Norman Wells wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:


"Norman Wells" wrote in message
...

Look, his formula can be used to calculate the energy that could
theoretically be released from a certain mass, or to calculate the
mass that could be formed from a certain amount of energy. And you
can do that with any mass or any amount of energy at any time. But
those calculations only have any significance or relevance if what
you're doing is actually converting mass into energy or vice versa.
And mass is not actually converted into energy on earth in any
processes except nuclear reactions and radioactive decay, whatever
you may think.

It does raise an interesting concept.
If you feed electricity into a heating element in a good insulator it
will get more massive.
You should be able to measure that increased mass after a while as it
will be an impurity in the heating element


sigh. No it wont.

A hot atom of nickel has more mass than a old atom of nickel etc etc.

To test that, it's vital to have a definition of 'mass', isn't it?

You see, according to the definition in Chambers Dictionary of Science
and Technology,

Which is simply wrong.

mass is defined as 'the quantity of matter in a body'.

It isn't. Its defined precisely by Newtonian mechanics as the value of
the inertia of the object.

How can you MEASURE the 'quantity of mater' in anything?


That must mean that it's a direct measure of the number of atoms the
body contains, since all matter is composed of atoms. From that it
follows that, however hot any amount of something is, it has exactly the
same mass as it always had, because it always contains the same number
of atoms.

Whose mass varies slightly with temperature.

If you maintain, contrarily, that the number of atoms increases with
heating,

I never said that.

you should be able to tell us the nature of the atoms created,
and whether they're the same as those already there (if so why?) or
different (in which case what?).

The atoms are *not constant* in mass..


unless it becomes the same
element. If it becomes the same element you could grow rare elements.
Star trek eat your heart out TNP has invented the replicator.



Look Dennis, I dunno what your problem is: I have cited at least three
articles explaining all this, and others have been cited by others.

Get it through your thick skull: Energy has mass. Energy IS mass. No
nuclear transformations are necessary.

But there's a difference in fact between energy and mass

Not if you use the Einstein worldview, there isn't. Its merely how they
appear to you.

namely that
mass, ie matter, has a tangible physical form. If energy is converted
into mass, it must be converted into atoms or at least sub-atomic
particles. What atoms? What sub-atomic particles?


The confusion arises from your insistence that atoms and particles have
fixed masses. They don't.