http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081120/sc_afp/sciencephysicseinstein_081120235605PARIS (AFP) ? It’s taken more than a century, but Einstein’s celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France’s Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world’s mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?
Fuckin A, I’m on a roll (blowin off steam and OT again, sorry Dave)
….the human species is the only animal that is aware of death. What could be worse than knowing that you and all of your loved ones will be vaporized into the drudge of nothingness?
Well, we devised a delusional concept to remedy this horror so well and so early on in our evolution that it became a neurological part of our brain. That’s why even reasonably well-educated people still accommodate supernatural religiosity in modern life.
If this, still theoretical, cognitive instinct is ultimately suppositional; perhaps it’s as simple as certain individuals among us having the courage to accept our true immortality.
correction:!!!
our true mortality
What
Here is an article I found on heat energy. can you take a look at it and tell me your thoughts on it? Much appreciated. Also, if you could please, could you go into a more detailed explanation of heat?
http://www.powermasters.com/heat_energy.html
This is off topic 100% but I wanted to thank anyone who responded to my plea about writing to my little newspaper.
You might remember the paper did not print my letter on how to report the LDS church to the IRS.
Well, after almost two weeks the letter was published. Thank you
All this talk about heat is making me HOT!!!!
Oh yeah, I’m sitting next to the woodburner. Doh!
NSF,
This:
was meant as a joke which you apparently didn’t get.
This:
is just a demonstration of stupidity.
Look at the equation. E=mc^2. There is a relationship indicated by the = sign. What do you think E stands for, what do you think m stands for?
The scientists involved (Einstein, et al summed it up by saying: The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.
Don’t like it? Take it up with them.
BTW, having taught classes in atomic theory in regards to electronics (protons, neutrons, electrons – levels of energy), I do understand the laws of conservation of energy/matter. They are not broken when energy is released from matter. If you didn’t get that in your studies, you wasted your time.
666
I can only assume that this is another joke I don’t get.
What does any of this have to do with your notion that your stomach is a nuclear reactor?
Was this also a joke:
If not, my condolences to your students.
NSF
Man you appear to be denser than a black hole!
My notion? that a stomach is a nuclear reactor? You appear to be hallucinating words on the screen which I never said. I don’t know where to get those kind of drugs. Wanna share?
666
Your post in this thread, 11/21/08 @ 17:04
You don’t think food is matter capable of being converted to energy?
666
I repeat: I’ve had enuff of this! What is the competent physicist and chemist here; I’ll leave him to straighten you out, if he “picks and choses” to do so.
I would actually hope that someone would spend a little more time researching Neutrinos.(just saying)
I’m a bit late here but I have a PhD in chemistry and have been teaching it for 10 years.
When plants do photosynthesis, they take in CO2 and water from the air (and light) and make glucose and oxygen:
6 CO2 + 6 H2O + energy (light) –>
C6H12O6 + 6 O2
If you’ve taken basic chemistry you’ll notice that the numbers of each atoms on either side of the arrow are the same (6 C’s, 12 H’s, 18 O’s) – no atoms were made or destroyed. So how is the “energy” involved?
It HAS been converted into mass! (E = mc2) The total mass of the products (glucose and O2) will be SLIGHTLY (in the part-per-trillion range) greater than the mass of the original molecules (CO2 and H2O), since some extra energy was added.
For normal chemical reactions like photosynthesis (or the burning of gasoline, the explosion of TNT, etc) these mass changes are way too small to be measurable. However, for nuclear reactions (like radioactive decay or nuclear fission) the differences are much larger (on the order of 1%) and the amount of energy released and the change in mass in the reaction correlates perfectly to E = mc2.
But it’s not easy to get my freshman students to understand and/or appreciate this non-intuitive story.
cjn
PS
By the way the Star Trek food replicator does not convert energy to mass. There is a source of raw material (an organic sludge) that the replicator uses as a source for the food and dishes that it makes. And the Enterprise crew’s “waste products” are recycled back into the sludge using similar technology to the replicator. Please consult the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” technical manual for more details.
drchris06
Thanks.
That’s what I’ve suspected for many years, from my (very casual) readings in modern physics. When I was in school, it was not even suspected, on the undergraduate level anyway, that chemical energy had anything at all to do with nuclear energy.
What do your freshman students find non-intuitive in this?
The freshman don’t like this apparent violation of the law of conservation of matter – they’ve had that law drilled into them so much it’s almost “gospel”
What we should really quote is the law of conservation of mass-energy (since they are inter-convertible)
cjn