What is mass?
S D Rodrian
"Richard Henry" <rph...@home.com> wrote:
>
> SDRodrian wrote in message <92lnrc$vp2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >What is mass? (And I will confine the elucidation to
> > its meaning as it relates to gravity.)
> >
> >Simple: You and anybody else can create mass [Phys.]
> >just by getting a gyroscope going. Viola! What
> >you have just done, at a rather humble level, all
> >gravitational systems do to greater/lesser degrees
> >(as they are, all of them, pretty much nothing but
> >"motion" not unlike that "in" your average gyroscope).
> >
> >Have you tried to move the planet Earth from
> >its "place in space" lately? It's completely
> >weightless, you know.
> >
> >S D Rodrian
> >web.sdrodrian.com
> >sdrodrian.com
> >music.sdrodrian.com
> >
> >re:
>
> Well, I will concur with your statement
> that a viola has mass, since you
> seem to be claiming to be a musician.
"A" musician!?!? Sir, I am the greatest
interpreter of Bach (and others) alive!
(Or, at least, until I die.)
"May it be soon."
--Mark.
> But other than that _What Is Your
> Point_ about gyroscopes?
Toy gyroscopes--One of the greatest gifts
a very young child can get for Xmas.
> And yes, the earth is weightless, but
> it is not massless. So the force
> required to move it, or in reality to
> change its momentum, is proportional
> to that mass.
Awwww.... You never got a toy gyroscope
when you were a kid?!?! You missed out on
a lot of fun: When you got the thing going,
even though it wasn't attached to ANYTHING
outside it, suddenly "the force required
to move it, or in reality to change its
momentum" became proportional to a mass
which the gyroscope mysteriously (almost
mystically) acquired... and then we kids
would try to "change its angle of momentum"
while it refused to do so!!!! It was AS IF
that little toy gyroscope had been pushing
against our pushing ONLY IT DIDN'T HAVE
ANYTHING TO STAND ON TO PUSH
AGAINST OUR pushing... it was as if
it had suddenly been endowed with mass
(and it didn't even have to wait for somebody
to discover a single Higgs boson). It still sends
shivers
up & down my spine--And I'm not nearly as
childish as I was when I was five years old.
S D Rodrian
web.sdrodrian.com
sdrodrian.com
music.sdrodrian.com
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
S D Rodrian
dl...@aol.com (DLZC) wrote:
> Dear S. D. Rodrian:
>
> >Simple: You and anybody else can create mass [Phys.]
> >just by getting a gyroscope going. Viola! What
> >you have just done, at a rather humble level, all
> >gravitational systems do to greater/lesser degrees
> >(as they are, all of them, pretty much nothing but
> >"motion" not unlike that "in" your average gyroscope).
> >
> >Have you tried to move the planet Earth from
> >its "place in space" lately? It's completely
> >weightless, you know.
>
> a gyroscope, we are held down by the
> spinning of the Earth.
> Oh wait! The dust tends to fly off!
> That doesn't help then.
> Sorry.
I'm sorry, Mr. Smith, I said
"mass" ... not "gravity." O well,
I see "we" do not know what mass is.
Therefore I shall
START QUOTE (from the Encyclopedia Brit)
mass : In physics, quantitative measure of
inertia, a fundamental property of all matter.
It is, in effect, the resistance that a body
of matter offers to a change in its speed or
position upon the application of a force.
The greater the mass of a body, the smaller
the change produced by an applied force.
Although mass is defined in terms of inertia,
it is conventionally expressed as weight. By
international agreement the standard unit
of mass, with which the masses of all other
objects are compared, is a platinum-iridium
cylinder of one kilogram. This unit is commonly
called the International Prototype Kilogram
and is kept at the International Bureau of
Weights and Measures in Sèvres, Fr. In countries
that continue to favour the English system
of measurement over the International System
of Units (SI), the current version of the metric
system, the avoirdupois pound is used instead.
Another unit of mass, one that is widely employed
by engineers, is the slug, which equals 32.17 pounds.
