Mass is an interaction

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by arfa brane, Oct 20, 2019.

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  1. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Energy, like momentum, is a property that is conserved in any interaction or transformation process, be it a chemical reaction, a subatomic particle reaction or a simple collision.

    Subatomic particle processes, including annihilation, produce radiation and/or different particles. Both radiation and new particles have energy and momentum, amongst their various properties.
     
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  3. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    So when actual scientists use the phrase "a form of energy", or when people who think they're scientists use the same phrase, they mean a form of a property?
    That seems so meaningful, somehow.

    The different forms of energy that James R listed, these are just different forms of a property?
    This idea that energy can be converted is bollocks, you think?

    And this idea that mass is a property of objects, that means the Higgs interaction is probably bollocks, right? How can a property be an interaction? It doesn't sound right.

    But it is right, mass is a 'property' that fundamental particles have because they interact with a field. Mass-energy is an interaction (with a scalar field) which is 'conserved'.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2019
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  5. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Yes a form of energy is a form of a property. We all know there are different types of energy and everyone but you knows energy is a conserved property.

    I'd be mildly entertained if you can take me through the logic by which you deduce that I don't think energy can be converted.

    As for the Higgs interaction, I am unclear why you think it cannot give rise to a property called mass.

    But this thread is becoming a classic of its kind. It reminds of one of my all-time favourites: Motor Daddy and the Motor Boat:http://www.sciforums.com/threads/the-motor-boat.134874/page-15#post-3081721

    15 pages of utter shit from someone who just could not get his head round a perfectly simple idea. How we laughed.

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  7. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Energy is a conserved interaction. Everyone but you knows that. Everyone knows that energy may be conserved, but isn't always conserved, except you. How do I know? I don't, but it makes me feel better saying things about you which are based on, well, not much, really. How is it for you when you do it?

    An interaction is also called a virtual particle, everyone but you knows that.
    I'm equally unclear as to why you think I think the Higgs interaction (or exchange of virtual bosons) cannot give rise to a property called mass.
    Perhaps you don't appreciate the level of sarcasm I'm capable of.

    Perhaps you agree with James R's thesis that no particle is a form of energy. In that case, how is mass a form of energy if mass is an interaction, an exchange of virtual particles?

    Why trot out what you trotted out? Why do you think it's relevant to the origin of particle rest mass? I read it and my only reaction was sarcasm, it looked very much as if I was being admonished. Who the hell are you, and why should I pay any attention, though? Especially since I'm so busy laughing at you?
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2019
  8. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    But James, your claim is false. I haven't said a particle "is" energy, other than to make the word "energy" agree with "a form of energy". Kinetic energy is energy, but energy doesn't, and in fact cannot, exist "by itself". But you're looking for evidence that I don't have your understanding of physics. You want to find any crack in the logic you can pounce on.

    And that's in the absence of any critical appraisal of your own logic. You say energy is a property of particles, so that must mean particles are something else.
    But you continue to avoid the question: is the energy of a particle a form of energy? Of course it is.

    Given that energy can be converted from one form to another, the Higgs boson decaying must be an example of conversion. Any decay of any particle must convert the energy of the particle into another form. But, no particle is a form of energy, Schrodinger was mistaken, Einstein too, according to you.

    Einstein's paper says that the inertial mass of a body depends on its internal energy. Increase the energy with say, some infrared photons (although these carry energy, they aren't a form of energy, eh James?), the body heats up and its inertia increases. But, according to James R, that's ridiculous because a number can't have inertia.

    So clearly, physics is in need of some reviewing! Thanks James . . .
     
  9. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    You can and will do as you please, I have no doubt. I look forward to the next 5 pages of incoherent rubbish from you. Motor Daddy, eat your heart out.

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  10. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Unlike you, who needs to follow someone?
    Fuck off, noddy.
     
  11. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    So what? What the fuck does that have to do with conserved rest mass, of a particle which interacts with the Higgs field?
    When the particle is a Higgs boson and it decays into two photons (you know all about that right?), the photons don't have mass, they don't interact with the field; photons don't interact with electric or magnetic fields either. Nonetheless, energy is conserved--the mass of the Higgs boson is converted into another form of energy, right?

