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A Scientific Discussion
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Acro-nym
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 04:07 PM #1 of 32
A Scientific Discussion

Today, in my Physics class, we discussed the old law of how matter cannot be created nor be destroyed, and how it was "disproved" when scientists started created nuclear reactions. I've been going back-and-forth on whether I agree with that statement or not. On the one hand, when matter is converted into energy, it is, by one definition, destroyed, according to Merriam-Webster. It states that "destroy" can mean, "to ruin the structure, organic existence, or condition of; to ruin as if by tearing to shreds." Obviously, when matter is converted into energy, the previous structure of the item is not maintained, much like when water is boiled. Which brings me to the other hand. I've never known a person to consider H2O "destroyed" when it's either converted to a solid or gas. Isn't this, as a basic level, the same as converting matter to energy? I'm conflicted. Would anyone like to help clarify this matter? (Pun intended.)

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 04:23 PM Local time: Aug 15, 2006, 09:23 PM #2 of 32
It isn't destroyed, it's just changed into a different state. I believe that something completely converted to pure energy becomes part of the cosmos, from whence it came, as in a matter/antimatter reaction. Similarly I consider matter to have condensed from a background energy that pervades the universe.

Converting water to a solid or a gas isn't the same, because you still have something made of atoms that form molecules. They're just either closer together or further apart.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 04:26 PM #3 of 32
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but when water is converted to a gas it is still matter. At the atomic level, it is still the same molecule, just simply moving faster and further apart. Energy is not a tangible thing, it's measureable, but not tangible. I guess the better term for it would be that matter is converted not destroyed. Apparently there are ways of making energy into matter, but it is almost impossible to do from what I'm told.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 04:37 PM #4 of 32
And if they are ways of turning energy into matter, would it be "creating" matter?

So, you guys say that my professors were wrong when they said that matter can be destroyed?

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 04:43 PM Local time: Aug 15, 2006, 09:43 PM #5 of 32
It's just my opinion. For all practical purposes it can be destroyed, since you can't use or handle pure energy like you can matter. Fundamentally though, matter (which I consider "frozen" energy because unless you liberate the rest-energy of every particle then there's always "something" there) to me cannot be destroyed. Perhaps that's more of a philosophical view.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 04:51 PM #6 of 32
Well, if E=mc^2 works one way, it should be able to work the other way too.

As for nuclear reaction thing, I guess it all depends on wheather or not you view energy as matter. I personally don't think energy is matter because energy is pretty much the ability to do something, if that makes any sense. Antimatter does pretty much the same thing too when it reacts with matter I believe.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 05:17 PM #7 of 32
I totally agree with ORLY.
Of course E=mc^2 works both ways. It's an equation. It can be:
E/m=c^2
E/c2=m
E/mc2=0



I think.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 05:46 PM Local time: Aug 15, 2006, 10:46 PM #8 of 32
I found this quite interesting with regards to the interchangeability of energy and matter:
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/cla...nd_energy.html

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 06:10 PM #9 of 32
Originally Posted by agreatguy6
Correct me if I'm wrong.

~E/mc2=0~
Ok.

E/mc2=1

Although this is a relatively useless equation from a practical perspective.



The conservative laws as they stand today include both matter and energy, saying in essence that the universe is a closed system, and that one cannot add to the sum total of matter and energy, although one may be converted into the other.

Also, read the article Ulysses linked.

I think you are being too caught up in, and reading too much into alternate definitions of words.

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Last edited by packrat; Aug 15, 2006 at 06:14 PM.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 06:16 PM #10 of 32
I thought the rule was the ab=cd was equivalant to ab/cd=0.
Wasn't it? or was that something else.......

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 06:21 PM #11 of 32
ab=cd => ab-cd=0
ab/cd=1


If you think about it, if ab is one quantity (for example x) and cd is the same quantity (x), then x/x=1.

Alternatively, if you subtract cd from ab, then you get x-x=0.


But, lets return to the thread title, with a related scientific discussion:

Quantum vacuum fluctuations.

