Monday, December 6, 2010

The Facts of Energy

Energy, as we know it, is present in many forms. The most obvious of these forms is lightning, electricity, and static electricity, because these can be felt physically. Other forms are light, radiation, and matter. Matter is the least known of all sources of energy, because frankly, how does it have energy? Well, it's like compacting a lot of oxygen into a block of solid air. Matter is compacted energy, and when fission occurs, the energy is released in exponential forms of explosions, nuclear reactors, and other such technologies. According to E=mc2, energy and matter are interchangeable, and thus, we can use matter as a source of energy. Now, a question that we have been struggling to answer, is this. What happens to matter when it reaches the speed of light? It gains infinitesmal mass, and thus is impossible to attain. But, if we had a source of energy that was made of matter on the ship, when once we reached infinitesmal mass, we could use the infinite mass of the fuel to propell us infinitely. But we would have to burn massive ammounts of fuel just to get up to the speed of light. So if we can't do this, the what can we do with matter and energy? We could create a weapon that fires molecules at people fast enough that it punctures their body, yet only damages what's inside. Or we can use it to map out certain objects in every day life. What if we were able to discover the string theory somehow? The string theory states that there are tiny ammounts of energy vibrating inside every proton, neutron, and electron, and if these vibrating bits of energy existed, then alternate realities DO exist. But since we can't even get a clear photo of an atom, I doubt we'll be getting anything out of that for QUITE some time. But think, that would mean that wormholes could be portals between dimensions, and that black holes are just ways to go from one place to another instantly. But we wouldn't know, because we've never been able to encounter a black hole up close.

2 comments:

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  2. Even though your matter has infinite mass (which means infinite inertia, see here), you still have the same amount of matter. So you won't have an infinite supply of fuel once you reach light speed—it will just be infinitely difficult to move.

    However, you might be interested in the concept of vacuum energy. If it's true, then according to Richard Feynman (who received a Nobel prize for physics), there is enough energy in the vacuum of a single light bulb to boil all the oceans of the Earth.

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