Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: dantheman on 11/02/2010 14:31:12
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Could you please explain to me why the protons that are being sent around the collider at such speed do not become infinitely heavy?
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The mass gain is a tangent curve so they do gain a lot of mass but they never get close enough to C for huge gains in mass. There isn't enough energy in the Universe to accelerate a proton to C.
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Because only a finite amount of energy is given to them in the acceleration process.
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No, you are right, they don't become infinitely heavy. They are not accelerated to c. But consider this: 7TeV (the energy a proton should have in LHC) is about 1e-6 J. A drop of water falling from a meter has less energy, and it makes SOUND when it falls. You put more than that in a proton. You have created a monster XD. Just to evaluate things, you know e=mc^2. Ok, now take that, and (without any physical meaning, just to have an idea of how much 7TeV is) you convert 7TeV in mass. What you get is something 10000 times heavier than a proton..
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No, you are right, they don't become infinitely heavy. They are not accelerated to c. But consider this: 7TeV (the energy a proton should have in LHC) is about 1e-6 J. A drop of water falling from a meter has less energy, and it makes SOUND when it falls. You put more than that in a proton. You have created a monster XD. Just to evaluate things, you know e=mc^2. Ok, now take that, and (without any physical meaning, just to have an idea of how much 7TeV is) you convert 7TeV in mass. What you get is something 10000 times heavier than a proton..
would you like to explain what you mean? because i don't understand but i want to understand this. thanks in advance
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Even though they don't become infinitely heavy the effect done by accelerating them to 14 TeV, which is the collision energy of protons at the Large Hadron Collider, will make them heavy.
"1 TeV: A million million electronvolts, or 1.602×10−7 J, about the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito"
Then you will have to know how heavy that proton might be..
---Quote--
H (hydrogen) has one proton and one electron. Its weight is primarily due
to its single proton. A proton is 1836 times heavier than an electron.
Since a mole of H2 (molecular hydrogen) weighs 2 grams and has 6.022 x
10E23 atoms (Avagadro number), then the weight of each hydrogen atom is
approximately 0.001 kg/6.022 x 10E23 = 1.6726E-27 kg.
AK
Dr. Ali Khounsary
Advanced Photon Source
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, IL 60439
---------End of quote---
And as we know that the proton was 1836 times heavier than the electron :) you now will subtract the electrons from the H atoms, that is if you feel the need to be overly precise :) or we can cheat and just multiply the weight of the electron by it. 1836 X 9.109×10−31 kilograms (weight of one electron)
When you've done that you will have the weight of one proton (hopefully)
Now you just have to multiply it 14 000 000 000 000 times (14 TeV) and you will get the weight in kilograms.
No that's wrong.. Awh sh*
So 1836 X 9.109×10−31 kilograms converted to Joules
Then that times 14 000 000 000 000 X 1.60217653(14)×10−19 Joules
Then convert joules back to kilograms and you will have your answer.
And a headache :)
You will have to convert kilograms to joules before doing that final computation as "In physics, the electron volt (symbol eV; also written electronvolt[1][2]) is a unit of energy. By definition, it is equal to the amount of kinetic energy gained by a single unbound electron when it accelerates through an electric potential difference of one volt. Thus it is 1 volt (1 joule per coulomb) multiplied by the electron charge (1 e, or 1.60217653(14)×10−19 C). Therefore, one electron volt is equal to 1.60217653(14)×10−19 J"
But what I think he meant was that they really became heavy. The line or curve going to infinity becomes very steep the closer you get in force applied, by f.ex your rockets engine.. Invariant mass can't get to infinity, only light can. You will need to apply more force than you have to get to that state. Or rather, just guessing here, before you get to that state there will be some sort of 'singularity' happening where what once was your rocket becomes something else, more suited for 'infinities' like ah, light? Perhaps :)
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There have to be a simpler way of making this work. I hate all this converting, I just keep forgetting If I did it or plain forgot it and then it's back to the beginning.
One, two, three, ah?
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Could you please explain to me why the protons that are being sent around the collider at such speed do not become infinitely heavy?
