[IP] more on Brian Greene: That Famous Equation and You
Begin forwarded message:
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@xxxxxxxx>
Date: October 2, 2005 11:57:04 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Ip Ip <ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Brian Greene: That Famous Equation and You
Dave:
Non-physicists ought not to pontificate on physics. They end up
looking foolish. [JUST LIKE PHYISICS NOBELS SHOULD NOT PONTIFICATE ON
EVERY THING ELSE :-) DJF]
Standard relativity theory, as invented by Einstein, asserts that
mass and energy are equivalent, and that E=mc^2 merely describes the
equivalence.
To talk about "conversion" in a relativistic model is absurd. There
is no "conversion" - mass is energy, energy is mass. They are just
two views of the same thing.
The distinction only becomes possible when one is trying to describe
how one corrects classical physical descriptions (in which mass and
energy are distinct) to explain violations of the conservation of
energy and conservation of mass, which are unified in relativity
theories, so there is a single conservation law.
Classical dynamics is what most engineers use, and it is quite
useful, so we don't teach children that mass and energy are the same
thing. But perhaps we should, now that 100 years of testing suggest
that relativity theory is a much more apt description than classical
theories that treat mass and energy as distinct.
"mass-energy conversion" is like the "epicycles" needed to explain
the trajectories of planets in a model where orbits are presumed
circular rather than elliptical.
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