Can someone explain the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy?

Question

Correct me if I'm wrong. Matter can transform into massless energy, and vice versa. Can someone explain how this is possible, if it is true?

It sort of contradicts with the Law of Conservation of Matter, but according to what I've heard/read, it is part of that law.

Answer 1

You are wrong. Massless energy does not exist. 1J of energy has a mass of

1J/(3e8m/s^2)^2=1.1e-17kg

If you charge a capacitor with 1J, it will gain 1.1kge-17kg in mass
.
If you heat heat one kg of water with 1J, you will end up with 1kg+1.1e-17kg of warmer water.

If you emit 1J of photons from a flashlight, it will lose 1.1e-17kg of mass.

The same photons will gravitate by that amount.

Answer 2

The Law of Conservation of Energy states that "Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed.."
>The best example for this is the sun where it gets its energy from the energy released by the fusion of Hydrogen atoms to form helium. Thus, matter can be converted into energy and vice versa

Answer 3

basically it states that you cant make or destroy matter. There is no way to end up with more or less than you started with. As far as with energy, it means that you cant loose energy, but it CAN seem that way because it is transformed into other types of energy, for instance, a softball hits a glove and appears to have lost energy, but in reality what had actually happened was that some of it was transformed into heat, sound, etc


With matter it can seem like you ended up with lessthan you started with at times, but this is only because that some must have been let of as gas etc.

hope i helped ya...

Answer 4

there used to be seperate laws of conservation for mass and energy. Then it was found that they were interchangable, so now it's one law combining the two.

If I say that there's only so much water in the world, and so much ice, then that's one thing. But if I then found that ice could become water, then I can say that the relative amounts of water and ice can change, but the total of ice plus water is constant.

Answer 5

see the law of conservation of mass doesnot hold when we consider the nuclear reactions. do u know the process of these reactions? a certain amount of mass gets converted to energy...so there is a reduction in the amount of mass...now lemme explain (i'll try my best) how matter is converted 2 energy...in this case energy is considered to be made of waves(like electromagnetic wabes and light waves) and so are electrons...during the reaction either FISSION or FUSION occurs..
in FUSION two nucleii join and gamma rays are emitted which constitute the enrgy part..you can understand that mass decreases as two nucleii(thus two atoms) join to form one,...thus the concept goes that soem part of mass has been converted to energy..
similarly in FISSION some amount of mass is produced with expenditure of energy(a nucleii splits into two)..
so to make the law of conservation valid in this case..the law of conervation of mass and energy is proposed..it states that mass and energy are inter convertible...but the total amount of mass and energy in teh world is constant..this summation never changes...
for your confirmation lemme tell you that there is an amount of energy always associated with electrons expressd in electron volts...
for further doubt clearance read some articles on nuclear reaction..you will understand how the conversion of mass and energy takes place...

Answer 6

Matter is neither created or destroyed and you can't return it without a receipt.