    Or is that too incoherent?
    How about, since the photon is massless, it is truly independent of other fields; a photon is not a particle propagating in an EM field. A photon is an oscillation of a localised EM field; so actually the photon is this oscillating, localised EM field with an amplitude h. That's why it's ok to say a photon carries energy around; the energy is the electromagnetic energy of the field oscillations, and this energy propagates independently--it doesn't interact with an EM field, it interacts with the vacuum by propagating in it.

    But you think I'm talking rubbish, which is why I think you are most likely some kind of idiot. So please, just fuck off and don't come back, ok?
     
  12. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    arfa brane:

    It is quite obvious that you are hopelessly confused. Here's a summary of your most recent erroneous conceptions:
    • Energy from a nuclear reaction can be turned into ("converted to") photons.
    • It is possible to put "stuff" in a bottle, and yet still have a vacuum in the bottle.
    • When particles are annihilated, other particles that result from that process are actually "forms of energy".
    • Mass-energy is an interaction.
    • Energy is an interaction.
    • An interaction is a virtual particle.
    • Mass is a form of energy.
    • Mass is an exchange of virtual particles.
    • The decay of any particle converts the energy of a particle into other particles.
    Every single one of these statements is wrong.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  13. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    So, let's work through the latest errors in a bit more detail. I have some spare time.

    What about it? No particle is a form of energy. Particles aren't energy. Energy is one property of particles, and they also have other properties. If particles were energy, then energy would necessarily have all the properties particles have. But it doesn't. Energy doesn't have spin, or charge, or speed. Particles have all those things. Ergo, energy is not particles. Q.E.D.

    "Forms of energy" are never "physical particles in motion". See above. Also, I'd be astonished if Schrodinger ever came out with a statement making that silly claim.

    Mass is not "converted" to energy in nuclear reactions. I can forgive you that mistake, because its a very common one. In a nuclear reaction, there are typically reactants and products. The combined masses of the reactants are different from the combined masses of the products, and the difference in mass is often associated with an increase in the energy of some other thing (possibly the products). That's what $E=mc^2$ is about (in part). We associated a given amount of energy with a given amount of mass. But it is an error to say this means that mass is energy, or energy is mass. Those two quantities have different units, for starters, so it's impossible for them to be the "same thing".

    It's not my fault that a lot of people are a bit sloppy when they talk about this stuff - even including some well-credentialled physicists. But anybody who says mass is energy, or energy is mass is technically wrong.

    You, arfa brane, make a worse blunder than that, of course. You say not only that mass is energy, but you also take the further step of saying that particles are energy, which is a category error. Particles have mass. Mass is a property, like energy. What you're doing is equivalent to claiming that an apple is the same thing as the colour red. I note, by the way, that you have completely ignored that point that I put to you in a previous post. Why is that? Why do you consistently avoid addressing certain topics and refutations in this discussion?

    If you like, we can agree that a number with units is not "just a number". I'll concede that point. One metre is not the same thing as the number one.

    Your misconception is more fundamental than this. You apparently think it is possible convert numbers (with or without physical units attached) into real physical objects, such as particles. You have so far not even attempted to explain how something like "1000 Joules" could ever turn into anything concrete, like an electron or a photon or ... concrete, say.

    "One metre", although not "just a number", is much closer conceptually to being "just a number" than it is to being a brick, say.

    Yeah, OK. Fair enough of you to ask me to do that.

    For the purposes of this discussion, I define "stuff" as "particles". A photon, by the way, qualifies as a particle.

    When I write 'Energy is not "stuff"', you can read 'Energy is not particles" if you like. Let's see how we go with that.

    Does that make things clearer for you?

    Can we perhaps agree that energy is not particles (and that particles are not energy)? [I'm not holding my breath here.]

    A true vacuum would have nothing in it, by definition. In reality, it is very hard - probably impossible - to make a true vacuum. It's those pesky virtual particles that keep popping up out of nowhere and disappearing in what's supposed to be a nice clean vacuum. So, when you say the "vacuum has energy", what you're really saying is that the vacuum has some particles in it, at least some of the time, and those particles have energy. If you think your vacuum can have energy without having any particles in it, you need to explain how that works.

    It occurs to me at this point that it might be problematic to define "stuff" as particles (which is probably why I used the word "stuff" rather than "particles" in the first place). I sense that you're about to argue something about "fields". Maybe a vacuum can have energy if it has fields in it, even if there are no particles. If you insist on going down that track, we can, but then my argument is the same as for particles: energy is something that fields have, not something they are. That is, energy is a property of fields, just as it is a property of particles.

