You lost me at “Higg’s Bosom”.
I tell you, if Higgs needs a supercollider to find his bosom, he’s got a lot of trouble on his hands.
It’s “Higgs Boson”. I thought at first it might be a typo, but you used ‘bosom’ several times. The first step in being a super-genius is learning and understanding the current literature.
The rest of what you posted is pretty much gobbledegook injected with lots of irrelevant big words used to make it sound smart.
Wow such an interesting thread. Needed to make a couple of points though.
Potential Energy in not stored as mass. The mass of an object does not change. You do not add mass by increasing an object’s observed potential energy. I hope I have stated that enough ways that people understand.
Mass is different than weight. You may weigh more at the bottom of a hill but you have the same mass. Plus as with the question in the OP there is not enough difference in weight to change the outcome of the experiment.
We are talking normal Newtonian Physics nothing is getting close to moving near the speed of light in the OP therefore any talk of Special Relativity is outside the realm of the question so if people could please stop confusing the poor boy.
To MichaelJohnBertrand and anyone else who asked very simple questions in science class and got stupid answers, no answers at all or got in trouble. I do feel sorry for you, those teachers should not have been teaching a subject that they knew nothing about. You missed out on wonders that science can teach you. I only hope that you keep trying to learn.
To edivincison please get out of this thread your inane babble has made everyone a bit stupider. If you do need need to spout this drivel it would take Wendell Wagner’s suggestion and start a new thread.
Finally, to answerthe question in the OP in my own words:
You are kind of correct potential energy does not really exist but it is a great book keep tool. We say energy can not be created or destroyed so we need a place holder for this to happen.
Say you are at the bottom of the hill and you give this boulder a mighty shove. You have no problem seeing that you impart kinetic energy to it from what I have read. As the boulder goes up the hill it slows own. It slows down fasted than you might expect dues to friction, the energy it takes to make the sound waved ect. When the Boulder reaches the top of the hill it stops (you are either very lucky or very good at pushing things). Now where did all then energy you gave it go? Well the rock is the same, it has the same diameter, same color, same smell, same density and the same MASS. Everything is the same except that it has more potential for energy in our closed system that includes the boulder, the hill and you. Now a small bird lands on this boulder and give is a very slight nudge and the boulder starts rolling towards you faster and faster. Now obviously this little bird did not shove the boulder at you with such a force and has long since stopped pushing it but faster and faster it rolls. Now where is this kinetic energy coming from, it is coming from the potential that the boulder had while it was sitting on the hill.
I hope this helps.
etgaw1
[Moderator Note]
Etgaw1, while this is not quite a personal insult, please refrain from these kinds of post in GQ. If you have a problem with a poster, please report it and allow the moderators to deal with it.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
[Moderator Note]
Edivincison, I agree with some of the other posters here that your “theory” is sufficiently off topic that it should go into a separate thread. If you wish to discuss it, please start another thread in GD linked to this one. (This goes for anyone else who wishes to refute edivincison’s ideas.)
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Potential energy is a quantity that must be defined relative to reference point. In effect, the only physically important quantity is the CHANGE in potential energy (which is related to the work required to make that change, and thus the forces needed) it takes to change the system from configuration A (your reference point or configuration) to configuration B.
If it takes work to change the system, you have changed the potential energy.
It does, in fact, but the changes usually labeled “potential energy” are typically much smaller than the total mass of a system, so you don’t notice it. Everyone knows that “mass is converted to energy” in nuclear reactions, but the fact is, the same thing happens (though on a much smaller scale) in chemical reactions, or when a spring uncoils, or the like. The mass that got “converted” into energy is just stored potential energy to begin with.
Actually it’s “Higgs’ bosom”… or maybe Higgs’ balls (if he’s got balls)… but of course he has: Higgs’s got the balls to grab God’s balls… (sorry, I meant God’s particle).
Pretending you got lost at such an early stage of my theory may just serve as a cover-up of your lack of concentration to read through such a complex matter (be it only for sake of refutation with some thoughtful arguments).
No, I tell you: it’s God’s…
It’s still a typo…
This would have to read “The first step in being a super-genius is learning and understanding that the current literature is mostly religious indoctrination.”
Maybe every time you come across an explanation that sounds smarter than you think you are yourself, you repress it into the unconscious (Freudian repression), and since it may reemerge to the level of conscience any time, you put a label on it reminding you that this is gobbledegook, so you can drop it back again undisturbed (the latter part is my own theory of repression because I haven’t read much of Freud, and the whole repression theory may apply to other deniers in this thread).
Your example of the Earth-Moon Lagrange point doesn’t only sound smart, it is indeed very smart, smarter even than my wall clock example!
Yet since MJB dit not react to my clock story, I thought it useful to have him take a closer look at the fundamentals (and I warned him that this would take ten times more screen space!)