Because their mass doesn't vary at all, it's invariant.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=28696.0
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Thank you everybody I new it wouldn’t become infinitely heavy I worded the question wrong. What I meant was, is it getting a lot heavier, which it is and you have all explained. It is something I thought I new but I am always surprised that the gain in mass is never mentioned when the LHC hits the news. I find this magic mass gain through only energy input one of the most fascinating things in nature. Perhaps I’m odd!
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Well, it seems that the particle does not really gain mass but energy.
As I understand it more recently, the quantity gamma*m0 (m0=rest mass) is not really a "mass". See links given by above by lightarrow.
I am not even sure I can follow the concept of mass in GR.
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Well, it seems that the particle does not really gain mass but energy.
Is that kinetic energy?
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Well, it seems that the particle does not really gain mass but energy.
Is that kinetic energy?
Yes.
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You know, it's kind of weird. This discussion have a direct relevance to another thread here in where we discussed the idea of 'potential energy'. Anyway, if you heat a iron it will gain mass as far as I understands it. So I stand side by side with you there Dantheman. Energy and mass is the same as I understands it, they are just in different 'stratas' of existence to us. You can exchange mass for energy and what you will have in the end, doing so, will be the exact same amount of mass but now in a form not accessible to you anymore. The idea goes back to the conservation laws that states that although we might transform something something to something something we (or the universe, SpaceTime) never really loses any of it. It will still be there, just in another form. Well as I understands it :)
So f.ex, if you heat your kettle on the oven it will actually gain mass, for real, not a joke.. And to support that view of ours I've called in the heavy artillery 'BO0Oomm' yep that's a good one :) (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equivME/) So that's how I understands it..
If we now go back to the idea of 'potential energy' then that states that if I lift that kettle one meter of the ground to place it on a table it will have gained a certain potential energy relative Earth. And that is correct, but it doesn't mean that it now, if you measured it, would have gained more mass. Gravitational 'energy' is not the same idea as 'energy' when f.ex heating something. Gravitation seems to be what makes objects find a path of 'less resistance' and as such is not energy in the normal motto. That the kettle if falling down from that table will release a greater kinetic energy on impact with the ground have to do with it interacting with the ground under an acceleration. But the kettle is not filled with more energy standing on that table.
I was playing with the idea that the kettle when standing there, if weighted, instead would have less mass as it would be further from the highest gravitational boundary, aka the ground, but that is wrong. Well, I'm still not sure if it's really wrong actually :) Consider placing your kettle inside the gravitational 'field' of a neutron star, wouldn't that make the molecules 'dance' inside that kettle? And if they 'dance' won't that become kinetic energy? And that kinetic energy would then become mass? On the other hand, wouldn't time slow down too as measured from a a observer outside that gravitational field? So even if it would gain mass from the view of the kettle, would our 'far' observer agree with that? Still, if I moved the kettle away from that Neutronstar wouldn't it then become 'lighter' with less mass? No matter that, we still have to remember that gravity although able to create a release of kinetic energy higher than what the objects in themselves have, when measured still just is a path of 'less resistance'. So why would there then be a greater energy release when our kettle is falling down to the ground? That, as I understands it (for the moment:), is an relation due to the relation between those two objects (kettle ground) and acceleration/motion.
And to me it's like SpaceTime is like this goo. It's plastic, not normally, but under high energies it is. The closer mass can get to the speed of light in a vacuum the more SpaceTime will contract as viewed from that accelerating frame (rocket). And as far as I've found out it's a real effect from your frame of observation. There might be people not agreeing with that view but I believe that all experiments supports it.
And in a contracting SpaceTime that meter as observed by you won't be a meter anymore. Leaving the kettle aside :) that makes for a very strange existence, and the only thing correlating it as coherent experience, again as I understands it, is the fact that your own frame always will be experienced to have the same expressions, well, more or less :) If you measure your heartbeat against your wrist watch you will get the same beats per minute, no matter how fast you go (Black Box scenario of course:).