    Since you're obviously confused about the relationship between fields and particles, too, I would prefer it if we could stick to discussing particles as "stuff" for now. But it's up to you. I must confess, I'm almost expecting you to go off on another irrelevant tangent here, while continuing to ignore your main error.

    I don't know about that. Potential energy is just one more "form of energy" among many. What would make one "form of energy" more fundamental than any other form of energy?

    Nowhere does he say that energy is particles or particles are energy, either. So he doesn't support your erroneous claim, either.

    Oh goody. Here we go again.

    Fine so far. The particles have energy. The energy of one lot of particles is transferred to another lot ...

    No. The new particles cannot "be a form of energy", because no particle can be a form of energy. Your usual category error, right there, again, in black and white.

    Yes. Notice how you're comparing apples and apples here, whereas before you were comparing apples and oranges, so to speak? Also, notice how you talk about "their energies", as if - shock horror! - energy was a property of the particles, rather than the particles themselves?

    If you insist on defending an erroneous position for hundreds of posts, don't you think you should at least try to maintain consistency in your own argument? A sign of your deep confusion in all this is in how you flip flop between correct statements and bizarre impossibilities, often in consecutive sentences.

    You say "recall" like that is something we agreed on previously. Strange. Ignoring the parenthetical remark, then...

    There's nothing wrong with the rest. Again you compare the Higgs energy to electromagnetic energy - comparing apples and apples, which is fine. Nobody has every disputed that one form of energy can change into a different form of energy. That's an accounting task, as we discussed earlier. We shift a number out of the "Higgs energy" column and put it into the "electromagnetic energy" column. Completely unproblematic. The problem would come if we tried to shift the number from the "Higgs energy column" and somehow create a real particle - a photon, say. Because then we'd have to ask the obvious question: how did the number turn into "stuff"?

    Bravo!

    Unfortunately, I now expect the inevitable backslide.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  14. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    More or less.

    If I were to say red and green are a "forms of colour", would that be somehow nonsensical? If I were then to say that an apple has a green colour, would it make sense to conclude that an apple has a "form of colour"?

    And would it ever make sense to say that an apple is a "form of colour" or that a "form of colour" is an apple?

    [*Caveat: some people will be sloppy and say things like "the apple is green", but we understand that they don't really mean that the apple is literally identical to the colour green, such that the apple and the colour green are indistinguishable. We understand that what they really mean is that a physical object - the apple - has a property called its "colour", which in this case is "green" (a "form of colour").]

    Are green and red just different forms of a property? Is the idea of a colour changing from green to red bollocks, then? (Think traffic lights, maybe.)

    That's a new category error that we can add to your collection.

    An interaction is a relation between two objects. Object 1 does something to Object 2 - that's an interaction. For example, the Higgs interaction gives an electron mass. Does that mean mass is an interaction? No. Mass is a property the electron gets as a result of this interaction. Or, rather, what the interaction did was to change the electron's mass (a property of the electron) from zero to a non-zero value.

    Yes, more or less.

    No.
     
  15. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Energy is not an interaction, so "everybody" who knows that it is is wrong.

    Another category error. Who are these unnamed "everyone" people who keep making mistakes all the time?

    *facepalm*

    It's hard to know where to begin with this, there are so many errors. I guess we could just list them (again): mass is not a form of energy; mass is not an interaction; energy is not an interaction; particles are not mass; particles are not energy; particles are not interactions. The list goes on and on...

    I see.

    Well, let's be clear with one another and we can finish up.

    You're now saying, after hundreds of posts where you say the opposite, that you now agree with me that particles aren't energy?

    Do you also now agree with me that photons are not energy?

    Do you also now agree with me that particles are not "forms of energy", and neither are photons?

    If we agree on all of that, I'd say we've made progress at last. Please let me know that the penny has finally dropped for you. Better late than never.

    Correct!

    I've never avoided that question. The energy of anything is a "form of energy". Energy is energy, regardless of how you categorise it into "forms".

    For me to deny that would be like trying to argue that the red colour of an apple is not a colour. It would be insane.

    Hold your horses! Where did I say that Einstein or Schrodinger was mistaken?

    Your interpretation of Einstein and Schrodinger might well have been mistaken, along with your other mistakes, but that's a different thing.

