Can Technology Convert Matter to Energy and Vice Versa?

[superweirdo]

Have we been able to come up w/ a technology that can change a matter into energy or vise versa?

 

[pallidin]

I read somewhere that certain aspects of a nuclear explosions do just that, but only a very small percentage of the nuclear explosion energy is attributed to this type of conversion. But, most of the energy released in a nuclear explosion is from other reasons.

Even still, on the same line of thought, I would not be surprised to find some particle accelerator experiments which do this. But I'm not sure.

 

[koantum]

Have we been able to come up w/ a technology that can change a matter into energy or vise versa?

There is no such thing as matter in physics. That is to say, there is no symbol for matter in the entire formalism of physics. There is a symbol for mass, which isn't the same as matter. Basically mass and energy are the same thing, simply measured in different units. The natural units for both (as against their conventional units) are radians per second or cycles per second. You are asking about the conversion of one form of energy into another.

 

[mathman]

I read somewhere that certain aspects of a nuclear explosions do just that, but only a very small percentage of the nuclear explosion energy is attributed to this type of conversion. But, most of the energy released in a nuclear explosion is from other reasons.

No true! All the energy comes from conversion of mass into energy. However only a small percentage of the mass is converted (I believe that is what you must have read).

 

[nyx]

Have we been able to come up w/ a technology that can change a matter into energy or vise versa?

Yes, we are able to do it. I think that the best example is anihilation, that occurs in accelerators. It is when matter meets antimatter, and produces electromagnetic waves, which are form of energy.

 

[Rach3]

This is universal - the energy of electrons in molecular bonds contributes slightly to the total mass, on order of a single eV*c^2. Ordinary chemical processes involve tiny, tiny, changes of mass in the reacting chemical, which ends up as "energy" somewhere else. Note these are tiny amounts of mass indeed - compare an eV with the rest mass of a proton, 939 million eV, or the rest mass of a tiny amino acid, ~60 billion eV. Nuclear processes involve mass conversions a million times bigger, and they still only involve mass differences of a fraction of a percent.

 

[superweirdo]

ok... have we been able to do the opposide though? Convert energy into mass?