To put it more politely: "… has made everybody feel a bit less intelligent than they thought they were.
I’m no maso…
When Stranger On A Train tried to make MichaelJohnBertrand understand the ultima ratio of what he thought was a myth, explaining that “…in the same way that gravitational potential energy is stored not in either of the attractive masses but in the gravitational bond between two masses”, I felt committed to the task of preventing MJB from getting stuck with what I think is religious belief, and therefore thought it necessary to speak up in the following terms: “There is no such thing as a gravitational bond between two masses – this is, alas, wishful thinking on which modern physics is based.” And I went on corroborating my assertion with the fact that “Attraction force (…) remains indeed admittedly a complete mystery for the scientific community.”
Hence, I don’t think a new thread should be started – and indeed at least not unless MichaelJohnBernard, as the author of the OP, lets us know which of the help he got from out there, i.e. Sam Stone’s example of the Lagrange point or my example of the wall clock, or eventually my lengthy theoretical explanation of gravitational potential energy, got him anywhere nearer to a solution of his almost metaphysical problem.
Moderator Warning
Edivinicison, it doesn’t matter whether you think a new thread is needed or not, since I do. I gave you instructions to start another one in GD if you wanted to continue your discussion. This is an official warning for violating those instructions. If you continue this discussion here - or continue to post nonsensical gibberish in GQ, as in your last post - you may find your posting privileges in jeopardy.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Chronos I know you are a smart guy i have read your posts and I usually can follow you pretty well but I am having a problem with this one. Where does this object get this mass? Are atoms created or destroyed when you change from potential to kinetic energy? Or do the atoms themselves become more dense? When I push a spring am I giving it electrons? I am not sure I can go with you on this one. You can store energy in something other than mass. In the case of the spring the energy is stored by pushing metallic crystals out of their ideal rest state, not by creating matter.
Per Einstein’s special theory of relativity and object will appear to increase in mass as it approaches the speed of light from the reference point of a “stationary” observer but I am not seeing how this corresponds to an object at rest.
So I ask where you are getting this?
etgaw1
The object gets the mass from the potential energy. Atoms aren’t the only things that have mass. The mass in this case will be stored in some sort of field: The gravitational field in the case of gravitational potential energy, or the electromagnetic field in the case of most other forms of potential energy you’d talk about (springs, chemicals, etc.).
Actually, mass (as it’s currently defined) is invariant: It’s that portion of an object’s energy which remains, no matter what reference frame you’re measuring the energy in.
OK, still not getting it. Objects with mass have a gravitational field and an object’s place in a gravitational field gives it mass. So just my being on the Earth gives me mass plus since everything with mass has a gravitational field if I stand by a fat person I have more mass and so does he being he is in my gravitational field. I am also giving mass to everyone else around me and them to me just by being in proximity to each other. No wonder this world is have a weight issue we keep adding mass to each other so we register heavier compared to the Earth’s gravitational pull which must be more because we are giving it mass and therefore increasing its gravitational pull. Basically, I think you are saying we all have infinite mass because everything adds to the mass of everything else.
I’ll admit i may be reading you wrong here. But if my position in a gravitational field affects my mass and my mass affects my gravitational field and my gravitational field affects the mass of the first object which in turn affects it gravitational field which changes my mass… Ouch i think i hurt something.
It all may come down to the new definition of mass the one I am working off of was in my engineering books around 2001 things might have changed or they might have dumbed it down for us engineers. Or it could be that I have been removed from engineering so long that I am not remembering correctly.
The fundamental problem here is that most people think of mass as being different from energy. Mass is actually a form of energy as defined by the mass-energy equivalence principle, E[sup]2[/sup] = (m[sub]0[/sub] * c[sup]2[/sup])[sup]2[/sup] + p[sup]2[/sup]c[sup]2[/sup] (which for non-relativistic systems simplifies to the common E = mc[sup]2[/sup]. The amount of mass stored in bonds is small compared to the overall invariant mass of the system (especially in gravitational or electrochemical bonds in which the invariant mass is many orders of magnitude above the overall mass of the system) but the energy released by conversion from mass to luminous or thermal energy can be enormous as witnessed by the binding energy released in nuclear fission and fusion reactions.
Note that this energy doesn’t appear or disappear; even the apparent conversion from kinetic to potential or vice versa is merely bookkeeping with respect to the two or more bodies in question; the overall energy (and therefore mass) of an isolated system remains constant.
Stranger
Ai Ai Sir!:o
Please look up my first post under MichaelJohnBernard’s thread on high IQ individuals’ endowments to society, where you will learn my definition of power versus authority and why I’m allergic to Big Brother-like power disguised as authority (somehow like your power to switch off intelligence on this forum).
