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E=m
So - if we have 1kg of mass - we can make
a certain amount of energy. If we have
2kg, we have twice as much. 4kg is 4 times
as much and so on. We can change the
amount of mass, and/or the amount of
energy. However by the balance principle,
we can convert any amount of mass into
an equivalent amount of energy. Equally
if we have some spare energy around,
we can make it into mass. So, with 1kg of
mass, we can make some energy. How
much energy? Well quite a lot. Lets put the
c2 back in. c is a big number - 300,000,000
m/s. c squared is an even bigger number.
8900,000,000,000,000,000 m2/s2. So this tells us a little bit of mass will make a lot of energy, or equivalently you need a lot of energy to make a little bit of mass. This is the principle of nuclear energy. Each
useful nuclear reaction loses a tiny bit of mass, and from that we get energy. It’s also true in chemistry but the fractions are that much tinier there. Equivalently at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) they
bang particles together with large amounts of energy, and are able to create new lumps of matter (and
anti-matter).
ICY SCIENCE | WINTER 2013- 2014