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We know matter can be converted into energy. Can energy be converted into matter?

yes. In particle accelerators we constantly collide high energy particles like electrons together and produce even heavier particles such as muons, tau particles. They have higher mass because the original kinetic energy of the electrons is converted to mass.

Though most of those particles are unstable and decay to energy/other particles shortly
 
Natually radiation such as photons and neutrinos can be captured by matter. But they never quite end up as matter:
1) High energy cosmic rays bombard our upper atmosphere and create radioactive elements, or energy acquired to form molecules like ozone.
2) Matter sometimes capture energy from low energy particles such as low energy photons and neutrinos, but usually re-emmiting the energy as photons a short time later.

Really when energy is radiated to outer space it is spread out and can never be retrieved. Radiation can directly affect the kinetic energy of particle easily; But never quite enough to make matter in nature.
 
interesting...thanks!
I was just pondering this question tonight....the equivelance of matter/energy (Einstein) and was wondering about real world examples of energy becoming matter.
 
Plants do this everyday with sunlight.

Jumping into the fiction realm for just a moment.. if you've ever watched a recent episode of StarTrek(TNG or later), you'll probably have seen the food replicators in use - the idea being that one can simply call up an item such as Earl Grey tea and the replicator forms the desired item out of a set pattern of energy. Granted, the show is fiction, but the principle is sound - it's just that a single cup of tea would likely take an ENORMOUS(relative to us) amount of energy to produce.


 
Originally posted by: networkman
Plants do this everyday with sunlight.
Click to expand...

Planets do take in energy. But they DO NOT turn the energy into matter.

The photons from sun was used as a source of energy to break down the Carbon=Oxygen double bonds in Carbon Dioxide. I cannot recall the exact mechanism because it is very complicated. Yet I am sure that the energy was not used to create new matter. (You put CO2 + H2O in and get same number of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Nomore, no less)

It is true that the light energy(photon) is absorbed. But merely it is just converted into another kind of energy which we name chemical energy.
 
correct annilX...

The sunlight is stored on the bonds of a PGAL molecule where the plant stores enery...their form of ATP...but it does not turn anything into matter...

Very interesting question...I am sure it is possible, it makes sence in theory...maybe just not at this time becuase we do not know enough about energy in its _____ state.
 
Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
Originally posted by: networkman
Plants do this everyday with sunlight.
Click to expand...

Planets do take in energy. But they DO NOT turn the energy into matter.

The photons from sun was used as a source of energy to break down the Carbon=Oxygen double bonds in Carbon Dioxide. I cannot recall the exact mechanism because it is very complicated. Yet I am sure that the energy was not used to create new matter. (You put CO2 + H2O in and get same number of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Nomore, no less)

It is true that the light energy(photon) is absorbed. But merely it is just converted into another kind of energy which we name chemical energy.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected. 😱


 
Originally posted by: Capitalizt
interesting...thanks!
I was just pondering this question tonight....the equivelance of matter/energy (Einstein) and was wondering about real world examples of energy becoming matter.
Click to expand...

One of the most well known examples of mass to energy conversions can be observed in some kinds of nuclear fission.

Take for example, the fission of Uranium236.

n+235U -> 236U -> 144Ba +89Kr + 3n

This seems like a fairly uneventful reaction until you consider the mass on each side. The mass of the original neutron and the U235 is .185 AMU bigger than that of the products. This "lost" mass is converted into kinetic energy that causes the products to fly apart at very high speeds.

This does not violate conservation of mass or energy because when we calulate the sum of the rest energy and kinetic energy before and after the fission, we find that their sum is equal.

energy to mass can be observed in kinds of fusion.
 
Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
Originally posted by: networkman
Plants do this everyday with sunlight.
Click to expand...

Planets do take in energy. But they DO NOT turn the energy into matter.

The photons from sun was used as a source of energy to break down the Carbon=Oxygen double bonds in Carbon Dioxide. I cannot recall the exact mechanism because it is very complicated. Yet I am sure that the energy was not used to create new matter. (You put CO2 + H2O in and get same number of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Nomore, no less)

It is true that the light energy(photon) is absorbed. But merely it is just converted into another kind of energy which we name chemical energy.
Click to expand...

Well, if we're splitting hairs... 🙂

Even chemical reactions convert energy into mass. Splitting CO2 up into a C and two O requires energy. If you weighed a CO2 molecule, pulled it apart, and then weighed the C and O atoms, you'd find that the separated atoms weighed more. This is an extremely fine detail though 🙂
 
Originally posted by: silverpig
Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
It is true that the light energy(photon) is absorbed. But merely it is just converted into another kind of energy which we name chemical energy.
Click to expand...

