I always though of energy as motion – heat is atoms vibrating and moving, sound is a wave of atoms pushing each other in a specific direction, electricity is the movement of electrons, etc. But I’ve heard that e=mc^2 means energy can become matter and matter can be energy. How can motion become physical matter?
In: Physics
This is possible because energy is energy not motion. If you put something on a tall shelf it has a lot of gravitation potential energy despite not moving. When it falls off the shelf it’ll be converting that potential energy into kinetic energy. When it hits the ground and shatters, some of that kinetic energy will be converted into sound energy. Energy is just something that things have whether they’re moving or not.
The most direct way that energy becomes matter is through Pair Production
If you have a photon with enough energy(usually a high energy gamma ray/cosmic ray) it can spontaneously go from being a massless photon to becoming an electron and positron. The photon had enough energy that it could be converted into these two particles, and if the electron and positron touch then they’ll annihilate each other and create a high power gamma ray.
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