Now, I read somewhere that there has been some success in observing these fluctuations. What does everyone think about the possibility of harvesting this phenomena by somehow separating the particles from their anti-particle pairs, and using them as a source of energy?

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Last edited by packrat; Aug 15, 2006 at 06:26 PM.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 06:24 PM Local time: Aug 16, 2006, 01:24 AM #12 of 32
In high speed accelerators, smashing two protons together with an energy higher than the rest energy of two protons(around 1.87GeV) will create a proton anti-proton pair, which I would class as energy being converted to matter...

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 06:52 PM #13 of 32
Originally Posted by packrat
ab=cd => ab-cd=0
ab/cd=1


If you think about it, if ab is one quantity (for example x) and cd is the same quantity (x), then x/x=1.

Alternatively, if you subtract cd from ab, then you get x-x=0.


But, lets return to the thread title, with a related scientific discussion:

Quantum vacuum fluctuations.

Now, I read somewhere that there has been some success in observing these fluctuations. What does everyone think about the possibility of harvesting this phenomena by somehow separating the particles from their anti-particle pairs, and using them as a source of energy?
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 06:55 PM Local time: Aug 15, 2006, 03:55 PM #14 of 32
The term destroyed or created in this case is the process of creating something from nothing or turning something into nothing. The Laws of Conservation are basically stating that there is a constant sum of matter and energy in our Universe. It is impossible to add to this sum or subtract from this sum.

The entire discipline of Chemistry is built around and depends on the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. I sure hope there aren't professors out there telling their students it is an old and disproven law.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 07:34 PM Local time: Aug 16, 2006, 02:34 AM #15 of 32
Originally Posted by Yamamanama
Did you mean photons? Because if a proton becomes an antiproton, all that happened is the charge going from positive to negative.
No, protons...what I meant was the initial two protons hit one another(assuming they collide with sufficient energy) and then 'rebound' off of one another and two new particles(always particle and anti-particle, proton and anti-proton in this case) are created from the energy of the protons when they collide.
Sorry about not making myself clear...

A very similar thing happens when a photon(with sufficient energy) hits a particle, the particle anti-particle pair is produced with the energy of the photon...

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 08:52 PM #16 of 32
Matter can be created or destroyed, matter/anti-matter annihilation gives a fairly definite answer.

But there are cases where it's slightly more difficult to answer. Nuclear fission/fusion is one example. Assume you were to take 2 protons and 2 neutrons, and mesure their mass, for this example let's say each particle weighs 1 (no unit), so the total mass is 4. Now, fuse them together to form an helium nucleus. Surely you'd expect that the nucleus would weigh 4, but it won't be the case. The nucleus will weigh slightly less than 4, with the difference between 4 and the actual mass being tranformed in energy in accordance to E=mc^2. But the number of particles is still the same! The only thing that has changed is the mass. Can we say that matter was destroyed in this case?

The answer is essentially a matter (pun intended) of what definition of matter you use, and it's pretty much the same for a number of other problems. Creation of particle/antiparticle pairs? Well, it depends on whether or not you consider said particles to be matter or not. Creation then destruction of particles through the Heisenberg uncertainty principle when applied to time and energy? Same thing, it depends of what you consider matter to be.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 09:09 PM Local time: Aug 15, 2006, 06:09 PM #17 of 32
Originally Posted by YeOldeButchere
Matter can be created or destroyed, matter/anti-matter annihilation gives a fairly definite answer.
Nope, matter/anti-matter annihilation is just the process of turning all matter of a system into energy. Nothing is being removed from existence. It's just a transfer of a matter state to an energy state.

Quote:
But there are cases where it's slightly more difficult to answer. Nuclear fission/fusion is one example. Assume you were to take 2 protons and 2 neutrons, and mesure their mass, for this example let's say each particle weighs 1 (no unit), so the total mass is 4. Now, fuse them together to form an helium nucleus. Surely you'd expect that the nucleus would weigh 4, but it won't be the case. The nucleus will weigh slightly less than 4, with the difference between 4 and the actual mass being tranformed in energy in accordance to E=mc^2. But the number of particles is still the same! The only thing that has changed is the mass. Can we say that matter was destroyed in this case?
Nope, some of the matter was converted into energy. It wasn't lost. Under the right conditions that energy can be reclaimed into matter again thus that matter hasn't been destroyed. Its state has only been changed. This is the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. I think some of you are reading way too far into what the law states. The sum of energy and matter of what you put into something results in a equal matter and energy sum.

