Any physicists out there?

[AnonCastillo]

Here's a tough 3-part question for anyone out there who has taken physics, regarding potential energy. Keep in mind that, as far as physicists know, the only way to create or destroy energy is through a matter/energy conversion in the ratio of e=mc^2.

1. Two atoms form a chemical bond with chemical potential energy. The two atoms are sent to different alternate universes where they can no longer act on each other. What happens to the chemical potential energy?

As far as I know, the answer is that when the chemical bonds are broken by their being separated, the chemical potential energy turns into kinetic energy/heat, each atom getting a portion from the bonds breaking so no energy is lost.

2. Two massive bodies are each acting on each other with gravitational force, and each has a certain amount of gravitational potential energy in relation to the other. In other words, if the two bodies were left alone with no other forces acting on them, that gravitational potential energy would be turned into kinetic energy moving them towards each other. Now they're both sent to different alternate universes where they can no longer act on each other. What happens to the gravitational potential energy?

As far as I can guess, nothing happens to it - the GPE never turns into any other form of energy, if it even still exists without the other body in existence in that universe to act out gravitational force.

3. Two massive bodies are each acting on each other with gravity, and each has a certain amount of GPE. One of those bodies is nuked into oblivion, all of its mass turned into energy (e=mc^2 here). Gravity is no longer pulling the two bodies together, because one no longer has a mass. What happens to the GPE?

As far as I can guess, one of two things is true: A. The GPE ceases to exist, in which case e=mc^2 is off by the amount of GPE that the mass contains, or B. GPE doesn't exist, so e=mc^2 is still accurate, but gravitational force has the ability to create and destroy energy.

Prove me wrong here.

[madcat82]

Here's a tough 3-part question for anyone out there who has taken physics, regarding potential energy. Keep in mind that, as far as physicists know, the only way to create or destroy energy is through a matter/energy conversion in the ratio of e=mc^2.

No, you cannot destroy or create energy (well, if we are to get picky we can on an cosmical level, and it is done constantly, but since few of us have black holes in our back yard...).

1. Two atoms form a chemical bond with chemical potential energy. The two atoms are sent to different alternate universes where they can no longer act on each other. What happens to the chemical potential energy?

As far as I know, the answer is that when the chemical bonds are broken by their being separated, the chemical potential energy turns into kinetic energy/heat, each atom getting a portion from the bonds breaking so no energy is lost.

A bit hard to hypotesis about, but according to my corridor mate (who happens to study physics yey), he would guess that the energy would end up as either an electron or kinetic/heat energy.

2. Two massive bodies are each acting on each other with gravitational force, and each has a certain amount of gravitational potential energy in relation to the other. In other words, if the two bodies were left alone with no other forces acting on them, that gravitational potential energy would be turned into kinetic energy moving them towards each other. Now they're both sent to different alternate universes where they can no longer act on each other. What happens to the gravitational potential energy?

As far as I can guess, nothing happens to it - the GPE never turns into any other form of energy, if it even still exists without the other body in existence in that universe to act out gravitational force.

This is quiet impossible to say at this time since we have little knowledge what gravity realy is.

3. Two massive bodies are each acting on each other with gravity, and each has a certain amount of GPE. One of those bodies is nuked into oblivion, all of its mass turned into energy (e=mc^2 here). Gravity is no longer pulling the two bodies together, because one no longer has a mass. What happens to the GPE?

As far as I can guess, one of two things is true: A. The GPE ceases to exist, in which case e=mc^2 is off by the amount of GPE that the mass contains, or B. GPE doesn't exist, so e=mc^2 is still accurate, but gravitational force has the ability to create and destroy energy.

Again I refer to my previous answere (actually my mate). You seem to be confusing positional energy with gravitation by the way. Let us say that it is actualy possible to turn a whole planet to energy, then the gravitational energy will effect the energy that you have turned the planet into (if it is light, the wavelength will become shorter for those rays going for the planet and longer for those going away from the planet, as an example).

Prove me wrong here.

I think I just did, but dont worry, we still like ya ::biggrin

[AnonCastillo]

This is quiet impossible to say at this time since we have little knowledge what gravity realy is.

Which makes it entirely possible that I'm right about gravity being able to create and destroy energy.

