Message-Id: <v01540b00b05ec5a0f467@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 08:51:30 -0800
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: pauld@exploratorium.edu (Paul Doherty)
Subject: Re: energy and matter
Hi Pinholers
here is the general background for Steve Eiger's thought provoking questions.
By the end of the 1800's there were the law of conservation of energy and
the law of conservation of mass.
Energy appeared in many forms, electrical, thermal, etc. all of which were
measurable in Joules. Energy could be converted from one form to others,
but the total quantity remained the same.
Just as the mass of the reactants in a chemical reaction equalled the mass
of the products.
Then at the beginning of the 1900's Einstein came along and discovered that
mass and energy could be converted from one to the other. Mass was a form
of energy. Mass by itself was not conserved, for example during a reaction
the mass of the products could be less than those of the reactants as some
of the initial mass turned into kinetic energy.
Steve's questions go much deeper than this but it's a start.
Paul D