Re: Lost Mass in Chemical Reactions

From: Richard Tobin (richard_at_cogsci.ed.ac.uk)
Date: 01/30/05 

Date: 30 Jan 2005 15:49:56 GMT

In article <ntjpv09e3r0i2qck9cvtnav3amqcr65mv8@4ax.com>,
Keith P Walsh <keith.p.walsh@btinternet.com> wrote:

>Unfortunately the "Horizon" program did rather imply that the only
>kind of physical process in which "matter" is converted into useful
>(or perhaps dangerous) amounts of "energy" according to the relation
>E=mc^2 is in those processes involving the splitting of atoms or
>atomic nuclei.
>
>And of course there are lots of us who know that this is untrue.

What's more, even in (say) the fission of uranium, the energy is
released as a result of the re-arrangement of electrical charges into
a less energetic configuration, just as in a chemical reaction. It's
just that in fission it's a first order effect where positive charges
are re-arranged, while in chemistry it's a second order effect where
neutral mixtures of positive and negative charges are re-arranged.

-- Richard

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