Again I refer to my previous answere (actually my mate). You seem to be confusing positional energy with gravitation by the way. Let us say that it is actualy possible to turn a whole planet to energy, then the gravitational energy will effect the energy that you have turned the planet into (if it is light, the wavelength will become shorter for those rays going for the planet and longer for those going away from the planet, as an example).

I think I just did, but dont worry, we still like ya ::biggrin

Not sure what you mean by positional energy, but let me give a little better example of what gravitational potential energy is thought to be.

When you're standing on earth and you throw something up, gravity pulls it down until its speed is 0 at the top of the curve, then continues to pull it down until it hits something. From the time you throw it until it hits the top of the curve, the kinetic energy of the upward throw is being converted to GPE. Once it begins falling back down, the GPE is being converted back into kinetic energy.

This means that in order for one thing to be moved by another with gravity, it has to have GPE equal to the object's mass times the distance between them times the acceleration due to gravity in order for that GPE to be turned into kinetic energy as the two things pull on each other. That means every particle in existance with any mass at all would have to have GPE in relation to every single other particle in existence in order for them to be affected by gravity.

If that's the case, then every single object in existence has a huge amount of GPE limited only by the amount of mass in existence.

So if we're turning an entire planet into energy, and that gravitational energy is affecting the energy being created, we're talking about an incredibly large difference in energy - in other words, e=mc^2 would have to be off by a lot to account for all the gravitational potential energy. Either that or when energy is released from this kind of event, it is the GPE being turned into kinetic energy when mass is destroyed, but to me that seems unlikely, and either way that doesn't explain what happens to the GPE in every single other object that was being pulled by the mass of the object being destroyed.

So I'm not satisfied with your disproval, but don't worry, I still like ya.

[Alex Green]

The part you keep leaving out is where you add energy into the system.

RE: D-Shift.

Moving something into another dimention takes energy.

RE: Planet converted into energy.

The gravitational/chemical potentials are now heat... (and you used lots and lots of energy to make this change). Add up everything and you will find it balances.

[AnonCastillo]

The part you keep leaving out is where you add energy into the system.

RE: D-Shift.

Moving something into another dimention takes energy.

True (assuming moving something to another dimension is even possible), but that energy comes from somewhere else - the question here is what happenes to the gravitational potential energy, if the energy to move the objects to alternate dimensions is coming entirely from another source? Or if only one of the objects is moved, and the other object isn't directly affected and therefore the energy isn't being drained by the process, where does the GPE go?

RE: Planet converted into energy.

The gravitational/chemical potentials are now heat... (and you used lots and lots of energy to make this change). Add up everything and you will find it balances.

Perhaps, but how is the GPE becoming heat? Gravity isn't pulling it and turning it into heat. And even if it is, that only explains what happens to the GPE of that object, what about the GPE of everything that its gravity was acting on? Does the destruction of that bit of matter also somehow affect the GPE of all matter in the universe (since it all has some GPE relative to that object)?

You're right about the chemical energy being turned into heat - as soon as the bonds break, that energy goes somewhere. However, there's a big difference between chemical potential energy and gravitational potential energy in this situation. With CPE, if one atom simply ceased to exist, only a portion of the CPE would be lost with it; the rest would be released onto the remainder of the molecule. With GPE, if one atom simply ceased to exist, not only does that atom's GPE cease to exist, but the GPE of every atom that was attracted to it by gravity would be reduced slightly. How can it steal away some GPE from every atom in the universe unless an object's GPE is somehow stored in the object it's attracted to, rather than itself? And if that's the case, then why does the GPE of the object being destroyed disappear if it's stored in other matter?

The simplest answer here is that GPE doesn't actually exist, and gravity has the ability to create and destroy energy.

[SkyLion]

At first I wasn't going to say anything cuz what doI know, but y'all have seemed to take the plunge, ahem...