But it also gives some weird effects, for one there is a definite difference between acceleration and uniform motion. If we first look on uniform motion, which to my eyes is equivalent to a free fall, then no matter what uniform motion you have as compared to something else, they are all the same? At least if measured in that Black box. In the same manner a uniform acceleration, giving you the same constant gravity as Earth, will be equivalent to being on Earth. But we do know that you're accelerating, don't we? No, we don't, not inside that black box. (Ignore Earths spinning when thinking of that btw.) So how would we know that we're accelerating then? As far as I can see it will have to be a non-uniform acceleration that would have to tell you that.
But if we go back to uniform motion, if I and my friend rides two rockets with a different speed relative each other and our common origin (Earth) there have to be a difference? Don't it? We are both 'free falling' but we still have different velocities? Wish I knew that one :) In one motto you might say that compared to what you see outside your window SpaceTime, as well as distances, should be different depending on where you are, on your ship, your friends ship or on Earth. But those frames still have the same equivalence as far as I can see?
Inside that black box there is no way you can differ between them.
That is if you count away Earths invariant mass :) And that's the last player in this universe, the difference between invariant mass, and, relative mass or momentum. Photons f.ex is defined by being massless point particles taking no place inside SpaceTime, meaning that you can superimpose how many you want upon each other, but still without taking any room. They have an energy though and a momentum. Earth is defined by having invariant mass, which means that no matter where you would like to place this Earth, inside a Neutronstars gravitational field, Jupiters or whatever, its 'proper mass' will be the same although the weight we will feel standing on it will differ depending where it, and we, then would be. The same way as you are weightless when in a free fall, no matter if it is falling on earth from that table or soaring like a astronaut free falling around Earth. So weight is relative where you are. But your invariant, proper, or so called 'restmass' (means all particles that are 'fermions', made of 'matter') will always be the same.
You know, I actually fibbed here. There is one player more. It's called time, and 'time' have an arrow that stings. We live and die by that arrow, and it's also what makes things come in a 'ordered way'. Some like to see times arrow as 'events', others, like me, as a 'flow'? But it still have what is called a 'casualty chain' meaning that things happen in a certain way that makes sense to us as we cope with our world. A photon is said to be without that arrow, meaning that it's intrinsically 'timeless'. And using that property you gain an explanation to how it, in a classical sense, might be able to 'travel' without losing any energy. That as without times arrow, nothing can take time as far as a photon experiences it. This last player is to me the ground on where all other 'forces' stands on.
Would we live in a 'photonic fog', without restmass, times arrow wouldn't be there, (maybe 'time' would though?) neither would any causality chains as we normally, macroscopically, experiences them. And that is weird :) as we say that what transfer energy is what we like to call 'virtual photons'. they are a type of 'photons' that's not even here. If we ever would try to measure them they would just disappear. So we can't measure them according to HUP (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) but we can still see their effects at times.
That they still 'exist' makes me wonder if there can be other 'types' of causality than what we are used to. And there you have the 'fractal' idea coming into play. Like if what we see as 'events' in another perspective just might be like a fractal, like whole 'experiences', self-like, not viewable as such from our point of view. We see things as having an beginning and an end, and the reason we do so, to me that is, is the arrow of time. I like to differ between 'time' that I'm not sure on what it might be, and the 'arrow' we observe. The arrow is what you measure by your clock. And that 'arrow' is what, loosely expressed, always will seem the same for you, no matter your frame, as I understands it.
And there is one other thing, it's called emergences, and that's a description of how something suddenly gain new properties as far as we are concerned. Like water freezing into ice. We can follow the molecular changes and see how it does it, but that doesn't change the fact that ice have new properties compared to water. Maybe that is how the universe does it? Using times arrow to limit our view, but at the same time making it possible for us to speculate? Because thoughts take time, don't they :)
You can compare that to the idea of a quantum computer said to be able to compute for us unsolvable problems. Quantum computing (http://www.quantumbionet.org/admin/files/QBS1%2021-30.pdf) which uses principles from QM where times arrow gets , ah, weird?
This might have become a tad to long?
Ah, yes..