The sixth known form of matter is created

[Legend27]

Here's a link about it on CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/01/28/matter.new.reut/index.html

[daryn]

very interesting...

and here i am stuck learning about boring old solids /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Ray Zee]

matter cannot be created or destroyed. and there are three froms of matter. solid liquid and gas. anything else is just a variation. my traditional take on the world here.

[J.A.Sucker]

It's good to see some basic science getting postive press, especially since this is not at all biologically related. Physics/Chemistry have a lot to offer. Although this technology won't give society anything directly (the world doesn't function in a vacuum chamber at zero degress), there is a lot of physics that can open up, and we can gain good understanding of other things because of the way that fermionic condensates behave. As a former JILA employee and laser jock, I can appreciate this. Debbie Jin (the woman who did the work) is a great physicist - she did a lot of the original work in the lab for the Bose Einstein Condensates that got the Nobel Prize last year. Cool stuff, indeed.

Of course, this is all my biased opinion. Zee is old-fashioned - matter isn't created or destroyed, which is indeed correct, but it can be shuttled from one form to another. There's no way that one can argue against this; you can boil water (liquid to gas), melt metals (solid to liquid), or make a chemical reaction to change phases (burn wood, getting heat and gases).

[Mason Malmuth]

They are live people, dead people, and Ray Zee people. Sometimes, late at night, the cable networks have documentaries about the Ray Zee people. They usually walk in a slow but sure manner, don't say very much, and like to eat live people's brains.

Best wishes,
Mason

[scalf]

/images/graemlins/cool.gif but..

zee took the cash down...and kept it...

that ain't trivial

gl /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

[David Steele]

Your not even wrong.

D.

[Mano]

matter cannot be created or destroyed.

Of course it can. Matter can be created from energy and destroyed by turning it into energy - that is how nuclear devices work.

[baggins]

I think my signature has already made it quite clear what the three types of people in this world are...

[Gabe]

That was good. If you ever quit writing poker books I could get you a job writing sit-coms.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Gabe:

The Mason haters on RGP always say that I don't have a sense of humor. Obviously they have never read any of my books.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mike Gallo]

Obviously they have never read any of my books.

Or your posts /images/graemlins/blush.gif

Sorry Mason, I could not resist.

Enjoy these prosperous times.

[daryn]

you're wrong here mano.

matter is energy. in a nuclear reaction energy just changes form. it is always conserved.

[Schmed]

cool and uncool and you can't fake it

[bigpooch]

Haven't you heard of the conservation of Energy and in
E = m c^2, do you know what 'm' is?

Energy is conserved, and since matter is a form of it, the
two are essentially the same (matter-energy equivalence of
this equation and the ratio is universally constant!).

Maybe you were thinking in the approximate (but nevertheless
useful) Newtonian framework, just as many people believe in
unproven causal relationships because of the underlying
philosophy.

[bigpooch]

There are three types of people:

1) Those that count
2) Those that don't
3) Those whose jury hasn't decided upon yet

[Zele]

It's:
1) People who are always dividing things into two types.
2) People who aren't.

[Mano]

Energy is conserved, matter is not. The energy stored in matter is related by the Einstein equation.

Yes, I know what 'm' is and it obviously does not have the units of energy since 'c' is not a dimensionless constant, but has units of distance/time.

[George Rice]

[ QUOTE ]
Energy is conserved, matter is not.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's the difference between a live person and a dead person? Is it energy? If so, what happens to that energy when that person dies?

[Mano]

Matter is not energy - if it were it would be measered in Joules rather than Kilograms (the two differ in units by distance^2/time^2). Energy is stored in matter - during nuclear or matter/anti-matter reactions the matter is destroyed and the energy released.

[daryn]

you say energy is conserved, matter is not. you're wrong again. have you ever heard of conservation of energy? probably. have you ever heard of conservation of mass? maybe, but it doesn't sound like it.

[Oski]

...and exists in Gabbyyyy's pants.

[bigpooch]

When you say energy is "stored" in matter, you are using an
artificial philosophical construct. It is better to think
that total energy is conserved, matter is one form, and the
exchange rate is just the square of the speed of light, a
very common constant in relativistic equations. If you are
so entrenched in classical thinking, then how do you explain
that the conservation of matter is now untrue? In a way it
is untrue, but in the new paradigm, the conservation of
matter is a moot point. Then the conservation of energy
subsumes the conservation of matter (in classical physics).
This is the approach physicists take: describing the world
in simpler all-encompassing laws.

On the other hand, GUTs haven't quite assimilated gravity
but I am sure the brightest minds have been working on the
unification of forces for decades. And just because it may
be nice to have a summary law, it may not necessarily be
found in our universe because reality may not be the way
some physicists would like! But admittedly, it would be
much nicer if the Holy Grail of GUT were found.

[Softrock]

Hi Mason - I'll be at the Bellagio for four days over Presidents Weekend. I want to see that sense of humor when I crack your AA with 23o.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Soft:

It will be working fine when my aces hold up and you show me that you tried to crack them with the trey-deuce.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mano]

I understand the mass/energy relationship, and that the total energy + mass(converted to energy) of the universe is conserved unless you can somehow throw mass or energy away by some exotic means (dump it into a black hole or something). Matter is composed of energy, but it has attributes that other forms of energy do not (such as gravity) so you cannot simply say that mass and energy are the same. If a particle and anti-particle collide, the matter is anihialated and energy in the form of photons (massless) released. This was basically all I was saying. You can also create particle/antiparticle pairs by colliding high energy particles (the mass comes from the kinetic energy lost in the collision).

The way I have always looked at it is energy is like indestructable blocks of ice and matter is like igloos that can be formed from the blocks. The igloos can be created from the bricks and destroyed(taken apart), just as the matter can be from energy, but the total number of bricks is conserved.

I haven't really kept up with the latest GUT - read abit about strings, branes and whatnot, but that's not what I was talking about.

[daryn]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
). Matter is composed of energy, but it has attributes that other forms of energy do not (such as gravity)

[/ QUOTE ]


first of all, is gravity an attribute? i assume you meant to say mass. secondly, a compressed spring weighs more than a relaxed one. what does this tell you about your above statement?

[karlson]

So....if I write kinetic energy = mv^2/2, does that have the wrong units too?

Edit: Wow, didn't notice how old this was. Didn't mean to bring it back up with nothing useful to say.

[Mano]

I have let this thread die, as everyone in it obviously knows what everyone else is talking about, and I don't want to get into a semantical pissing contest.

Multiplying by a unitless scalar like 1/2 obviously does not change the units. Units for Joules is kg*m/s^2 .

[Legend27]

I have no clue what you are talking about.