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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 13:48:51 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
| Had I thought that throwing a bunch of links at you was "help," then that's what I would have done. |
Or possibly that you didn't because you didn't have any handy! I tried that one once, and got called out on it. Loudly! My critics, at least the civil ones, were correct. I fell back, regrouped, and started giving references for my statements. Score: bng-0 SFN-1!
| What you seem to have taken from the links you've supplied suggests that more of them wouldn't have made much of a difference. |
I made it clear on several occasions as to what I was looking for. A simple statement that energy IS particles IS mass and there is simply no other meaning that can be given to the word energy when one is discussing particle physics. I do not deny your opinion that that is so! I would simply like to hear how that identity statement is parsed by several authorities in the field!
I am not well enough educated yet in these matters to have an informed opinion. I am trying to formulate one. What I "seem to have taken" from the links I've supplied is considerable confusion concerning the meaning of mass ≡ energy ≡ particles ≡ everything !
Is there a tautology here somewhere? Or is it, as you suggest, merely stupidity or ignorance on my part? I suspect the latter is true, but I am attempting to correct at least the "ignorance" part of it. That is the reason I continue to post on this thread. I appreciate new members such as great dane 80 offering fresh insight.
I appreciate Zeked's extremely valuable link which provided a great deal of clear, concise narrative on the subject. I urge anyone here who is seriously interested in truly understanting the elements of particle physics to read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy piece. It is excellent! Thank you Zeked
Dave, I don't purport to have a Mensa-level intellect such as yours has been described. I feel fortunate to be somewhat brighter than the average american voter. But to simply be told that I am incapable of comprehending that which is obvious to all, and to imply that I could not benefit from the sources that supply your information is simply demeaning, not enlightening!
I do not believe that you possess the ability to discern exactly what any other person than yourself can or can not learn! If you did, you would be God, and I emphatically do not believe there is a God, be It sire, scion, or sacred spectre!
Obviously, we are not all geniuses or Mensa members. I certainly am not! But I really think it is poor form for one who exists at that stratospheric intellecual level, to state that his understanding of the nature of reality cannot be understood by lesser beings, and that providing the sources of his knowledge would not be useful because they could not be understood. I'm sure you must have noticed that there are more folks on this forum than you and me!
Some of them might be interested in reading and learning from your sources also, and smart enough to understand them!
I found greatdane 80's brief explanation and metaphor very helpful. Do you argue with anything he has said?
Do you take issue with anything in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article cited by Zeked?
Nobody here should be entitled to present "facts", whether true or not, without offering substantiation of some sort. That includes you. I really have little doubt that your conceptualization of these processes is quite accurate, I just would like a little different presentation of it. I thought that might be available from the sources you consulted in order to make the statements you made in the first place.
And for you to refuse that - after years here on a soapbox demanding links, and corroboration, and references from me, and many others here on these forums to back our statements (and very properly so) - is just plain ludicrous.
I also didn't hear your defense of the statement that e = mc2 was appropriate to describe the combustion of wood. You said| Finally, the combustion of wood is extremely complex, but would indeed "obey" e=mc2 |
You said that the combustion of wood| would indeed "obey" E=mc2, in that the total mass and energy of the combustion products would be equal to the total mass and energy of the logs and air before combustion. |
and | Combustion, in other words, follows the law of conservation of mass and energy. |
I am confused. Not that you have properly defined an application of the law of conservation of energy - rather what e = mc2 may have to do with ordinary combustion!
Did you mean that e = mc2 was the first law of thermodynamics, commonly known as the Law of Conservation of Energy? What did you mean by "obey"?
Answering this question from davidetal1234-ga:Throw a log on the fire. Watch as matter is transformed into heat
energy. Note that this is happening in time and space, and we have
arrived the core of Einstein?s equation."
Is E=MC2 really that simple, in its essence? |
siliconsamurai-ga answers the question:Sorry to say, your idea has no relationship to Einstein's discovery or
the famous equation.
What the equation says is that matter and energy are two forms of the same thing and that you convert between the two by either multiplying or dividing by the speed of light squared.
But this conversion is just like converting between inches and
centimeters, it isn't an explanation, it is just a number.
The equation says nothing in particular about time or the speed of
conversion, in fact, although time is a component of speed, this
equation squares speed and time squared is meaningless, at least in
this context.