However, I would feel sorry if you felt offended by my play on the word God – the only apology I could bring forth would be that I’m an agnostic and therefore God is just a name for me, not an entity; for more subtle apology, I would have to cite a great French author (who’s name I forgot):
“Play on words is the high-flying spirits’ droppings”
As to the other motive of potential denial of my privileges – i.e. if I simply continued posting on this thread – may I draw your attention to your previous moderator note?
I didn’t discuss my theory in my last post, did I? Just the reactions to it – and in the present post it’s me who reacts to your instructions.
If you decided to ban me from the Straight Dope forum just for trying to defend my point of view, it would amount to both censorship and denial of response.
We’re not in a classroom, are we? And you’re not our teacher, are you?
You are a moderator (and as such supposed to have diplomatic skills), so if you come to a satisfying conclusion for all parties, I will indeed abide by your diplomacy and start a new thread (yet only if I get encouraged to do so by at least one of this forum’s commentators).
No, you’re confusing mass with weight. Mass is an intrinsic property of matter. A 1 kg mass has a mass of 1 kg no matter where it is–on Earth, on the Moon, on a neutron star or floating free in the intergalactic void millions of light years from anything. However, that object’s weight varies with each of those locations, because weight is affected by gravity–in fact, weight is caused by gravity.
Consider yourself so encouraged. Also, forum moderation doesn’t work that way, FYI. They instruct, you do; if you don’t, you’ll soon find you can’t.
Moderator Warning
That’s not how it works here.
This is from the Registration Agreement, which you agreed to abide by when you registered.
Since you don’t seem to wish to abide by the Registration Agreement, I will be discussing your posting privileges with the rest of the moderation staff.
You’re banned for being an obtuse idiot who can’t follow direction.
No, actually we’re hall monitors
You don’t get to make the rules. You’re the weakest link. Dismissed.
samclem Moderator, General Questions
You’re just too nice a guy, Colibri. 
I banned him.
To etgaw1: I’m going to break this down a bit, to give you a chance to interrupt if needed. First, let’s show that the mass of a closed system cannot change. For purposes of this post, I’ll define “mass” as “the source of the gravitational field” (so, for instance, we can measure the mass of the Earth by hanging a standard kilogram from a spring at the surface of the Earth, and measuring how much the spring stretches).
Suppose that it were possible to change the mass of a closed system. I’ll build a big box the size of a planet, and set up such a closed system inside, such that I can change the mass of my planet. You’re standing on the surface of my planet, with a chunk of platinum-irridium alloy hanging from a spring. The spring is in equilibrium, and the lump of metal isn’t moving. OK, it’s just going to sit there and be boring.
Now, I use my closed-system-mass-changing-device to increase the mass of my planet. I can do this without any external power source, since if I needed an external power source, it would violate the definition of a closed system. Suddenly, the weight of your precious metal isn’t the same any more, and your spring isn’t in equilibrium any more. So the platinum will fall, and the spring will begin to oscillate. You could, if you liked, hook up a simple generator to this oscillating spring, and get useful energy out of it.
Likewise, suppose instead that I decreased the mass of the planet. Now, the weight of your lump of metal is decreased, and so the spring is stretched too far to be in equilibrium. So the metal is pulled upward, and again starts to oscillate, and again you could get energy out of it.
So now, if I can change the mass of a closed system, you can get useful energy for free in the oscillation of that spring. But this is a perpetual motion machine, which we all know is impossible. So one of our assumptions which led to the construction of this machine must be invalid, and the only assumption not backed up by observation is the existence of some way for the mass of a closed system to change. Therefore that assumption is false, and the mass of a closed system cannot change.
If you follow so far, let me know, and we can start on the next step.
No I understand the difference between mass and weight. I was responding to Chronos’s comment
[quote=Chronos]
The object gets the mass from the potential energy. Atoms aren’t the only things that have mass. The mass in this case will be stored in some sort of field: The gravitational field in the case of gravitational potential energy, or the electromagnetic field in the case of most other forms of potential energy you’d talk about (springs, chemicals, etc.).
[quote]
He states (as I understand it) that as the potential energy changes in a gravitational field that the mass changes due to that field. Not the weight, the mass. I am trying to argue that 1kg is 1 kg is 1 kg no matter where it is. I am trying to refute the argument that 1 kg in my basement is 1.00001 kg on my roof because I carried it up the stairs and gave it potential energy. That is where I am having the issues.
** Strangers ** I get the whole mass = energy = mass conversion. But let me ask you this question:
You have 15 cents 1 dime (mass) and 1 nickle (energy). We all agree we can convert dimes to nickles and back again. I give you a nickle (some energy) increasing the total value to 20 cents. How many dimes (how much mass) do you have? 1 or 2? ! say right now you have one unless you convert nickles (energy) to dimes (mass). That unless you do something to convert the mass to energy mass is mass and energy is energy.
If i am wrong please direct me to an appropriate scientific resource so I can reeducate myself.