Darren New wrote:
> Asking "can mass be converted to different kinds of energy" is like 
> asking "can different kinds of distances be converted to other kinds of 
> distances?"

The answer is, simply, 'yes'.  Metric distances can be converted to 
imperial distances.  A few grams of Uranium can be converted to a 
heaping mass of heat, light, smoke, radiation, et cetera, but is not 
inherently those things.

> No. That's what the = sign means. Heat energy is stored as mass. Nuclear 
> energy is stored as mass. Kinetic energy is stored as mass. Energy is 
> mass, mass is energy. All mass is energy, all energy is mass.

The important bit of this paragraph is "is stored as".  That's a vital 
difference.

> It's like saying "how do I convert my word-processor into a number 
> cruncher?"  You rearrange the patterns of bits. But there's no separate 
> word processor or number cruncher. It's the same parts (i.e., electrons) 
> in different places.

But it has a different function and appearance.  A number cruncher is 
not a word processor, in terms of how it is used.

> Put it this way: Do you believe in the conservation of energy? That 
> energy cannot be created or destroyed in a closed system? If so, where 
> does the extra mass come from when you accelerate something close to 
> relativistic speeds? Where does the energy you used to lift a brick out 
> of a gravity field go? (I.e., what *is* "potential energy" beyond just 
> words?)

I remember reading something along the lines of 'that's what time is'. 
Put simply, an object at rest moves through the 'time' dimension at the 
speed of light, which is why time appears to slow to nothing for the 
object as it approaches c.  So that's what potential energy is.  Time.

> There's no such thing as "energy" beyond a mathematical concept. The 
> different kinds of energy are different ways of measuring the same 
> thing. They are ways of calculating patterns of mass.

But they're more than just a mathematical concept, because they are 
tangible and can be perceived.

> Can you convert infrared light to ultraviolet 
> light? Sure. You don't even have to do anything to the light. Just start 
> moving real fast towards the source of the light.

But then you are doing something to the light there; you're changing 
your point of reference.  ;)

-- 
Tim Cook
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-empyrean

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