The problem is, if you burn something, such as a piece of paper in a
sealed container filled with air or oxygen, no mass is converted to energy. The weight never changes, even a tiny amount.
Fire is a chemical reaction (exothermic, that is, it released energy) but it does NOT convert mass into energy, it merely releases chemical energy stored in the matter. An endothermic(energy absorbing? - sort of) reaction is required to make explosives or to grow a tree.
All that happens when you burn a log is that a good portion of the
sunlight and chlorophyll reaction which converted basic minerals into the wood, is released in a very short time.
When you burn something all the original elements (carbon, oxygen,
nitrogen, etc.) remain in exactly their original amounts, they are
just changed in form, for example, a lot of the carbon combines with
oxygen to become carbon dioxide CO2 and a lot of the hydrogen combine with oxygen to become water H2O.
Nuclear reactions, even very small ones which are occurring in your
body all the time such as isotopes decaying, actually involve a change in mass and are thus covered by E=MC*2. |
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Is siliconsamurai wrong? If so, why?
I truly don't know if he has a point or not. From the very little that I think I know, it seems to me that The law of the conservation of energy is not the same mathematical statement as the equivalence of energy and mass equation, e = mc[sup]2 is. Or is it the case that both formulae apply to the phenomenon of combustion and that they are somehow related, as you have suggested?
Perhaps our new member, greatdane 80 could clarify this and properly rebuke siliconsamurai-ga, if indeed rebuking is in order? Once again, the website is here I am not sophisticated enough nor educated or informed enough to render an intelligent opinion on siliconsamurai's statements! I simply offer them for consideration, because they address the same concerns that have been discussed in this thread.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 09/29/2008 : 14:50:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Or possibly that you didn't because you didn't have any handy! |
Yes, of course I lied to you. 
Or perhaps it's more likely that you're lying to yourself. After all, what you say you want now...| I made it clear on several occasions as to what I was looking for. A simple statement that energy IS particles IS mass and there is simply no other meaning that can be given to the word energy when one is discussing particle physics. I do not deny your opinion that that is so! I would simply like to hear how that identity statement is parsed by several authorities in the field! |
...is not the question I was trying to help with.
But you go ahead and re-write history as you see fit. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2008 : 22:53:19 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
When the final, definitive history of evasion is written, your name should be on the role of honor!
You're slipperyer than a greased popsicle, and about as palatable!
Come on Dave, stand up and be counted. I'm too old to get a hard-on, but you're only 30-something. You should be able to shred me to ribbons with a sentence or two! Folks my age have lost what little cognitive resource thay ever had long ago!
Stop trying to be Don Quixote with a chainsaw, and face up to the legitimate challenges I have thrown at you instead of weaseling.
1. Why not give your references? Sources? Links? Why not, Dave?
2. What's your response to siliconsamurai-ga, and the whole e = mc2 as somehow connected to the law of the conservation of energy gaffe? Just want a simple, reasoned argument that the man is right or wrong! I really don't know, if I did, I would say so. You obviously are far better informed on this am I am, so display it, Dave! I don't know shit about these matters, but I kind of gathered that you thought you did! |
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greatdane_80
New Member
Denmark
5 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 08:04:59 [Permalink]
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Hi again bngbuck and everyone else,
When you burn something all the original elements (carbon, oxygen,nitrogen, etc.) remain in exactly their original amounts, they are just changed in form, for example, a lot of the carbon combines with oxygen to become carbon dioxide CO2 and a lot of the hydrogen combine with oxygen to become water H2O.
Nuclear reactions, even very small ones which are occurring in your
body all the time such as isotopes decaying, actually involve a change in mass and are thus covered by E=MC*2. |
This statement by siliconsamurai is correct. E=mc2 does not really enter into our everyday lives in a meaningful way (except of course for the fact that without the huge nuclear 'furnace in the sky' we wouldn't be here).
I've tried to go through some of my books to find an explanation that's as easily understandable as possible. First, it is important to distinguish between special and general relativity. What I described in my previous answer is the case for special relativity. Here I will quickly outline what special relativity is, and how it relates to the question of the mass of a moving particle. The most important concept right now is that of reference frames. My analogy from before of sitting on top of a proton is only (completely) valid if the proton is not accelerating. In special relativity, you can not have accelerating reference frames. The two postulates that make up the basics of special relativity (as described by Einstein) are:
The Principle of Relativity The laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames.