First of all, what you are calling gravitational potential energy IS potential energy...ie throwing something further out from the gravity well and it will have the tendency to fall back into it. Potential energy is the relative distance between an object and the source of the gravity well. Its my understanding that from what we know of "that force named gravity" is that it is either 1.) Massive objects (actually anything with mass) affecting the curvature of space-time OR 2.) It actually IS the curvature of space-time giving the illusion of relative mass. In other words Gravity ISN'T an "energy source" that can be created or destroyed or create or destroy energy, rather it is a property of the self-existing energy-as-mass throughout the known universe. Also interesting to note...you and I have gravity, its just too weak to notice and also that gravity has infinite range. Gravity fields affect the entire known universe. simply put, everything in the universe is gravitationally connected and affecting everything else. As the moon revolves around the Earth and the sun around the galaxy, so are the galaxies spinning and whirling about affecting each other. My roomie and I sometimes discuss sciences preconceptions of gravity and that it is a likely key to a grand-unification theory.

How this applies to your question is that by removing a massive object like a planet to another dimension (which may or may not take energy to do depending on how you define dimension shifting..its my understanding that multiple dimensions aren't separate 3/4D universes but higher and lower levels of universal order. IE we actually exist in the 3rd/4th dimension, if we were strictly 3D there would be no motion only location) The gravity well of the mass that was D-shifted (to a "parallel universe") would cease to exist in our dimension and would instantly effect whatever was in the "new" dimension...potentially a bad idea if its near other celestial bodies...as the saying goes, if God were imprecise, the planets would fall out of their orbits...and into each other...Meanwhile back in our dimesnion the balance of gravities on the remaining celestial bodies would be thrown into havoc until an equilibrium reestablished itself (which cold also be catastrophic)...why Anon? What are you planning to do?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! ::ohmy

Shave and a haircut... ::tongue

[madcat82]

Which makes it entirely possible that I'm right about gravity being able to create and destroy energy.

Not sure what you mean by positional energy, but let me give a little better example of what gravitational potential energy is thought to be.

Yes, on the other hand it has about as much validity as I claim that the color blue is able to create and destroy energy. Without proof a theory, how valid it might seem, is still only a theory.

Positional energy is explained by the following formula (if i remember my physics right) dgm

where d is the distance of the object in question (the gravity well in our examples, or the planets distance to the other planet), g is the gravitational constant (for earth it is 9.82) and m is the mass of the body we are calculating on.

When you're standing on earth and you throw something up, gravity pulls it down until its speed is 0 at the top of the curve, then continues to pull it down until it hits something. From the time you throw it until it hits the top of the curve, the kinetic energy of the upward throw is being converted to GPE. Once it begins falling back down, the GPE is being converted back into kinetic energy.

This means that in order for one thing to be moved by another with gravity, it has to have GPE equal to the object's mass times the distance between them times the acceleration due to gravity in order for that GPE to be turned into kinetic energy as the two things pull on each other. That means every particle in existance with any mass at all would have to have GPE in relation to every single other particle in existence in order for them to be affected by gravity.

I think we are talking about the same things here, however there is a fault in the logic you use. You see, we are discussing large scale systems, whom Newtonian physics have very little to mention about, since it only works on small scale systems. Number two, we dont know enough about gravity to say that every particle in existance effects all other particles (Big bang theory), it might be right, it might also be wrong (and since gravity propagetes with the speed of light, and assuming a universe with finit time (or at least one where matter have existed for a finit amount of time, witch is not that hard to prove) that is highly unlikely).

If that's the case, then every single object in existence has a huge amount of GPE limited only by the amount of mass in existence.

So if we're turning an entire planet into energy, and that gravitational energy is affecting the energy being created, we're talking about an incredibly large difference in energy - in other words, e=mc^2 would have to be off by a lot to account for all the gravitational potential energy. Either that or when energy is released from this kind of event, it is the GPE being turned into kinetic energy when mass is destroyed, but to me that seems unlikely, and either way that doesn't explain what happens to the GPE in every single other object that was being pulled by the mass of the object being destroyed.

So I'm not satisfied with your disproval, but don't worry, I still like ya.

Again, you use newtonian physics together with the theory of relativity (whom are at the opposit ends of the scientific spectra). Once we start looking at macro physics you can generaly toss newtonian physics out the door since it starts to affect the very foundations of what newtonian physics are built on, such as time and space (and might I include that you are only using the general theory of relativity, and not the special whom are much more complex and therefor might take this into acount, however I am unsure since I dont know it and neither does my corridor mate).

Im sorry if you had the impression that I disliked or disaproved of you, that was not my intention, sorry *feels sheepish*.

