Re: a relativity question

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

Not true!  The mass of the "elevated mass" - earth system > mass of the
lowered mass - earth system.  Analogy: mass of two like charges at
infinite separation is less than mass of the same two charges close
together.  Exercise: Calculate the mass of a uniform sphere of charge
having a radius equal to the classical radius of the electron.
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack


On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

> John Mallincrodt wrote:
> " . . . No; an elevated mass does not "have" more energy despite the
> implications of standard textbooks (and not to mention the usefulness
> of that gentle subterfuge in many common situations.)  Gravitational
> potential energy is a property of a *system* of interacting masses. . . ."
>
> Which system?  The car/earth system is part of the earth/moon system, is
> part of the earth/sun system, is part of the solar system, is part of the
> milky way system, is part of  . . . the universe.  Thus the mass of the
> universe increases, but not the mass of its parts!
>
> Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
> Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
> trebor@velocity.net
> http://www.velocity.net/~trebor
>
>
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> This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.

--
        "What did Barrow's lectures contain?  Bourbaki writes with some
scorn that in his book in a hundred pages of the text there are about 180
drawings.  (Concerning Bourbaki's books it can be said that in a thousand
pages there is not one drawing, and it is not at all clear which is
worse.)"
                                        V. I. Arnol'd in
                                Huygens & Barrow, Newton & Hooke

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.