National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute)

Associate Professor Andrey OLCHAK, DSc

EdEx Course “How Our World Is Designed?”

Supporting material

Energy: the Unique Basic Element of the Matter

In the previous section we mentioned some reactions that may occur in the world of elementary
particles. In one of them – the reaction of neutron decay – one initial particle (neutron) in the
result of reaction produces 3 different particles (proton, electron and neutrino):

n → p+ + e- + v~e

So, the number of particles before and after reaction is different, but the total electric charge and
the total lepton charge of three produced after the reaction particles remains the same as the
initial particle had before the reaction. The number of particles (‘the quantity of matter’ in terms
of classical physics) is not a ‘saint cow’ in the quantum world of elementary particles, but
charges – they are strictly conserved.

The same relates to mass and energy. In other example two massive particles – electron and
positron – in annihilation relation turn into two photon, having no mass at all: e- + e+ -> 2γ. Also
possible are the opposite reactions, when big massive particles are produced in collisions of
much smaller (by mass) particles. For example, practically all heavy leptons and hadrons were
discovered experimentally among the products of collisions between accelerated electrons or
protons,

Thus mass is not a value that is strictly conserved, as it was thought until the beginning of 20th
century. But energy is conserved unconditionally and irrevocably in all and every known
process!

In classical physics mass was sometimes considered as practically a synonymous of matter.

Fields (electric, magnetic), waves, optical rays – they can be mediators or agents, transporting
force, pulse and energy, but matter must be massive. At the beginning of 20-th century quantum
mechanics eliminated a border between particles and waves, and the Albert Einstein’s Special
Relativity Theory (SRT) had completely desacralized the concept of mass. The famous Einstein
formula E = mc2 (or better to put it another way: m = E/c2) established a new definition of mass:
it is the measure of energy, which a particle or a system possess in the reference system where it
rests. Not less, not more.

Special Relativity Theory (SRT) – what is it? SRT actually is a little bit corrected version of
classical Newton’s mechanics, which takes into account the fact that for the observer moving
with a speed exceeding the speed of light c = 3·108 m/s the causal connections may seem broken.
Therefore such motion must not be possible. One of the logical consequences of this ban is the
corrected expression for the energy of a lonely moving particle:
 mc 2
E
v2
1
c2

For not so high speeds v ≪ c the square root can be expanded in a series in powers of (v/c)2 and
we can obtain an approximate expression for energy: E = mc2 + mv2/2. The second summand in
this expression is the classical Newton’s kinetic energy, which any physical body or particle
possess when it moves, but the first one is new: E = mc2 stays for the energy of a particle which
neither moves, nor interacts with other bodies. It is the energy, which a particle possess at rest –
simply because it has mass. And, as the speed of light is very big, this energy is tremendously
big!

We should mention that SRT is a very reliably

experimentally proven theory. Just one example: in
accelerators of charged particles protons or electrons are
accelerated by electromagnetic fields up to very high
energies, exceeding their rest energy mc2 thousands times!
In other to be able to do this, engineers, constructing these
accelerating machines must know precisely how the
energy depends on speed. Otherwise they would not be
able to synchronize the accelerating fields with moving
particles. The SRT provides this knowledge absolutely
precisely. And machines are successfully working! There
are, of course, plenty of other proves.

Now let us consider some composite system (like atomic nucleus), consisting of certain moving
and interacting between each other parts (protons, neutrons, quarks, gluons etc.). The system
mass M is the measure of the internal energy of the system,. It should consist of several
components: the sum of rest energies mic2 of composing the system particles, plus their kinetic
energies Ei, plus the potential energy U of all the interacting inside the system particles:

Mc2 = Σmic2 + ΣEi + U

The potential energy of interactions having the character of attraction is always negative. If the
attractive interaction is strong enough, the negative potential energy U < 0 can make the mass of
the system M smaller, than the sum of masses of constituting it particles:

if |U| > ΣEi than M < Σmi (sic!)

The stronger is the interaction – the less is the mass of the system.

If mass is the measure of internal energy of atomic nucleus – it may probably serve as a practical
source of energy! This idea naturally appeared together with Einstein’s formula (~ 1905) and for
the next ~ 30 years seemed to be a case of a very distant future. In 1937, few months before his
death, the great Ernest Rutherford said in one of his interview, that practical usage of nuclear
energy probably will be possible - in future centuries. Just the next year after this interview Otto
Hahn and Fritz Strassmann from Keiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin have discovered the chain
nuclear reaction and today the extraction of energy from fissionable uranium nuclei gives 11% of
world generation of electric energy (in USA – more than 20%).

Now we may do some Conclusions and Derivations:

 Travelling into the depth of the structure of matter we finally reached the basic element,
underlying all the other elements of matter – the Energy.
 Energy at the deepest level is taking forms of quarks, leptons or exchange particles,
constituting atoms and atomic nuclei.
 Energy can be transformed from one form into another, but it never appears from nowhere
and never disappear into nowhere.

Now the time is to undertake a journey in opposite direction – to see how our world is structured
in ascending order of scales.