Mass is an interaction

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

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  1. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    arfa brane:

    Of course I have a ready answer for that. Haven't you been listening? If photons, for example, are part of the universe - and I think perhaps we can agree that they are - and photons are not a form of energy, then it follows that - at the very least - the parts of the universe that are photons are not a form of energy. Since no other particles are forms of energy, either, nothing made out of particles is a form of energy either.

    My question for you is this: do you believe the universe is the same as a number? If not, then how could it be a form of energy?

    Yeah, and maybe you can't. Will we ever find out, one way or the other?

    Stop being precious. I'd never make a ridiculous claim of that kind, and have never made such a claim on this forum.

    For the purposes of this discussion it is sufficient that I know that particles are not energy. That's all that's necessary to dismiss virtually everything you have to say on the topic.

    If you already know how it gets generated (how what gets generated - the Higgs boson?), then why do you need my explanation?

    How much reading up have you done on the Higgs? I'm sure a little research would quickly turn up a description of its decay modes.

    I don't know what you mean by "ground energy".

    Which one? I don't recall saying anything Einstein wrote is a bizarre idea. On the other hand, I distinctly recall telling you that your incorrect extrapolations from Einstein's work were a bizarre idea. Don't try to blame Einstein for your mistakes; take ownership.

    Right. Since when did numbers have inertia?

    I don't know where you get this stuff from. I think you're making it up as you go.
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I suspect arfa does not realise that mass, too, is only a property of matter.

    Mass cannot exist on its own, without being the mass OF something, any more than energy can.

    I reckon the whole thread is nothing more than a long-winded - and naturally futile - attempt to trap you using Einstein’ equivalence formula

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  5. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    What if the particle is oscillating in some field? Then we have a particle--not a form of energy--which has . . . energy? Is a particle with energy a form of energy?
    Is the phrase "'a form of energy" physically meaningless in your version of the universe, James?

    You say that no particle is a "form of" energy; what you are saying, although you probably don't realise it, is that no field can interact with any other field in the universe. Which appears to seriously contradict observations.

    You're saying there are no degrees of freedom in any field; no interactions occur between "particles", because no particle can be a form of energy (whatever you think that actually means, what do you think it means, James?).

    And the question was, is the universe a form of energy ?. . . but now we seem to be looking at the question, what is the universe if no particle in it is a form of energy? What's your answer for us, James?
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2019
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  7. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to be conveniently unaware that Einstein published a paper called "Does the Inertia of a body depend on its Energy?" in 1905. What do you suppose this paper was about?
    Oh wait, you already told us, numbers can't have inertia, the idea is bizzare. Einstein published a paper about a bizzare idea . . . I wonder how he managed to get away with it?
     
  8. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Read what the OP says. Mass is not a property of matter, it's an interaction between quantum fields.
     
  9. Confused2 Registered Senior Member

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    I might be mixing models here but..
    The most (and least?) 'energy' the Higgs field can catch is the energy of the particle it has caught.
    Unless the Higgs field adds or subtracts energy the 'mass' of whatever it catches is m=e/c^2.
    So it looks to me like the Higgs field can either catch (interact, couple) or not - no half measures.
    If the total effective mass of the box (from previous posts) remains constant then the Higgs field itself doesn't add or subtract energy (or mass).
    Any thoughts?
     
  10. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    The Higgs field "lends" mass to certain particles, but you don't actually need it for the purposes of calculating the total energy in the box. Have you read Einstein's paper or a more modern explanation of it?
    That's more or less a tautology; if the mass remains constant then those particles which interact with the Higgs field continue to interact with it.
    On the other hand if massive particles are converted into massless particles the total amount of interaction with the Higgs field will change.
    So if the inertia of this volume of energy/particles in the box doesn't change, then inertia depends only on the total energy in the volume (according to Einstein, but what did he know?).
     
  11. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Us?
     
  12. QuarkHead Remedial Math Student Valued Senior Member

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    Not me. Count me out
     
  13. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    What's the difference between energy and a form of energy?
    In physics there are two fundamental forms of energy: potential and kinetic.

    But then you see explanations of the different forms of energy as being those that can be converted from one to another--heat energy is converted into electrical energy in power generators. Chemical energy is converted into explosive energy etc.

    But it seems there is only one form of mass-energy; all particles have the same kind of mass and mass is quantized.

    Now, Matt Stassler argues that there's a difference between matter and energy, in that matter-particles (matter-fields) can have mass-energy, and kinetic energy. So he says a massive particle in motion is carrying "mass-energy" around. Clearly the motion is not the particle. Also if this particle meets an antimatter particle and annihilates, more particles are generated, these also have energy and so, carry it around. I'm pretty sure that James R, maybe exchemist too, managed to agree with all this in a different thread.

    So does the whole debate revolve around the physical meaning of "a form of energy"? It doesn't seem that hard--energy can't exist by itself (maybe some of the intellectually challenged here, have thought I might be making that argument)--you need fields to "put" energy into, conceptually.

    Feynman talks about a number, it's the same number before and after "nature does its stuff". Taken literally, someone who isn't thinking too critically might believe he's saying "energy is a number".

    But he isn't really, he's not saying "a number of Joules", but that's obviously what he means. The Wikipedia article exchemist touted as a good explanation, puts Feynman's quote in context--he's talking about the total energy of a system. "The number" he cites tells us nothing about what happens, but "the number" is the number of Joules, which are physical units, not "just numbers".
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2019
  14. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Quite so. The reference to "us" seems to denote arfa alone, so far as I can see (now that his faithful dog has apparently buggered off

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  15. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, quite.