Weight, though related to mass, nonetheless differs
from the latter. Weight essentially constitutes
the force exerted on matter by the gravitational
attraction of the Earth, and so it varies from
place to place. In contrast, mass remains constant
regardless of its location under ordinary circumstances.
A satellite launched into space, for example, weighs
increasingly less the further it travels away from
the Earth. Its mass, however, stays the same.
For years it was assumed that the mass of a body
always remained invariable. This notion, expressed as
the theory of conservation of mass, held that the mass
of an object or collection of objects never changes,
no matter how the constituent parts rearrange themselves.
If a body split into pieces, it was thought that the
mass divided with the pieces, so that the sum of the
masses of the individual pieces would be equal
to the original mass. Or, if particles were joined
together, it was thought that the mass of the composite
would be equal to the sum of the masses of the
constituent particles. But this is not true.
With the advent of the special theory of relativity
by Einstein in 1905, the notion of mass underwent a
radical revision. Mass lost its absoluteness. The mass
of an object was seen to be equivalent to energy, to be
interconvertible with energy, and to increase significantly
at exceedingly high speeds near that of light (about
3 X 10^8 metres per second, or 186,000 miles per second).
The total energy of an object was understood to comprise
its rest mass as well as its increase of mass caused by
high speed. The mass of an atomic nucleus was discovered
to be measurably smaller than the sum of the masses of
its constituent neutrons and protons. Mass was no longer
considered constant, or unchangeable. In both chemical
and nuclear reactions, some conversion between mass and
energy occurs, so that the products generally have smaller
or greater mass than the reactants. The difference in mass
is so slight for ordinary chemical reactions that mass
conservation may be invoked as a practical principle for
predicting the mass of products. Mass conservation is
invalid, however, for the behaviour of masses actively
involved in nuclear reactors, in particle accelerators,
and in the thermonuclear reactions in the Sun and stars.
The new conservation principle is the conservation of
mass-energy.
END QUOTE
You can also visit the source of the quote above and
explore other marvelous bits of knowledge common to
(practically) all human beings on this little globe:
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5/0,5716,52555+1+51285,00.html
?query=mass
And, please inform yourselves of what you are talking
before talking about things you know so little about!
Please: It's SO easy these days! And remember that there IS
a distinction between "mass" as defined above, and "gravity."
Thank you, and may God Bless.
> David A. Smith
> Factually Challenged
Of course, you just might be a lit'l more challenged than
you imagine--But, fear not, as your fellow men will always
(leastwise, moi) be there to lend you a helping hand.
Promise,
S D Rodrian
Virgil <Vm...@frii.com> wrote:
> In article <92lnp0$voa$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, SDRodrian
> <Don_Q...@mindless.com> wrote:
>
> > Have you tried to move the planet Earth from
> > its "place in space" lately? It's completely
> > weightless, you know.
>
> a fulcrum if there is to
> be any earth moving.
Nonsense! Napoleon shook the earth
and he was on horseback at the time!
But so did Alex d'Great, AND Jesus (and He
was riding an ass when He did it, which
is probably the most impressive of all).
S D Rodrian
web.sdrodrian.com
PS And so did Vergil, by the way.
And a certain blond co-ed...
And...
S D Rodrian
BlackWater <black...@barkk.com> wrote:
> S D Rodrian <Rod...@mad.scientist.com> wrote:
>
> >In article <giu36.109447$I5.26...@news1.rdc1.sdca.home.com>,
> >"Richard Henry" <rph...@home.com> wrote:
>
> >> But other than that _What Is Your
> >> Point_ about gyroscopes?