True (assuming moving something to another dimension is even possible), but that energy comes from somewhere else - the question here is what happenes to the gravitational potential energy, if the energy to move the objects to alternate dimensions is coming entirely from another source? Or if only one of the objects is moved, and the other object isn't directly affected and therefore the energy isn't being drained by the process, where does the GPE go?

The best quess that I can give you is that two things will happen, the first is that the gps in the planet would start to affect those things in the other dimension, the other is that an "anti-wave" of gravitation would hit all other particles that where affected by the planets gravitational pull in the first place, however since this is only speculative and since I dont understand the full implications of movinga planet to another dimension (neither does anyone on this planet me things) its a little hard to have theories about it. ::biggrin

You're right about the chemical energy being turned into heat - as soon as the bonds break, that energy goes somewhere. However, there's a big difference between chemical potential energy and gravitational potential energy in this situation. With CPE, if one atom simply ceased to exist, only a portion of the CPE would be lost with it; the rest would be released onto the remainder of the molecule. With GPE, if one atom simply ceased to exist, not only does that atom's GPE cease to exist, but the GPE of every atom that was attracted to it by gravity would be reduced slightly. How can it steal away some GPE from every atom in the universe unless an object's GPE is somehow stored in the object it's attracted to, rather than itself? And if that's the case, then why does the GPE of the object being destroyed disappear if it's stored in other matter?

The simplest answer here is that GPE doesn't actually exist, and gravity has the ability to create and destroy energy.

Phyicists have argued about this for quiet some time, its called the Unified Field Theory. As I wrote befor, you cannot assume this since it assumes that we fully understand gravity (which we do not, at least I dont).

Again, It is not my objective to give you the impression that I disliked or disaproved of you.

[AnonCastillo]

First of all, what you are calling gravitational potential energy IS potential energy...ie throwing something further out from the gravity well and it will have the tendency to fall back into it. Potential energy is the relative distance between an object and the source of the gravity well. Its my understanding that from what we know of "that force named gravity" is that it is either 1.) Massive objects (actually anything with mass) affecting the curvature of space-time OR 2.) It actually IS the curvature of space-time giving the illusion of relative mass. In other words Gravity ISN'T an "energy source" that can be created or destroyed or create or destroy energy, rather it is a property of the self-existing energy-as-mass throughout the known universe. Also interesting to note...you and I have gravity, its just too weak to notice and also that gravity has infinite range. Gravity fields affect the entire known universe. simply put, everything in the universe is gravitationally connected and affecting everything else. As the moon revolves around the Earth and the sun around the galaxy, so are the galaxies spinning and whirling about affecting each other. My roomie and I sometimes discuss sciences preconceptions of gravity and that it is a likely key to a grand-unification theory.

I agree, gravity is more likely a curvature in space-time than a force in the way that electro-magnetism is a force; however, this doesn't mean that it can't create or destroy energy. In fact, being rather different from electro-magnetism, it may not need energy in order to give energy to another object. Yes, everything with mass has gravity and is affected by gravity. Yes, throw something up and it will come back down.... give it kinetic energy, and that kinetic energy is steadily turned into gravitational potential energy until it comes back down and is turned back into kinetic energy. However, throw something up, and when it hits the top of its arc and has lost as much kinetic energy to potential energy as possible, then wink the earth out of existence. The potential energy disappears; the kinetic energy doesn't come back. How can the earth's lack of existence remove the energy of some other object?

How this applies to your question is that by removing a massive object like a planet to another dimension (which may or may not take energy to do depending on how you define dimension shifting..its my understanding that multiple dimensions aren't separate 3/4D universes but higher and lower levels of universal order. IE we actually exist in the 3rd/4th dimension, if we were strictly 3D there would be no motion only location) The gravity well of the mass that was D-shifted (to a "parallel universe") would cease to exist in our dimension and would instantly effect whatever was in the "new" dimension...potentially a bad idea if its near other celestial bodies...as the saying goes, if God were imprecise, the planets would fall out of their orbits...and into each other...Meanwhile back in our dimesnion the balance of gravities on the remaining celestial bodies would be thrown into havoc until an equilibrium reestablished itself (which cold also be catastrophic)...why Anon? What are you planning to do?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! ::ohmy

Shave and a haircut... ::tongue

I'm an evil genius, what can I say? ::devil

However, you're kind of missing the point - the shift to another dimension isn't the important part of the question, the important part is what happenes to the gravitational potential energy when the source of the gravity that makes that potential energy possible disappears. But you do kind of address that - when the object changes dimensions, its gravity goes with it, and with that goes some of the gravitational potential energy of every object in the universe with any mass. Depending on how big or small an object it is, this could wreak some serious havoc, but as long as you don't remove too much mass too close to other celestial bodies, it shouldn't be too bad.