    Imagine what this place would be like if we all pretended to be politicians!
    Just think, it could be really pathetic! Posts with complete drivel in them! Random emotional outbursts with very little relevance to, anything!
     
  16. QuarkHead Remedial Math Student Valued Senior Member

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    Or worse, physicists.
    Thank goodness that never occurs here
    .....and no member describing another as a "numbnuts".
    No, we are better than that; it never happens.
     
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  17. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    arfa brane:

    You used the word "with" there. A particle with energy. That suggests that there's something to the particle that isn't energy. What do you say to that?

    No.

    Don't try to put words in my mouth. It's you who apparently does realise what I've been telling you for weeks now. My realisation is all good.

    I've said nothing of the sort.

    Well, it's got some particles in it, for starters. Last time I looked there was also a lot of empty space and stuff. Then there are fields and photons and lots of stuff, none of which are energy.

    I'm guessing it had something about $E=mc^2$ in it, where "inertia" is related to mass, and mass has an associated energy.

    If you think there's something in there about Einstein claiming that photons are energy, or particles are energy, or whatever, maybe you should dig up a relevant quote for us.

    Yup. What's the inertia of the number 2? What's the mass of the number 3.14159? See? Meaningless.

    I don't think he published any papers with your mistake in them.

    I already told you. A "form of energy" is just a partition of energy into convenient categories.

    Suppose I have a shopping basket with 12 pieces of fruit in it. I can say there are 3 bananas and 4 apples and 5 pears. The bananas and pears etc. are "forms of fruit", but they all count as fruit. If I'm counting pieces of fruit to make a total fruit count, I need to add all the fruit, regardless of whether it is bananas or apples or pears.

    Energy is no different.

    What about: chemical energy, nuclear energy, binding energy, light energy, heat energy, electrical energy, magnetic energy, elastic energy, internal energy, free energy, mass energy, food "calories", etc. etc.? All are types of fruit energy.

    Just goes to show the inherent danger in investing yourself too heavily in a metaphor. If I exchanged 1 banana in my fruit basket for 1 apple, I'd still have 12 pieces of fruit in the basket.

    We've already agreed that "mass energy" and "kinetic energy" are two "forms of energy", haven't we? There's a difference between apples and bananas, but both are fruit.

    An apple carries the colour red around. Clearly, the colour red is not the apple.

    If I cut an apple in half, now I have two half apples, and these also carry the colour red around.

    No. It revolves around your false claim that particles are energy. Your argument is like saying the colour red is apples or (more accurately) that an apple is the same thing as the colour red, or that you can "convert" an apple to the colour red, or vice versa. All nonsense.

    You've now had - how long? - weeks (or are we up to months at this point) in which to digest the point that energy isn't "stuff" and "stuff" isn't energy, but you're still as lost as when you started (or so you would have us believe). What's the sticking point for you? As you say, it doesn't seem that hard, from my point of view.

    A number with units is still a number. 1 kilogram is not an object; it's a measure of one property of an object. 1 metre is not an object; it's the length of an object. The colour red is not an apple; it's a property of the apple. Energy is not a photon; it's one property of a photon.

    Are you starting to get an inkling of an idea yet? Or still mired in hopeless confusion?
     
  19. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    What about your claim that no particle is a form of energy? What about you correcting me about infrared photons?
    What about you continuing to say that I'm claiming particles are energy. I can't recall that I've ever offered that argument; what I have said is the same thing Schrodinger says about "forms of energy". These are physical particles in motion. That is exactly what he means. When mass is converted into energy in nuclear reactions, the energy can be kinetic, or it can be in the form of photons. See, I used that word "form", there.

    I still don't really know what you think you mean, when you talk about energy and what it is. You seem to believe that Feynman was literally saying it's actually a number. A number isn't physical though. Numbers don't have physical units.
     
  20. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    A bottle with nothing in it is still a bottle . . . ? Look, Joules aren't numbers. Metres and seconds, they aren't either. The numbers attached to real physical units don't turn real physical units into numbers, that I've ever noticed.
     
  21. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Define "stuff". I can put "stuff" in a bottle which means there is nothing physical in the bottle except vacuum. As it turns out, this vacuum has energy (in this universe, at least). So it isn't really an empty volume, even though it's in a bottle. I can't put seconds in a bottle either, but because seconds are physical units this really doesn't say anything meaningful.
     
  22. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    From professor Matt Strassler:
    I understand that physicists tend to view potential energy as more fundamental than "energy of motion". And, I see nothing in Strassler's article that contradicts anything I've said. I also note he says nowhere that "energy is a number".
    That makes sense, physical "stuff" has numbers (usually real numbers) attached to it, by us. When we attach a number to something physical, oddly the physical thing stays just how it is, it doesn't change! At all . . .
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2019
  23. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    Why "no particle is a form of energy" has a few problems.

    When a particle decays, it ceases to exist. It gets annihilated, but energy is conserved so some new particles are created in the same instant.
    These must have the same energy as the annihilated particle. They are, or can be, another form of energy than the energy of the annihilated particle.
    The sum of their energies is equal to the energy of the annihilated particle. So if say, a Higgs boson decays into two photons, then Higgs energy (the boson is an interaction of the field with itself, recall) is converted into electromagnetic energy.

    But energy is a concept. Sure, but momentum is real and momentum and energy are both physical. A bit like how information and encoding (of it) are both physical.
    In fact just about everything in physics is a concept, so you can argue about what's real, or whether we see reality, or whether physics is reality, but you're going to be arguing about the meaning of "stuff". Information is devoid of meaning, fundamentally. Just sayin'
     
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