    If, by some chance, you were to produce an actual quote from Einstein or Schrodinger or one of those physics guys that said something like "particles are energy" or "photons are energy", then we would have discovered a mistake by those guys. But from what we've seen so far in our discussions, they were mostly pretty careful about their use of terminology to discuss the relevant physical concepts.

    "Depends on" in the sense that $m=E/c^2$, you mean? You mean the numerical values of the mass and energy are related?

    Or are you still trying to argue that mass and energy are the same thing?

    Right! You can't increase the energy of anything with photons. Photons are particles. They don't fit into an accounting book, and even if you can get them in there they won't change any numbers.

    But you mentioned a body. Is a body a number?

    No. I think it's only your misconceptions that need reviewing. Physics is mostly doing fine, as far as I can tell.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  16. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Thanks

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    That brought back some memories.

    Motor Daddy backed himself into a corner, arguing that it was impossible to determine the relative speed of anything in practice, then spent hundreds of posts essentially trying to convince us that rulers and clocks and speedometers have no practical purpose. Not that he necessarily realised that was what he was doing, of course.
     
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  17. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    I think you are wrong about that, James.
    The reason I think you're wrong is, you've already agreed that heat is a form of energy.
    When a gas has heat "added" to it, the gas particles have more kinetic energy, right?
    Is kinetic energy motion? I'm pretty sure it is.
    So me saying "particles are a form of energy", perhaps should be "particles in motion is a form of energy". Schrodinger says this in a published article: "the emission of streams of particles and other forms of energy" . . .
    So he was wrong too? Actually I think you already said he is wrong, according to you.
    What you say contradicts this:
    --https://physics.stackexchange.com/q...ass-converted-into-energy-in-nuclear-reaction

    Ok, that's two things that I think you got wrong. Wrong enough that you'd fail a physics exam, James. I can't be bothered with reading the rest of your "response" with all its "corrections", so let's see if you can deal with just these two things you got wrong.
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  18. Neddy Bate Valued Senior Member

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    I think the distinction that James R is making is that the physical particles in motion are not, themselves, the energy that they have as a property.

    And here, I think the distinction that James is making is that no matter was converted to energy. The binding energy showed up as mass before the reaction, and during the reaction that binding energy was released, so the mass measures less after the reaction.

    It seems that you are much more concerned with showing James to be wrong about other matters than you are concerned about clarifying your own ideas. James asked you the following questions, which I think would be helpful if you answered:

    Are you now saying that you agree with James that particles are not energy?

    Do you also now agree with him that photons are not energy?

    Do you also now agree with him that particles are not "forms of energy", and neither are photons?
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  19. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    No.
    No.
    For instance, from Wikipedia (please don't tell me this isn't authorative, or that sciforums is a better source, for god's sake):
    Also we have, from Albert Einstein:
    Now what?
     
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2019
  20. Neddy Bate Valued Senior Member

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    So you do not agree with the statement 'particles are not energy'. That strongly implies that you think that 'particles are energy'. Yet you also claim, "I haven't said a particle 'is' energy, other than to make the word 'energy' agree with 'a form of energy'."

    This makes your claims rather vague. I assume you are claiming "particles are not energy, but they are a form of energy," but I am not certain. Please clarify, if possible.

    I am not sure which part of your wiki quote you think supports your claims, (which as I said are rather vague to begin with). To me, the phrase "the radiant energy of light" means that the light has energy, not that the light is energy.
     
  21. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    I can't parse that, although I have tried.
    In a gas, the particles are in motion. This is called kinetic energy, in physics (you may already know that). Each individual particle in the gas is in motion, so each individual particle contributes to the heat energy of the gas. What does "the energy that they have as a property" have to do with it? What does that even mean?
     
  22. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    And when this radiant energy is absorbed completely, what happens to the light? This has been done to death here.
    What happens is, the form of energy that light "has", is transformed into a different type or form or kind, etc, of energy . . . right?

    Despite what James R has to say about it, Einstein claimed that the inertia of a body changes when it absorbs or emits electromagnetic radiation. But James R says this:
    But mass is a form of energy, the inertial mass of a body changes when light is absorbed or emitted. Bzzt! we have a direct contradiction.
     
  23. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    For christ's sake. Is a form of energy . . . energy?
    Is the energy of a photon--the energy it "has"--a form of energy?
     
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