Positional energy is explained by the following formula (if i remember my physics right) dgm

where d is the distance of the object in question (the gravity well in our examples, or the planets distance to the other planet), g is the gravitational constant (for earth it is 9.82) and m is the mass of the body we are calculating on.

That's gravitational potential energy. That's exactly what we're discussing here.

I think we are talking about the same things here, however there is a fault in the logic you use. You see, we are discussing large scale systems, whom Newtonian physics have very little to mention about, since it only works on small scale systems. Number two, we dont know enough about gravity to say that every particle in existance effects all other particles (Big bang theory), it might be right, it might also be wrong (and since gravity propagetes with the speed of light, and assuming a universe with finit time (or at least one where matter have existed for a finit amount of time, witch is not that hard to prove) that is highly unlikely).

Again, you use newtonian physics together with the theory of relativity (whom are at the opposit ends of the scientific spectra). Once we start looking at macro physics you can generaly toss newtonian physics out the door since it starts to affect the very foundations of what newtonian physics are built on, such as time and space (and might I include that you are only using the general theory of relativity, and not the special whom are much more complex and therefor might take this into acount, however I am unsure since I dont know it and neither does my corridor mate).

So make it two atoms pulling each other with gravity. They both still have some gravitational potential energy from the force of gravity pulling them towards each other over a microscopic distance. One atom is converted to energy. What happens to its GPE, and what happens to the other atom's GPE?

If I understand from your other paragraph, it would have to send out some kind of "anti-gravity" wave to cancel out the GPE of the other atom. However, that's an overly complicated answer - the simpler answer would be that gravitational potential energy is not a real form of energy. It's a mathematical construct that was made up so that it wouldn't seem as though gravity was creating or destroying energy. What is GPE, anyway? It's the amount of kinetic energy that an object would gain if it were fully accelerated by the gravity of another object. Without that other object to accelerate it, the first object gains no kinetic energy, so does the GPE even exist?

Im sorry if you had the impression that I disliked or disaproved of you, that was not my intention, sorry *feels sheepish*.

Nah, I said "disproval", not "disapproval". It's all good.

[Alex Green]

True ... but that energy comes from somewhere else - the question here is what happenes to the gravitational potential energy, if the energy to move the objects to alternate dimensions is coming entirely from another source?

Who cares? Energy is conserved in a system. Yes, you can convert one type of energy into another. No, that doesn't break any laws.

You've already said we are bringing in energy from an outside source to run this reaction. Theory says (as does all observations) the input from that source will balance any losses that happen with the others.

Its like I say I'm going to use my muscles to take a 50 lb bag from the roof of a 1 story building (10 feet) to the ground. You say the GPE changed, and ask me to figure out where it went. Well, it went away. I burned callories and my muscles heated up.

[AnonCastillo]

Who cares? Energy is conserved in a system. Yes, you can convert one type of energy into another. No, that doesn't break any laws.

You've already said we are bringing in energy from an outside source to run this reaction. Theory says (as does all observations) the input from that source will balance any losses that happen with the others.

Its like I say I'm going to use my muscles to take a 50 lb bag from the roof of a 1 story building (10 feet) to the ground. You say the GPE changed, and ask me to figure out where it went. Well, it went away. I burned callories and my muscles heated up.

But my point here is that if matter is converted into energy, that gravitational potential energy isn't preserved - it's lost. Yes, in moving a bag down 10 feet, some of it's GPE is turned into kinetic energy and/or heat to make up for it. However, if the source of gravity is removed, the GPE simply disappears, and that's where energy is lost.