Quote:
The answer is essentially a matter (pun intended) of what definition of matter you use, and it's pretty much the same for a number of other problems. Creation of particle/antiparticle pairs? Well, it depends on whether or not you consider said particles to be matter or not. Creation then destruction of particles through the Heisenberg uncertainty principle when applied to time and energy? Same thing, it depends of what you consider matter to be.
If it is not matter, its energy. If it is not energy it is matter. These are the only two states of existence in our Universe. There are no in between or ambiguous states. There is only one single definition of matter. If your 'object' doesn't fall under the matter category, then it is in an energy state.

Heisenberg uncertainty principle also deals with the wave/matter duality of electrons and the fact that we have no measurable way to detect the moment of electrons. We can only guess their probable position based on observable/measurable events. It has nothing to do with the creation and destruction of particles.

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Last edited by Cetra; Aug 15, 2006 at 09:12 PM.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 09:46 PM Local time: Aug 15, 2006, 06:46 PM #18 of 32
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Depends on if you consider things like photons, W bosons, and Z bosons (mediate EM, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear respectively) to be matter.
Photons exist in a dual state which exhibits matter or energy properties depending on their current interaction state. They are either or the other at any given time thus they can be either matter or energy.

As for the rests mentioned, those are carrier particles. In simple terms they do not exist, rather they are representations of a concept much like our number system.


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And for that matter, what the hell are matter and mass, anyway?
Isn't this first year science? Matter is anything that takes up space. Mass is the quantified measurement of matter.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 09:49 PM #19 of 32
Originally Posted by Cetra
Nope, matter/anti-matter annihilation is just the process of turning all matter of a system into energy. Nothing is being removed from existence. It's just a transfer of a matter state to an energy state.
True, and I never said such wasn't the case. I said that matter was destroyed. Whatever it becomes afterwards doesn't make it any less true; that matter has stopped to exist as matter.

Originally Posted by Cetra
Nope, some of the matter was converted into energy. It wasn't lost. Under the right conditions that energy can be reclaimed into matter again thus that matter hasn't been destroyed. Its state has only been changed. This is the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy. I think some of you are reading way too far into what the law states. The sum of energy and matter of what you put into something results in a equal matter and energy sum.
Agreed again, but I still have the same objection, matter as matter has ceased to exist. That it became energy is none of my concern. Using the definition you give a bit later, that everything is either matter or energy, makes it fairly easy to see. If it's been transformed into energy, then it's not matter anymore.

My initial point was mostly that there are different definitions of matter depending on the discipline. In chemistry, matter will be mostly defined as atoms and their constituent particles, nucleons and electrons. If you fuse two atoms together, then from that definition no matter is lost, while mass did disappear. Whether or not matter was lost, or converted, or only mass as a concept distinct from matter, becomes an issue of what definition you use.

Originally Posted by Cetra
If it is not matter, its energy. If it is not energy it is matter. These are the only two states of existence in our Universe. There are no in between or ambiguous states. There is only one single definition of matter. If your 'object' doesn't fall under the matter category, then it is in an energy state.

Heisenberg uncertainty principle also deals with the wave/matter duality of electrons and the fact that we have no measurable way to detect the moment of electrons. We can only guess their probable position based on observable/measurable events. It has nothing to do with the creation and destruction of particles.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle can be generalised so that it applies to time and energy. In a somewhat simplified way, it means you cannot be certain of the energy at a certain point in space at a certain time, or in mathematical terms, if I remember correctly, DEDt >= h (where D is a capital delta, E is energy, t is time and h is Planck's constant). What this means is that the principle of energy conservation can be violated temporarily, as long as this is done in an interval shorter than what the Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows for a particular energy level (the higher the energy, the shorter said energy can be "borrowed"). That energy, in turn, can be converted into a particle, temporarily.

