Thursday, October 22, 2015

special relativity - Can one create mass from energy?


Due to $ E =m c^2 $, one can convert mass to energy. A classic example would be matter/anti-matter annihilation to produce energy (photons, etc.).


Can one do the reverse? So could one do something to photons to create mass?



Answer



The conversion between mass and energy isn't even really a conversion. It's more that mass (or "mass energy") is a name for some amount of an object's energy. But the same energy that you call the mass can actually be a different type of energy, if you look closer. For example, we say that a proton has a specific amount of mass, about $2\times 10^{-27}\text{ kg}$. But if you look into the structure of a proton, about half that mass (or more, depending on conditions) is actually kinetic energy of the gluons.


Of course, that's probably not what you had in mind. To more directly answer your question, it is possible to produce matter from two colliding photons, although the probability is not especially high. You need energetic photons, and lots of them, to create an appreciable number of detectable matter particles. Wikipedia's article on matter creation has more information and links.


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