If you have two massive bodies acting on each other, and body number one is converted completely into energy, body number two loses GPE because number one is no longer able to pull on it with gravity. That GPE is lost without being converted into anything. You can say body #1's GPE is converted into some other form of energy along with it's mass, but how does that account for the loss of GPE in body #2?

Thanks to everyone who's played along so far, you're helping me refine my argument a lot.

[Alex Green]

...That GPE is lost without being converted into anything. You can say body #1's GPE is converted into some other form of energy along with it's mass, but how does that account for the loss of GPE in body #2?

Gravity is generated by mass.

The loss of Gravity, and it's potential, generated by the loss of mass is balanced by that mass being converted into different types of energy.

Further, your idea is testable on the face of it. Every burning star constantly converts matter into energy. Black holes probably do the same when they absorb matterial. If the law of conservation of energy were broken by these types of events then I think we would have heard about it and meassured it by now (and yes, this is an appeal to authority, but it's a big appeal).

[SkyLion]

true...converting matter to energy doesn't change its mass or gravity...stars are mostly energy in volume, right...a constantly exploding/imploding force, gradually losing energy as heat and light until finally burning out, going nova (haha) or becoming a singularity.

[Nullifier]

Hey guys. In response to all of you who may have been wondering where I've been: mostly just living, going to school, that sort of thing. Long story short, I was having a very difficult time with certain personal issues irl, and I started saying things to people that were mean spirited for the wrong reasons. Not that I didn't have a lot of valid points, but I should have been nicer about it. To put it more simply, I was taking out my frustration over other things on here, and I'm sorry about that, and I realized I needed to take a little while away from playing games and concentrate on the more concrete aspects of my life. So here's a little update: I quit smoking cigarettes, did a bunch of pottery, learned a bunch of stuff about electronics, started rollerblading again, and am still living in a nice little apartment in southern california.

So anyhow, back to my regularly scheduled posting.

true...converting matter to energy doesn't change its mass or gravity...stars are mostly energy in volume, right...a constantly exploding/imploding force, gradually losing energy as heat and light until finally burning out, going nova (haha) or becoming a singularity.

Stars are mostly plasma, which is a state of matter that has its own properties (like solids, liquids, and gasses) and is pretty much just superenergized gas. Converting matter to energy does indeed change an object's gravity and mass, though not its total rest mass. In stars fusion converts matter to energy, because as the nucleuses of the atoms fuse a tiny, pretty much insignificant portion of their initial mass is converted directly to energy. Doesn't really matter that it's tiny though, because energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, and that plus the sheer numbers involved makes it possible that such insignificant amounts of mass are lost in return for the great amounts of energy created. Stars also lose mass through their solar winds and they're constantly radiating away tremendous amounts of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation: light/heat/etc, which also reduces their total rest mass. The gravitational potential energy exerted by the star is in effect converted into actual energy through fusion and then emitted, until the star meets its end in any one of a number of ways, or not, I suppose, given the right circumstances.

[BlueNinja]

After thinking about this, I'm wondering if the GPE is already accounted for.

I mean, if e=mc^2, that's a hell of a lot of energy (and IIRC, that's just a very close approximation, not an exact formula). So I'm betting that as you convert the matter, you're also converting hte GPE into a different form of energy (heat, light).

[SkyLion]

After thinking about this, I'm wondering if the GPE is already accounted for.

I mean, if e=mc^2, that's a hell of a lot of energy (and IIRC, that's just a very close approximation, not an exact formula). So I'm betting that as you convert the matter, you're also converting hte GPE into a different form of energy (heat, light).

I talked this over with my roomie, who knows a bit on such things. We both agreed its a non-sequiter...If you move something to another dimension where it no longer interacts, then there you have it, they no longer interact...

[Alex Green]

I talked this over with my roomie, who knows a bit on such things. We both agreed its a non-sequiter...If you move something to another dimension where it no longer interacts, then there you have it, they no longer interact...

Presumably you are also moving an equal mass into this dimension. It doesn't have to be another person, an equal mass of air would do.

So anyhow, back to my regularly scheduled posting.

Welcome Back!!! ::beer30 ::thumbup

[SkyLion]

Presumably you are also moving an equal mass into this dimension. It doesn't have to be another person, an equal mass of air would do.