Well, if we're splitting hairs... 🙂

Even chemical reactions convert energy into mass. Splitting CO2 up into a C and two O requires energy. If you weighed a CO2 molecule, pulled it apart, and then weighed the C and O atoms, you'd find that the separated atoms weighed more. This is an extremely fine detail though 🙂
Click to expand...

In fact, that's where most mass comes from--it's energy at one level of perception, but considered mass at another. For example, and up quark and a down quark together form a pion, which a mass of about 139 MeV, but two up quarks and a down quark together form a proton, with a mass of about 938 MeV. The difference comes from the binding energies and the kinetic energy of the quarks and virtual gluons inside the proton.
 
I would assume that since nuclear fission is the process by which matter is converted to energy, nuclear fusion would convert energy into matter.
 
But.... fusion releases enormous amounts of energy - it doesn't use energy to create matter. Atoms coming together is not creating matter out of energy; the matter was already there.
 
It depends on what elements you're using. Fusion using elements below iron creates energy from matter. Fission in this region creates matter from energy. For elements above iron, the opposite is true. Thus, both fusion using hydrogen atoms and isotopes (to create helium) and fission using uranium create energy. If you were trying to use fusion to create uranium, though, you'd lose energy (and gain matter in the form of uranium) in the process.

Chuck Hsiao
Amptron
 
Energy to matter is happening everywhere there is energy. Pretty near nothing in the universe is irreversible (usually it looks that way coz the reverse reaction is very very improbable). BAsically anywhere there is energy (electromagnetic waves, gravity waves, whatever) there can be spontaneous generation of mass. But since the mass would only exist for the briefest of time before the particle/antiparticle annihilate each other to re-release the energy its tough to observe. It is one of the theories on how black holes could manage to radiate energy which I think is fun 🙂
 
Originally posted by: networkman
Plants do this everyday with sunlight.

Jumping into the fiction realm for just a moment.. if you've ever watched a recent episode of StarTrek(TNG or later), you'll probably have seen the food replicators in use - the idea being that one can simply call up an item such as Earl Grey tea and the replicator forms the desired item out of a set pattern of energy. Granted, the show is fiction, but the principle is sound - it's just that a single cup of tea would likely take an ENORMOUS(relative to us) amount of energy to produce.
Click to expand...

I thought the replicators were supposed to take a bunch of raw materials and combine them to make whatever you wanted. I had the "technical documentation" for Enterprise, but no longer, alas. 😛
 
Chemical reactions are usually considered in terms of the energy involved, but it is entirely equivalent to consider them in terms of mass. Namely that an exothermic reaction removes mass and an endothermic (like photosynthesis) produces is. I wouldnt call it a fine detail at all... a fundamental part of nature, perhaps!
 
I am WAY out of my league here, but i'll cast my opinion anyway.

IMO, energy can be used in a reaction that produces mass, however actuall particles of energy cannot be exchanged for mass.

I think this is largely because energy is as the driving force behind the reactions between particles of mass and for this reason they cannot actually react as mass.

correct me if im wrong but i believe something has to be mass before it can be converted (using energy) into another form of mass...

Im prob wrong. 😀
 
I know how to create matter from energy...
Take the kinetic energy of a man thrusting into a woman... and 9 months later... some matter the size of a baby appears.
 
Originally posted by: FreemanHL2
I am WAY out of my league here, but i'll cast my opinion anyway.

IMO, energy can be used in a reaction that produces mass, however actuall particles of energy cannot be exchanged for mass.

I think this is largely because energy is as the driving force behind the reactions between particles of mass and for this reason they cannot actually react as mass.

correct me if im wrong but i believe something has to be mass before it can be converted (using energy) into another form of mass...

Im prob wrong. 😀
Click to expand...

Photons can spontaneously form electron/positron pairs.
 
No they cant*. Violation of CoM.

They need some kind of intermediary momentum sink. Not that it is involved otherwise, and the FD rightly(?) leaves it out.


*always
 
E=mc^2.

All these bright people, and I am the first to post this here?

Energy = matter at the speed of light squared.

English version:
An enormous amount of energy can be used to create a tiny amount of matter, out of nothing but energy.

Of course, the inverse is also true. A little matter turns into tons of energy. The energy released by a nuclear weapon (fission or fusion) is is from the annihilation of a few neutrons.
 
Looking at it from an entropy point of view, I would consider mass as more ordered than energy. This would definately make energy -> mass a less favorable process.
 
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