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Originally posted by KnifeMissle
Sadly, I understand what you mean, Saltfish. Sometimes it is better not to argue, as can be demonstrated in Tilted Politics, but in this case it helps steer the thread back on topic rather than off it. Someone else tried to complicate the issue by introducing magical nuclear reactions and I was just trying to quell that...
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Thanks for deciding that you are the judge of what questions posed by posters other than yourself may be answered, I didn't see the moderator tag under your name. I was merely replying to sf's question of when mass can be created or destroyed.
Conservation of mass and conservation of energy are not meant to apply to nuclear reactions nor are they meant to apply to collisions between matter and anti-matter. At least for nuclear reactions, the mass-energy is conserved but it is not to be thought of separately as conservation of mass and conservation of energy. It's the whole fucking reason why we need E=mc^2!
http://www.chem.umn.edu/class/1022/h...2Ch21Notes.doc
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Furthermore, nuclear reactions are capable of transforming mass into tremendous amounts of energy. E = mc2. [ Joule = kg x (3.00 x 108 m/s)2 = 9.00 x 1016 kg ].
In nuclear reactions: Mass is no longer conserved. Energy is no longer conserved. But the sum of them (mass + energy) is conserved.
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