Matter can be destroyed?

Question

Is it true that matter can be destroyed? That mass can be changed into energy?

Answer 1

People get very confused over all of this.

Einstein demonstrated that mass and energy are not absolute measures, but relative. We are familiar with this sort of thing with potential energy - the PE of an object relative to you depends on how high above you it is, and is different to the PE of the same object relative to someone who is actually higher than you are. This is called a gauge - you need a reference point to measure the PE, you cannot define it in absolute terms.

Einstein and Noether showed that stress-energy (a quantity that combines mass and energy in a special, relativistic way) is a conserved quantity in special relativity (but NOT in general relativity). That means that - neglecting general relativity - this combination of mass and energy has the same value for everyone and does not change as a system changes. However, mass can appear as energy and vice versa.

The best example of this is that the actual mass of the particles that make up protons and neutrons is much, much less than the mass of the protons and neutrons themselves. The additional mass we see arises from the binding energy of these particles. It is some of this binding energy that is released in a nuclear explosion (and hence the mass we see falls a little).

But what about matter? You can already see that there is no simple map between matter and mass. The quarks that make up protons and neutron have specific mass in their own rest frome, but the masses of the protons and neutrons we see is that mass plus their binding energy. So we can see mass convert to energy without any matter being changed, or its rest mass changing.

However, matter can be converted to energy and vice versa provided the correct quantum rules are observed. There are many other conservation laws in physics that determine when and whether a matter to energy conversion can occur.

Answer 2

According to the law of conservation of matter no it can't

but according to special relativity it can as the Mass–energy equivalence

E=MC^2

Answer 3

Yeah. Mass can be converted to energy. That's what happens in nuclear power plants, atom bombs, and in the Sun and other stars.

Basically, in a nuclear reaction, what happens is that a radioactive atom splits into smaller atomic fragments, but the sum of the masses of these fragments is less than the sum of the original atom. The difference in the mass is what has been converted to energy. Its a really huge amount. That's why nuclear reactions produce so mush energy. In a reactor, nuclear rreactions have to be continuously monitored and moderated, otherwise the chain reaction quickly gets out of hand and there can be a meltdown!

Answer 4

Actually...Matter can not be destroyed. Only transformed. All matter that has ever existed, still exist. But sometimes in a differant form such as energy. So the answer to your first question is no. The answer to part two is yes.

Answer 5

Yes, and the formula is E = m * c ^ 2

E= m*c*c

where m is in KG, c= velocity of light at vacuum = 300 000 000 m/s

the result is in joules...

  

Answer 6

Yes, matter can be destroyed. For example when a particle and its corresponding anti-particle collide they both annihilate each other in a burst of energy.

Matter can be destroyed and converted into energy. The amount of energy released is given by Einstein's famous equation E=mc2, where c is the speed of light.

However, a particle cannot simply be converted into energy as the information it has such as its spin cannot be destroyed which is why its corresponding antiparticle is required. The antiparticle has the opposite properties and thus has the opposite properties. When annihilation occurs then the quantum states of the two particles balance each other out.

Answer 7

yes mather can be destroyed in two.one by delusion and colusion.

Answer 8

Sounds like you don't know Einstein's equation, probably the most famous of all equations:

E=mc²

where:

E = energy

m = mass

c = speed of light in a vacuum

The energy of just 1 kilogram of matter is enormous:

E = 1 kg * (3.0 x 10^8)² m²/s²

E = 9 x 10^16 joules

That is equal to 21,510,516 tons of explosives.

The Sun converts about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen to about 695,000,000 tons of helium, giving off 5,000,000 tons of energy in the form of gamma rays, every second.