The Constancy of the Speed of Light Light travels through a vacuum at a constant speed c that is independent of the motion of the light source.
That's it, those two simple concepts are all you need for a complete description of special relativity. Everything else comes from that. An inertial reference frame is a reference frame that does not accelerate, but travels at a constant speed.
Don't worry, I will get to the point eventually
The following is taken from an excellent introductory book in astronomy called An introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley W. Carroll and Dale A. Oestlie, published by Addison-Wesley. Sorry that it's not a source you can readily check up on, but I just haven't got time to find something similar on the net.
The ideas of conservation of linear momentum and energy are two of the cornerstones of physics. According to the above mentioned Principle of Relativity, if momentum is conserved in one inertial reference frame, then it must be conserved in all inertail frames. This requirement leads to a new definition of momentum, the relativistic momentum vector p defined by (equation 1):
p=mv/sqrt(1-v2/c2)
Many authors would simply write the above equation
p=mv,
where the gamma factor 1/sqrt(1-v2/c2) is included in m. This is not really necessary, because it introduces the confusing concept of rest mass I described in my previous post. According to eq. (1), the mass of a moving particle does not increase with increasing speed, but its momentum approaches infinity as v->c. This is probably easier to swallow, it makes intuitive sense. If you lightly tap your fist on a wall, it will not hurt very much, because there is not very much momentum and thus energy involved, whereas you are likely to break your knuckles if you punch as hard as you possibly can. Just transfer that thought to near light speed, and you see that an increase in energy equals an increase in momentum.
So far so good, I hope. This was the case for special relativity. Just to keep the suspense up, I now need to get back to my thesis , so you'll have to wait another couple of days before I get into general relativity. Hope that I made some sense, and that I made the subject a little bit clearer to you. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 10:14:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Stop trying to be Don Quixote with a chainsaw, and face up to the legitimate challenges I have thrown at you instead of weaseling. |
"Legitimate?" That's a stretch.| 2. What's your response to siliconsamurai-ga, and the whole e = mc2 as somehow connected to the law of the conservation of energy gaffe? |
What gaffe? The heat has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is from the binding energies of the molecules being oxidized. Those binding energies contribute a non-zero amount to the pre-combustion mass of the logs and air, because E=mc2. But they're small enough that when measured to fewer than nine orders of approximation, they disappear into the noise.| Just want a simple, reasoned argument that the man is right or wrong! |
Both. He's right that combustion doesn't affect the amount of matter. He's wrong that E=mc2 doesn't have any application to combustion at all. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 11:01:55 [Permalink]
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Wouldnt the heat created (increase in entropy) be a loss of mass, however small? or is that what you meant by,| Those binding energies contribute a non-zero amount to the pre-combustion mass of the logs and air, because E=mc2. But they're small enough that when measured to fewer than nine orders of approximation, they disappear into the noise. |
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"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 11:03:14 [Permalink]
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| Nevermind, I forgot about the oxygen input. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 12:42:25 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Wouldnt the heat created (increase in entropy) be a loss of mass, however small? or is that what you meant by,| Those binding energies contribute a non-zero amount to the pre-combustion mass of the logs and air, because E=mc2. But they're small enough that when measured to fewer than nine orders of approximation, they disappear into the noise. |
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Yeah, there's a teensy-tiny loss of mass, but as soon as you include all the energy released, you'll find the "missing" mass. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 21:08:53 [Permalink]
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great dane 80......
Thanks again for a lucid introductory explanation of the elements of special relativity. Some of the pieces are beginning to fall into place, and I find myself eagerly awaiting 101.1 The Elements of General Relativity.
You know, back in the days when I was young and sighted and not nearly as ignorant and stupid as I am today, these concepts would have been relatively easy to assimilate. However, as I relax in the soporific haze of extreme antiquity, as darkness closes slowly in on the brilliant vision of youth, as mine eyes grow dim, and they cannot see,; I deeply appreciate the contributions of a fresh voice, one who truly appears interested in communicating information, learning, knowledge!
Even as I approach the Ultimate Enlightenment (which I strongly suspect will merely be Oblivion), I find that I still thirst to know that which I do not know! I thank you again for your contributions!
