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e=mc2
Bulli:
yes but splitting more(increased mass) atoms creates more energy...hence energy = massX the speed of light squared. And im sure the average student contains more than 20 X the destructive force in little boy.If you could trigger the hydrogen into fusion.
My logic is simple: you cannot contain the reaction so you cant measure it accurately so to say its right is pure guess work...but if someone can show me different then im listening :wink:
thermidorthelobster:
But more atoms doesn't mean increased mass...
1 H2O molecule has exactly the same mass as 2 H atoms PLUS 1 O atom, apart from a very, very tiny difference indeed due to the energy the bonds hold when it's bonded (according to E=MC2). It doesn't matter how far you pull everything apart, the mass is still the same. If you were pulled apart into all your constituent atoms, your mass would still be the same as you whole.
It's not guess work at all. You can't easily measure the energy released by nuclear fission of a student, but you can measure it very accurately indeed for small particles. Put energy into particles in a particle accelerator, look at what's produced when you smash them all together, and you'll find the energy you started out with is the energy you end up with, minus the amount of mass you've created x the square of the speed of light. You can work out the mass & velocity (hence energy lost to speed) of the resulting particles very accurately by measuring how they're deflected in an electric field.
There are other implications of E=MC2 as well - such as the amount of energy needed to accelerate things to very high velocities - which can be tested, and have been, in thousands of experiments. Each time it's tested, the results are as they would be if the formula was accurate. This doesn't mean it's right; but it means it's not wrong yet.
Wolfie:
MIT have done some detailed research into the validity of the theory, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/emc2.html seems to be pretty accurate. But there again it does still remain only a theory.
diggerdog36:
But iwas it not Einsteins wife that came up with the Theory of Relativity. What does HE know???
thermidorthelobster:
Here's an article from New Scientist which describes how it's been tested to be accurate to 5 parts in 10 million.
Science can't actually PROVE anything, as yer man Popper quite correctly pointed out. You can say all swans are white, and you can be fairly damn sure that's the case, but one black swan blows it all apart. We can't "prove" that the sun will rise tomorrow morning; all we can do is be pretty sure that it will, by making up theories, testing them and finding they're not disproven.
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