrations are a vital part of what gives them their properties. So if you can figure out how to interact with those vibrations, a whole new world of control would be open to you.
Yeah, I get that. I’ve heard that before about matter and how it would actually look if one could scale down small enough to see the spaces. Intellectually I know that, but it’s hard to wrap my mind around it. I have a bunch of what-ifs that I’d like to ask someone…
Ok, well…. you study this more than I do, so if you ever happen to run across any information that covers it and states it in terms that my stupid ass can understand, I’d be pleased to read about it or listen to a pod cast.
Oooooo! Thanks! I can save the link, get it next month and actually have a couple days to read it after this semester ends on the 21st! Thank you. You got a copy? Would you be willing to discuss it with me after I’ve read it? I say “read it” like I have a shot at getting through it with my pea brain capabilities, but hey! A girl has to have goals. I think I can, I think I can! ;-)
Sure I just read the forward this evening. But as I get into it, I will let you know what I think.
@ETpro – Two deuterium or one hydrogen and one tritium atom are heavier than one He-4 atom. The opposite is happening to the sun. The more helium it produces the lighter it gets. Our sunshine comes from destroyed mass.
hydrogen 1proton 1electron
dueterium 1proton 1nuetron 1electron
tritium 1proton 2nuetrons 1 electron
helium 2protons 2nuetrons 2elecrons
1t+1h=1he 2d=he
i don’t know about light but all other present “energy” is made up mass and possibly mass is energy in the end. as far as converting energy to mass the front of a car traveling forward has greater momentus force than one holding still of the same mass momentum is proportional to velocity:mass
@s321scba Thanks for the fascinating answer, and welcome to Fluther. The fusion reactons with heavy water release energy from mass, though. I know of no reactor that converts energy back into mass—other than the Replicator on the Star Trek star ships.
Light is taken to have no mass. That would go for photons across the electromagnetic spectrum. I am unaware of any form of energy that has mass. Of course electricity is a flow of electrons, but the motive force that creates the flow is the energy. The electrons themselves are simply charged particles. THey are the mass and I believe are separate from the energy that causes them to flow through a wire.
In mathematics (algebra) you can rearrange equations to make different letters (or in this case symbols) the subject of the formula and what you need to do to the others to get them.
You just need to get m (mass) on its own on that side of the equation by doing the opposite to everything on the other side of the equals sign:
Energy is mass x (the speed of light squared) so mass is Energy / (the speed of light squared)
E=mc^2, so m=E/c^2
However im not sure if this still applies in scientific equations such as this;
and i dont know of any situations where this has been proved scientifically.
@NorbertFish4 Thanks. Algebraically, it works. But how to actually do that is the mystery I was hoping to explore. When we detonate a nuclear device, we are demonstrating *E = mc^2. But I know of no way to deplode a nuclear weapon—to have all that released energy reverse, and assemble an unexploded bomb. A time machine maybe?
I suppose it depends what type of energy you used:
If ionising radiation counts as energy, then you could begin to assemble the nucleus of an atom with nuetron raditation. Put that withsome protons in a particle accelerator and its ossible the nucleuses of atoms could be formed. Thenyoujust need to add electrons (electricity includes electrons) to the atom to make it whole.
Not sure this would work though, and i dont see how we could do something like reverse the nuclear process, photons have no mass so i dont see how any of that electromagmetic radiation could be put together to make an atom with mass.
@NorbertFish4 For this to be of much use, it can’t require the energy levels of a particle accelerator to build a few atoms. :-)
It depends, if the equation m=E/c^2 says that the amount of energy required for creating mass out of energy is enough to power such an accelerator then it could requite those energy levels
what evidence is there that light has no mass
Well, simplist is that it travels at the speed of light without an infinite mass.
Also, as light from stars comes to the earth the photons it is made up from would clump together due to each ones gravity if they had mass (no matter how small that mass was because there would be so little other gravitational influence in those vast reigons of space). Quantom physics also states that Photons must be weightless.
Also im saying that in context to the question, as the equation E=mc^2 states that mass and energy are equivalent as they can be converted into each other. The question is about how to convert energy back into mass so for this concept to work you already need to know the answer to the question.
I am also
That i am also was an accident by the way
@NorbertFish4 Thanks for confirming that error. I was wondering if it was some sort of claim of being The Great “I am” that can solve this question for me.
But since a tiny bit of mass can be converted to a huge amount of energy, it does also follow that it would take a huge amount of energy to create a tiny bit of Mass. The Big Bang was just that, an almost infinitely large amount of energy that created the relatively sparse concentration of mass in the observable Universe.
I just did a bit of research and i found out that mass is made from energy all the time in particle accelerators, just in super tiny amounts. So tiny that the CERN accelerator in Switzerland would take around 6 billion years to make 3 grams of hydrogen.
But its still makes mass out of energy
@NorbertFish4 That is super cool. You’ve nailed the definitive answer to my question. Well done.
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