Recent content by AWolf

In line with that, the energy of the electron/positron is still energy when it is converted to that of a couple of photons, but the form has changed. Bare in mind that orbiting electrons can absorb/emit photons when changing shelves to increase/decrease their energy levels, so the form of the...

Your answers, including this one, all refer to the mass becoming energy. The mass was already energy before the annihilation. The box no longer contains any massive particles. The electrons and positrons, which have a radius of 2.8179 × 10−15m, no longer exist. All that is contained in the...

Is it still full ?

Filled or Full ? As the photons have no mass, they are considerably smaller than the original occupants of the container. Could more positrons/electrons be added to the contents of the box ?

Except when it comes to invariant mass and photons, which I would have thought would have been somewhat fundamental to what he does, and that even an at rest electron would have a relativistic mass. If a particle is moving at a velocity relative to another, then it will have a relativistic...

Not exactly accurate on two points. Firstly, a positron or electron that is completely at rest still has a relativistic mass which just happens to be equal to its invariant mass (also known as its rest mass). Secondly, if they are both completely at rest - not relativistic - then the two...

Whatever component of an electron that causes it to occupy a finite volume of space disappears when it is annihilated. The same goes for the positron. As we have been through in some detail, the invariant mass accounts for all energy and momentum before and after the event. The energy of...

Let me repeat myself, A photon does not have invariant mass. What you have with the result of the electron/positron annihilation is the invariant mass of a SYSTEM OF PHOTONS. See the difference here, not one, but more than one. My question though was not about the definition of invariant...

Both sources agree that a photon does not have invariant mass. Find a source that refers to multiple photons viewed as a system having no invariant mass and then you'd have a valid challenge, oh, but hang on a minute, Baez does mention multiple photons. The point about Relativistic Mass is...

I'm saying that a system of photons has invariant mass, as in the case of the two gamma rays resulting from the annihilation of the electron and positron. Hence why they must be viewed as a system. My initial question really referred to the Relativistic Mass, incidently which both the...

The invariant mass of the electron+positron before the annihilition is equal to the invariant mass of the TWO photons after the annihiliation. Invariant Mass is a method of basically ignoring the Mass bit by referring to the energy and momentum instead, it's not a way of cancelling out mass...

Doesn't the invariant mass refer to that of the system (electron+positron) taking into account the total energy and momentum of the system ?

The same amount of energy exists after the annihiliation as before. \Delta E =c^2 \Delta m is not what happened to the mass.

When the electron and positron are annihilated, spin and charge cancel each other out and the total energy at the end is the same as before, but what happens to the mass ? The two gamma rays produced have no mass, so what has happened to it ?

The mutual annihilation of an electron and a positron results in two gamma rays. Each gamma ray contains exactly the same amount of energy as the electron or the positron and all spin and charge is canceled out.