easel, my understanding of physics and maths is quite limited so maybe I can help from the point of view of a dummy.

You are thinking of energy the wrong way when you talk about potential and kinetic enery in relation to the theory E=MC^2 or E=M. Which I agree with FD is just as sensible way to put it.

Energy and Mass are the same thing. Think of Mass as frozen or solidified energy. (It's not really frozen or solidified only from a human subjective perspective...everything is in flux except at absolute zero) a reasonable but not accurate analogy would be to imagine the the different states of water - gas, liquid and frozen. They are all water.

It would not be incorrect to say that the only thing that exists is energy, in one state or another.

Being able to extract the energy from things is still for human technology still in a very crude stage. We have nuclear fission but are unable to work out a way of properly containing the heat and energy from nuclear fusion, this is what the sun does. It is a very efficiant way of extracting or more accurately converting energy from mass. The sun produces enough energy in 1 second to power the USA for 9 million years.

Apparantly, the most efficient place to convert mass into energy (theoretically) is at the point where mass encounters the Event Horizion of a Black Hole. All or near all energy is released. There would be enough energy released from one glass of water that it would probably meet ALL human energy requirements for a year. I read this many many years ago so details could be inaccurate and of course it was speculative science.

Relative to you, water that is moving has slightly more enery than still water - the kinetic energy. That's assuming all else is equal. Thus it is also slightly heavier, bu the quantities are insignificant. If you push on something to give it the kenetic energy, you are tranfering energy, and hence mass to it.

I suspect you are having trouble understanding because you still see energy only in the form of potential, kinetic or chemical energy. That is only just scratching the surface of the energy that is there. It's like you are trying to conceptualise the energy coming from the sun in terms of the power of a solar calculator, and asking what happens to the sun when you do a calculation.

No. Inertia and mass are not the same thing. Inertia is merely a property of mass. It is a way of measuring mass. Furthermore it is a Newtonian concept. I think inerita loses it's meaning in relativity. For example, as an object travels faster, it has more energy, therefor it's mass increases, therefor it's 'inertia' increases. It takes more and more energy or force to accelerate it further because of this increase in mass. Theoretically, the mass/energy become infinite as it approaches the speed of light.

Technically, mass, distance, time etc mean different things in relativity, than in Newtonian mechanics. At low speeds, the meaning is almost identical to the Newtonian concept.

freediver wrote on Jan 7^th, 2009 at 3:18pm:


Because c is not a 'conversion factor'. It's a constant, but it's not a dimensionless 'mathematical constant'.

You might as well say Coles = Woolworths. It would be just as meaningless.

c is the limiting factor in the relativistic universe. It's the cornerstone of Special Relativity, or the physical theory of measurement within inertial frames of reference. Basically it defines the way in which space and time are unified as spacetime. I like think of it like a kind of 4 dimensional pantograph that defines the x y z and t axes with the observer on one leg of the pantograph and the traveller on another. Lay it all out like that and it becomes inevitable. It's just a consequence of the maths.

OK, I broke my vow of silence.   

easel wrote on Jan 7^th, 2009 at 5:22pm:


1. Can I make this thread make sense ? no.

2. It doesn't need a heavy science background. All you need is a good grasp of mathematics.

You can describe Special Relativity without the maths but it only makes sense with the maths. You can get a sense of the consequences (Whee we have red shifts and blue shifts) but not a sense of 'why is it so'. To get an idea of 'why is it so' you have to do the hard yard.

This link explains it in more detail, but it's highly mathematical. It does give a good insight into Lorentz transformations though.

http://www.colvir.net/prof/richard.beauchamp/rel-an/rela.htm

This link demonstrates it in terms of thought experiments, but just in terms of consequences.  

http://aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p139/exp/gedanken.html

Special Relativity is often quoted by people pushing a religious barrow. I have never seen them actually get it right yet. It's a convenient way of lying through obfuscation on something that most people don't understand.

FD - Just to be clear, I am not accusing you of that.

freediver wrote on Jan 7^th, 2009 at 3:18pm:

Because Einstein was a Jew and is trying to fill your head with lies! lol!

But seriously though.. There is some contradictions though to what I see on discovery and other channels, and the energy only changes doesn't create or destroy theory.

A: If energy only "shifts" then technically the universe is forever. None of this "implosion" death or "cold theory". The universe simply renewals itself. Sure, life as we know it dissapears, but scientists are only saying half the truth without meationing "then it repeats the whole proccess!"

Thus, if energy "shifts", the big bang theory is false..


B: If energy isn't a shifting flow, and is simply dead or alive. Then this means that energy had to all the more be created from somewhere. Ofcourse we're not anywhere close to discovering all the sematics of the universe, so there very well could be a proccess in creating energy from "nothing". But I find that very hard to immagine.


Evidently when you get down to the hardcore physics, it takes more faith to believe in science then God. I don't even believe in quincidences in my normal day to day life, much less on a cosmic scale.