Article View: sci.physics.relativity
Article #7404Re: Rest mass
From: Tom Roberts
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:10
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:10
34 lines
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3324 bytes
BURT wrote: > Rest mass should be considered the fundamental mass. But binding > energy confuses this. No, it doesn't. Binding energy is a completely different concept from the rest masses of the constituents of a compound object. > A proton or neutron outside the nucleus has more mass than inside. A > bound proton or neutron has less mass. No. Binding energy is necessarily negative, so the sum of the masses of the nucleons that make up a given nucleus is larger than the mass of the nucleus. The difference is the binding energy of the nucleus. Binding energy is far more general a concept than just for nuclei.... > So which mass is to be > considered fundamental? the mass inside or outside? > The mass of a bound nucleon or a free one? The "fundamental" mass is necessarily the mass of whatever it is you are talking about. If you are discussing a proton, then the mass of the proton is "fundamental" for the proton, etc. This ought to be obvious. Note: discussing the binding of nuclei is a complex task, because one cannot in general simply remove one nucleon from a nucleus -- there are usually more complex interactions involved (the daughter nucleus is usually in an excited state). The binding of electrons in an atom can be discussed more cleanly, as can the binding of most macroscopic systems. Tom Roberts
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X-Google-Thread: 10f545,26176ef729f272a6 X-Google-Thread: 10b271,f9b17e69bf88ca2d X-Google-Thread: 104cdc,f9b17e69bf88ca2d X-Google-Thread: f74ae,f9b17e69bf88ca2d X-Google-Thread: fa4c1,f9b17e69bf88ca2d X-Google-Attributes: gid10f545,gid10b271,gid104cdc,gidf74ae,gidfa4c1,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!newscon04.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr11.news.prodigy.net.POSTED!32b1cbcb!not-for-mail From: Tom Roberts <tjroberts137@sbcglobal.net> User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.12 (Macintosh/20070509) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity,sci.physics,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.astro,fr.sci.physique Subject: Re: Rest mass References: <1184313271.795043.94440@d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com> <LvSli.38021$YL5.212@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net> <1184394393.199242.180370@22g2000hsm.googlegroups.com> <1184396996.855175.254140@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> <469b04ba$0$2992$61c65585@un-2park-reader-01.sydney.pipenetworks.com.au> <1184620136.419350.260440@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: <1184620136.419350.260440@m37g2000prh.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 34 Message-ID: <c54ni.22304$RX.640@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.225.56.117 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr11.news.prodigy.net 1184681416 ST000 131.225.56.117 (Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:10:16 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:10:16 EDT Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: Q[R_@SVG_RRMBW\Y\BNB^^YJBHT@QDDMEPWXODMMHXMTWA]EPMTC@AWZWDXZXQ[K\FFSKCVM@F_N_DOBWVWG__LG@VVOIPLIGX\\BU_B@\P\PFX\B[APHTWAHDCKJF^NHD[YJAZMCY_CWG[SX\Y]^KC\HSZRWSWKGAY_PC[BQ[BXAS\F\\@DMTLFZFUE@\VL Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:10:16 GMT