On quite another subject, great dane:
To my question| Is siliconsamurai wrong? If so, why?.... |
....you answer| This statement by siliconsamurai is correct. E = mc2 does not really enter into our everyday lives in a meaningful way (except of course for the fact that without the huge nuclear 'furnace in the sky' we wouldn't be here). |
The other particle physics expert on our panel, Dave, states:
| He's right that combustion doesn't affect the amount of matter. He's (siliconsamurai, that is) wrong that E=mc2 doesn't have any application to combustion at all. |
Are these two positions completely compatible?
Que vous dire? |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 21:21:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Are these two positions completely compatible? |
Yes. greatdane_80's "does not really" is what I covered. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 21:21:25 [Permalink]
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((I'll be nit picky here but 'que vous dire' translates as: 'What you saying?'. The correct sentence would be 'Que-voulez vous dire?')).
Also, combustion is the normal oxidation of flammable chemicals. There is no actual loss of mass (the apparent reduction comes from the smoke).
But E=MC2 however applies in nuclear plants. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 22:12:35 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
Also, combustion is the normal oxidation of flammable chemicals. There is no actual loss of mass (the apparent reduction comes from the smoke). |
No, there must be a loss of mass because chemical bond energy is released. While the Wikipedia article on binding energy is mostly focused on nuclear binding instead of molecular bonds, its discussion of the "mass defect" applies:Since all forms of energy have mass, the question of where the missing mass of the binding energy goes is of interest. The answer is that this mass transforms to heat, light, higher energy states of the nucleus/atom or other forms of energy. The "mass defect" from binding energy is therefore mass that transforms to energy according to Einstein's equation. Once the system cools to normal temperatures and returns to ground states in terms of energy levels, there is less mass remaining in the system than there was when it first combined and was at high energy. Mass measurements, almost always made at low temperatures with systems in ground states, so this difference between the mass of a system and the sum of the masses of its isolated parts is called a mass deficit. Thus, if binding energy mass is transformed into heat, the system must be cooled (the heat removed) before the mass-deficit appears in the cooled system. In that case, the removed heat represents exactly the mass "deficit". The mass defect of a wood fire is going to be on the order of one ten-millionth of one percent of the original total mass of wood and oxygen, and so will generally be unmeasurable, but it's still not zero. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 22:41:56 [Permalink]
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| An example: the binding energy in Hydrogen molecules is 436 kJ/mol, while the energy in the Hydrogen atoms themselves is about 181,178,258,970 kJ/mol. The energy in the H-H bond is therefore about 241 billionths of one percent of the energy in the Hydrogen atoms themselves. For most practical purposes, this sort of teensy mass difference can be ignored, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2008 : 23:02:27 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
| "Legitimate?" That's a stretch. |
How about your references? Links? Sources?
Is that a stretch?
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2008 : 08:29:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Simon
Also, combustion is the normal oxidation of flammable chemicals. There is no actual loss of mass (the apparent reduction comes from the smoke). |
No, there must be a loss of mass because chemical bond energy is released. While the Wikipedia article on binding energy is mostly focused on nuclear binding instead of molecular bonds, its discussion of the "mass defect" applies:Since all forms of energy have mass, the question of where the missing mass of the binding energy goes is of interest. The answer is that this mass transforms to heat, light, higher energy states of the nucleus/atom or other forms of energy. The "mass defect" from binding energy is therefore mass that transforms to energy according to Einstein's equation. Once the system cools to normal temperatures and returns to ground states in terms of energy levels, there is less mass remaining in the system than there was when it first combined and was at high energy. Mass measurements, almost always made at low temperatures with systems in ground states, so this difference between the mass of a system and the sum of the masses of its isolated parts is called a mass deficit. Thus, if binding energy mass is transformed into heat, the system must be cooled (the heat removed) before the mass-deficit appears in the cooled system. In that case, the removed heat represents exactly the mass "deficit". The mass defect of a wood fire is going to be on the order of one ten-millionth of one percent of the original total mass of wood and oxygen, and so will generally be unmeasurable, but it's still not zero.
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Ok.
I thought that, because the energy was chemical, you did not have to convert any mass into energy to provide it.
Although, indeed, if this energy leaves the system; it makes sense to have a loss of mass.
I stand corrected.
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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The speed of light and mass
