Please give me answers in ways it possibly can be destroyed.
2007-11-01 06:30:00 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Not by normal physical or chemical processes. It can be converted to other forms or substances, but not destroyed. It can be converted to energy in nuclear reactions. When the nucleii of two atoms are fused together, the resulting mass is less than that of the two original masses. The difference between the two is energy, according to E=mc^2.
2007-11-01 06:40:35 · answer #1 · answered by chasm81 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It can be converted into energy. The total mass-energy, however, is a constant.
Every process that releases energy from a piece of matter makes it lose some of it's mass. If you compress a spring, it would have more mass than the uncompressed spring had.
If you heat a block of iron, it will be more massive hot than cold.
If you charge a battery, it will have more mass.
The reverse processes of cooling and discharging will remove mass.
Of course, the changes are minute because E=m*c^2 leads to an enormous baseline on which they happen.
If you want to do more, you have to look at fission and fusion.
Let's say you have a nuclear power plant. A typical one produces a power of 3GW thermal. Putting this into the formula we get a mass change of:
3GW / 3e8m/s^3 = 3e9 m^2kg/s^s / (9e16m^2/s^2) = 3.33 e-8g/s
In other words, a nuclear power plant is losing 33.3e-9kg/s.
That is 33ug. Not a whole lot but easily measurable on a lab scale. In 30 seconds it's a full mg. In 30,000s, some eight hours, its a full gram. Three grams a day... about 1kg of mass a year.
If you want even more than that... antimatter is your friend. Matter-antimatter annihilation completely converts all of the mass of the particles into massless photons. For an electron/positron pair you get about an MeV worth of energy in two photons. For a proton/anti-proton, it's 2GeV.
A ug of anti-matter would leave a smoldering crater where your home was. A kg and you have the equivalent of a large thermonuclear device.
2007-11-01 13:52:03 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Matter can freely be converted to energy and vice versa. It cannot be destroyed however. In a nuclear reactor small amounts of matter are being converted to large amounts of energy. The equation is E=mc^2. c is the speed of light, a huge number. Squaring it makes it a very huge number.
2007-11-01 13:48:43 · answer #3 · answered by JJHantsch 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
http://www.deepastronomy.com/how-to-destroy-earth-with-a-coffee-can.html
2007-11-01 14:10:31 · answer #4 · answered by tronary 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it cant be created or destoyed. that is a scientific law
2007-11-01 13:33:02 · answer #5 · answered by B Rizzle 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No.
2007-11-01 16:34:02 · answer #6 · answered by johnandeileen2000 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