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Re: interpreting mass and energy



On Sunday, November 2, 2003, at 11:20 AM, Joe Heafner wrote:

Good morning.

I have a question that I've been wrestling with since a recent
classroom discussion on mass and energy within the context of special
relativity. I hope I'm able to articulate the questions correctly
enough to get a useful answer.

Classically, an object's mass is apparently related to the number of
atoms that make up that object (e.g. a block of aluminum has a certain
number of aluminum atoms in it). The only way to change the object's
mass is to change the number of atoms in the object . . .

The total mass of your block also changes (without
changing the number of atoms) when the mass of
each atom is changed.
Ludwik Kowalski