>
> >when you were a kid?!?! You missed out on
> >a lot of fun: When you got the thing going,
> >even though it wasn't attached to ANYTHING
> >outside it, suddenly "the force required
> >to move it, or in reality to change its
> >momentum" became proportional to a mass
> >which the gyroscope mysteriously (almost
> >mystically) acquired... and then we kids
> >would try to "change its angle of momentum"
> >while it refused to do so!!!! It was AS IF
> >that little toy gyroscope had been pushing
> >against our pushing ONLY IT DIDN'T HAVE
> >ANYTHING TO STAND ON TO PUSH
> >AGAINST OUR pushing... it was as if
> >it had suddenly been endowed with mass
> >(and it didn't even have to wait for somebody
> >to discover a single Higgs boson). It still sends
> >shivers
> >up & down my spine--And I'm not nearly as
> >childish as I was when I was five years old.
>
> at all. Weighed, it wouldn't be more than a
> millinanogram more than an unspun gyroscope.
END QUOTE
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5/0,5716,52555+1+51285,00.html
?query=mass
> You are trying to define mass by using an
> example which relies on a property of mass,
> angular momentum. When you try to shift the
> axis of a spinning gyroscope, you are forcing
> the atoms to deviate from the shortest-possible-
> path (a circle, since they are constrained to
> go 'round instead of fly straight). The gyro,
> when pushed, doesn't really "resist" acceleration
> but instead *converts* acceleration into
> precession. Visualize the path of an atom in
> the rotor and you will see it's just trying to
> follow the straightest possible flight path.
> Very Newtonian.
Excellent. And now that you've shown you understand
that, explain please what the "gravitons" (conceit of
convenience only to equate them with your "atoms"
above)... what the gravitons in the most fundamental
(basic) gravitational systems (forms of matter) are doing
which might be different from what the "atoms" are doing
in our nifty toy gyroscope above [i.e. The universe does
NOT work by magic at any level--at every level even its most
intricate workings are as natural and open to explanation
as are its simplest workings].
[ And, please confine yourself to the definition of mass
given in the Britannica quote above.]
Happy New Year!
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
S D Rodrian
"Peter Pan" <lansell...@evc.net> wrote:
> It seems that you are taking the term *mass*
> in a very limited sense. Are
> you sure there are no other definitions
> offered in above cited dictionary?
> Might you be citing only the definition
> which you, personally and
> subjectively, select from
> among several available? >
It's from the Encyclopaedia Britannica
and the subject is the physics usage. But
you can certainly explore the matter yourself
by using the follwing URL (just be sure you copy
the full and complete URL between the quotation marks
into your browser search box:
" http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/5
/0,5716,52555+1+51285,00.html?query=mass "
SDR
re:
> S D Rodrian a écrit dans le message <92n2aq$tvh$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >In article <20001230223148...@ng-df1.aol.com>,
> >dl...@aol.com (DLZC) wrote:
> >> Dear S. D. Rodrian:
> >>
> >> >Simple: You and anybody else can create mass [Phys.]
> >> >just by getting a gyroscope going. Viola! What
> >> >you have just done, at a rather humble level, all
> >> >gravitational systems do to greater/lesser degrees
> >> >(as they are, all of them, pretty much nothing but
> >> >"motion" not unlike that "in" your average gyroscope).
> >> >
> >> >Have you tried to move the planet Earth from
> >> >its "place in space" lately? It's completely
> >> >weightless, you know.
> >>
> >> So, just like little specks of dust on
> >> a gyroscope, we are held down by the
> >> spinning of the Earth.
> >> Oh wait! The dust tends to fly off!
> >> That doesn't help then.
> >> Sorry.
> >
> >I'm sorry, Mr. Smith, I said
> >"mass" ... not "gravity." O well,
> >I see "we" do not know what mass is.
> >Therefore I shall
> >
> >?query=mass
> >
> >And, please inform yourselves of what you are talking
> >before talking about things you know so little about!
> >Please: It's SO easy these days! And remember that there IS
> >a distinction between "mass" as defined above, and "gravity."
> >Thank you, and may God Bless.
> >
> >> David A. Smith
> >> Factually Challenged
> >
> >Of course, you just might be a lit'l more challenged than
> >you imagine--But, fear not, as your fellow men will always
> >(leastwise, moi) be there to lend you a helping hand.
> >
> >Promise,
> >