These are not particles we can detect per se, as they're extremely short-lived, but we can actually detect the traces. They're usually called "resonance particles".

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 09:53 PM Local time: Aug 16, 2006, 04:53 AM #20 of 32
Well, they think Dark Matter is made up of neutrinos (which don't interact with much), I think they said that if a million neutrinos were fired through the planet, only about 100 would interact with anything...and due to the fact they don't interact with anything makes them hard to observe...
And then if you consider Dark Matter, I suppose you have to consider Dark Energy as well...no-one knows what the heck that is...

Perhaps, if/when they find the Higgs Boson, perhaps that'll shine some light on things....

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 10:00 PM Local time: Aug 15, 2006, 07:00 PM #21 of 32
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True, and I never said such wasn't the case. I said that matter was destroyed. Whatever it becomes afterwards doesn't make it any less true; that matter has stopped to exist as matter.
Ah I think I understand the underlying problem here. It's like saying when ice metals and becomes water, the ice no longer exists. But we know this isn't true. Rather the ice exists just in a different matter state. Matter and energy share a similar concept. The problem is the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy isn't exactly saying matter cannot be created or destroyed. The definition we get in most text books is just a simplification of the concept.

A better way to express the Law is to say something like "The sum of what you put in will always equal the sum of what you get." It's saying that in a perfectly closed reaction nothing is ever gained or lost, eg. created or destroyed.

Does that make sense?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Last edited by Cetra; Aug 15, 2006 at 10:14 PM.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 10:02 PM Local time: Aug 16, 2006, 03:02 AM #22 of 32
I like to see things in simple terms; matter distorts space-time. And I have in my head that rubber-sheet model of space, with bodies flying past each other and having their trajectories deflected by the distortion masses cause. It's neat.

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Old Aug 15, 2006, 10:31 PM #23 of 32
Originally Posted by Cetra
Ah I think I understand the underlying problem here. It's like saying when ice metals and becomes water, the ice no longer exists. But we know this isn't true. Rather the ice exists just in a different matter state. Matter and energy share a similar concept. The problem is the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy isn't exactly saying matter cannot be created or destroyed. The definition we get in most text books is just a simplification of the concept.

A better way to express the Law is to say something like "The sum of what you put in will always equal the sum of what you get." It's saying that in a perfectly closed reaction nothing is ever gained or lost, eg. created or destroyed.

Does that make sense?
Oh, I already understand the theory perfectly, that's no issue.

I think the problem was mostly one of semantics or definition. Science doesn't care much about what definition you give a word, as long as everyone has the same. Perhaps this wasn't the case here. I wasn't writing a lab report or anything like that, so I just used the words with the everyday definition closest to what I wanted to say, and in not so rigorous ways. I suppose it can cause misunderstandings. Mea culpa.

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Old Aug 16, 2006, 07:18 AM #24 of 32
Originally Posted by Cetra
Ah I think I understand the underlying problem here. It's like saying when ice metals and becomes water, the ice no longer exists. But we know this isn't true. Rather the ice exists just in a different matter state. Matter and energy share a similar concept. The problem is the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy isn't exactly saying matter cannot be created or destroyed. The definition we get in most text books is just a simplification of the concept.

A better way to express the Law is to say something like "The sum of what you put in will always equal the sum of what you get." It's saying that in a perfectly closed reaction nothing is ever gained or lost, eg. created or destroyed.

Does that make sense?
I think the main problem with your water analogy is that the water hasn't changed, at least chemically speaking. It's H20, nom matter what phase it's in. This is why I preferred the analogy of it becoming vapor. Yes, it's still H20, but it's drifting apart from itself, essentially becoming something entirely different.

And my interpretation of how the Law should be written is, "Matter cannot be created or destroyed but can be converted into energy."

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Old Aug 16, 2006, 08:25 AM #25 of 32
Quote:
And my interpretation of how the Law should be written is, "Matter cannot be created or destroyed but can be converted into energy."
But Matter and Energy are the same thing, so your law is redundant. The law you're looking for is the law of Conservation of Energy.

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