What are mass and energy?

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
attofishpi
Posts: 9956
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 8:10 am
Location: Orion Spur
Contact:

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by attofishpi »

wtf wrote:
Harbal wrote:Mass is what fat people have an abundance of, energy is what they have a deficiency of.
So fat people are more (gravitationally) attractive?
Yes, and they lay on their backs and get pregnant with extreme ease.

Image
User avatar
HexHammer
Posts: 3354
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 8:19 pm
Location: Denmark

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by HexHammer »

Arising_uk wrote:
HexHammer wrote:...
..so yes I do understand what Einstein said. Most people learn, but u'll never learn.
Do you? Well given that only a few physicists understand what he said I won't take your word for it.
Then let me rephrase, I know some of the basics of what he said, the main stream stuff, time, length contraction, E=MC2..
User avatar
Arising_uk
Posts: 12314
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by Arising_uk »

Have you read his book for the layman, "Relativity"?
surreptitious57
Posts: 4257
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:09 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by surreptitious57 »

Mass and energy are interchangeable so objects at rest shall still have energy
Fat people have more energy than thin people because they have more mass
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

surreptitious57 wrote:Mass and energy are interchangeable so objects at rest shall still have energy
Fat people have more energy than thin people because they have more mass
Useless observations.
The interchangeability of matter and energy is only expressed in the violence of nuclear fission and fusion.

Objects at rest have different types of energy regardless of their matter.
User avatar
attofishpi
Posts: 9956
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 8:10 am
Location: Orion Spur
Contact:

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by attofishpi »

God said "I am the light."
Light is composed of photons, so we could ask if the photon has mass. The answer is then definitely "no": the photon is a massless particle. According to theory it has energy and momentum but no mass

However, it is interesting that 'HE' still insists on having Mass.
The Mass or Eucharist is the central act of divine worship in the Catholic Church, which describes it as "the source and summit of the Christian life".
User avatar
Noax
Posts: 672
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 3:25 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by Noax »

attofishpi wrote:God said "I am the light."
Light is composed of photons, so we could ask if the photon has mass. The answer is then definitely "no": the photon is a massless particle. According to theory it has energy and momentum but no mass
You sort of imply that God stated that he's composed of photons. Not sure what that had to do with any of this.

Anyway, photons have mass, else they could not have momentum. Photons have no rest-mass, which is not the same thing as having no mass.
User avatar
Hobbes' Choice
Posts: 8364
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:45 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

attofishpi wrote:God said "I am the light."
Light is composed of photons, so we could ask if the photon has mass. The answer is then definitely "no": the photon is a massless particle. According to theory it has energy and momentum but no mass

However, it is interesting that 'HE' still insists on having Mass.
The Mass or Eucharist is the central act of divine worship in the Catholic Church, which describes it as "the source and summit of the Christian life".
You poor confused sod.
User avatar
attofishpi
Posts: 9956
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 8:10 am
Location: Orion Spur
Contact:

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by attofishpi »

Noax wrote:
attofishpi wrote:God said "I am the light."
Light is composed of photons, so we could ask if the photon has mass. The answer is then definitely "no": the photon is a massless particle. According to theory it has energy and momentum but no mass
You sort of imply that God stated that he's composed of photons. Not sure what that had to do with any of this.
My point is that God is everything - right down to the finite point of the binary universe.
Noax wrote:Anyway, photons have mass, else they could not have momentum. Photons have no rest-mass, which is not the same thing as having no mass.
I could be wrong here, but no, i disagree -if photons had mass then they would have copious amounts of mass at the speed they travel, since anything with mass as it approaches the speed of light becomes extremely 'massive'.
User avatar
attofishpi
Posts: 9956
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 8:10 am
Location: Orion Spur
Contact:

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by attofishpi »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
attofishpi wrote:God said "I am the light."
Light is composed of photons, so we could ask if the photon has mass. The answer is then definitely "no": the photon is a massless particle. According to theory it has energy and momentum but no mass

However, it is interesting that 'HE' still insists on having Mass.
The Mass or Eucharist is the central act of divine worship in the Catholic Church, which describes it as "the source and summit of the Christian life".
You poor confused sod.
At least i'm not a naive fool as you are.
User avatar
Noax
Posts: 672
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 3:25 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by Noax »

attofishpi wrote:
Noax wrote:Anyway, photons have mass, else they could not have momentum. Photons have no rest-mass, which is not the same thing as having no mass.
I could be wrong here, but no, i disagree -if photons had mass then they would have copious amounts of mass at the speed they travel, since anything with mass as it approaches the speed of light becomes extremely 'massive'.
Anything with rest mass (can exist at rest in some inertial reference frame) does this as it is considered in frames where it moves close to light speed. Photons do not approach light speed. They are light speed. It is a different solution to the same math you're referencing.

E=MC2 says that mass is proportional to energy, and in fact is energy. If something has energy (like a photon), then it has mass, else that formula is invalid. A charged cell phone exerts (trivially) more gravity than the same one with the battery run down since it has more energy (and thus mass), despite the same number of particles.
surreptitious57
Posts: 4257
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:09 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by surreptitious57 »

Photons are massless particles. Or else they would not be capable of travelling at light speed. The mass
is associated with their momentum. They have zero rest mass because their speed in vacuum remains a
constant but changes when encountering a difference in density. Such as from air to water for example
User avatar
Noax
Posts: 672
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 3:25 am

Re: What are mass and energy?

Post by Noax »

surreptitious57 wrote:Photons are massless particles. Or else they would not be capable of travelling at light speed. The mass
is associated with their momentum. They have zero rest mass because their speed in vacuum remains a
constant but changes when encountering a difference in density. Such as from air to water for example
Apparently the mass (momentum/velocity) of a thing is the sum of its fixed rest mass and its frame-dependent relativistic mass. Photons have none of the former so the mass of the photon is only its relativistic mass, which interestingly is still frame dependent.

For me to say 'photons have mass' is somewhat ambiguous since rest-mass (not total mass) is usually suggested by the general term. I stand corrected.
Post Reply