Well, the way we talked about it, it doesn't matter. In order to move an object to another dimension, by definition you'll have to use enough energy to overcome whatever forces keep it here, whether gravity or a chemical bond.

[Nullifier]

Well, the way we talked about it, it doesn't matter. In order to move an object to another dimension, by definition you'll have to use enough energy to overcome whatever forces keep it here, whether gravity or a chemical bond.

::blink O.k., maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like there's no real 'energy' keeping matter and energy in this universe. If I were to hazard a guess as to what's necessary for shifting something into another dimension, I'd say that you'd have overcome the probability of it staying here on a quantum level. I'm not really sure what the effect would be on this universe but I suspect it would either be very straightforwards and direct, an amount of energy and mass in the form of heat, light, and various elemetary particles coming into existence spontaneously in the spot the stuff from this universe left, or very, very subtle, with the newly created mass and energy being distributed at random parts of the universe. That's all just speculation, of course, and novas can do pretty much anything, even if they violate all sorts of physical laws, so it's usually best just to make the description sound cool.... ::unsure ::rolleyes ::biggrin

Welcome Back!!!

Thanks. ::biggrin

[madcat82]

::blink O.k., maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like there's no real 'energy' keeping matter and energy in this universe. If I were to hazard a guess as to what's necessary for shifting something into another dimension, I'd say that you'd have overcome the probability of it staying here on a quantum level. I'm not really sure what the effect would be on this universe but I suspect it would either be very straightforwards and direct, an amount of energy and mass in the form of heat, light, and various elemetary particles coming into existence spontaneously in the spot the stuff from this universe left, or very, very subtle, with the newly created mass and energy being distributed at random parts of the universe.

Except that we have no proff that there are other dimensions like the ones you are talking about...

[AnonCastillo]

Nullifier, welcome back, and good post.

After thinking about this, I'm wondering if the GPE is already accounted for.

I mean, if e=mc^2, that's a hell of a lot of energy (and IIRC, that's just a very close approximation, not an exact formula). So I'm betting that as you convert the matter, you're also converting hte GPE into a different form of energy (heat, light).

That accounts for the GPE of the mass being converted to energy (which loses its GPE because it's no longer mass and can't be pulled on by gravity). What about the GPE of everything else in the universe that was being pulled on by it and loses some GPE?

[Nullifier]

Except that we have no proff that there are other dimensions like the ones you are talking about...

True... but there are several theories that account for the existence of other physical realities/universes. Also, in terms of keeping it all in this universe, string theory proposes a number of additional physical dimensions beyond the three we inhabit kinda 'twisted' at the subatomic level into this version of reality.

That accounts for the GPE of the mass being converted to energy (which loses its GPE because it's no longer mass and can't be pulled on by gravity). What about the GPE of everything else in the universe that was being pulled on by it and loses some GPE?

Actually, mass that's converted into energy is still affected by gravity. Recall that even light is bent by gravity and realize that most of the 'energy' created is in the form of light and heat, which is of course, just infrared light, meaning that pretty much all of the created energy is in the form of electromagnetic waves at various frequencies, which are, in fact, affected by gravity, although of course not nearly as much as actual mass is.

Because of the truly tiny amounts of mass involved, because the process is continuous, and because gravity decreases exponentially with distance, and because until it escapes the outter surface of the star any energy created still contributes to the star's total rest mass and therefore the gpe it imparts to objects around it, the loss of gpe through matter energy conversion in stars is not particularly detectable or significant over any short time period (like a human's lifespan, for instance).

[Alex Green]

Except that we have no proff that there are other dimensions like the ones you are talking about...

Certain quantum oddness (including some behaviors of light) is more cleanly explained by pulling other dimensions into the fold. There is a line of thought that says that the 'wave/particle dual nature of light' is garbage.

(It's been a long time so spare me if I'm off a bit)...

In the two-slit experiment with light, light works very differently if you measure which slit it passes through. Basically the two slits interfear with each other and cause a pattern of light on the backboard past the slits.

Someone did the '2 slit' experiment with light where he sent though a single photon of light at a time but didn't measure which slit it went through. He found that it behaved as through it went through both (still had the interfearence pattern).

So the idea goes that instead of 1 photon, we have lots of photons in lots of dimentions, but just average one photon in each.