What came before the Big Bang?

[Meow Mix]

Sub-atomic particles are not matter in the conventional sense, and quantum physicists tend to drift in the direction that they are made up of "strings", which are believed to be minute waves of "energy" that vibrate.

No, strings aren't "waves of energy." They're fundamental if string theory is correct, which means the most they can be called is "strings." They would still be matter, and they would still possess energy as a property.

Particles (all particles are sub-atomic, by the way) are matter in the conventional sense, because the conventional sense of "matter" is to have spatiotemporal extension and energy -- and particles have both.

No it is not since both are composed of sub-atomic particles (see above). Matter can evolve into energy, such as what happens during a nuclear explosion, but also energy can condense into matter, which is what happened as our universe began to cool after the BB.

No, matter doesn't "evolve into energy." Rest mass has an energy equivalence, but when the energy is released it's still doing so by being carried by particles (radiation, for instance -- those are particles, it's still matter carrying the energy).

No again. Atoms are mostly space with the charged particles comprising only a very small fraction of the composition of an atom. If it weren't for the polarization of the charges, all this open space would allow one atom to mostly coincide with another.

Let me recommend you Google "quantum physics" to get further information and/or verification of the above.

A single atom can only be said to be "polarized" if its valence electrons form an overall shape giving the atom the equivalent of a dipole moment. That's what "polarized" means -- to act like a dipole. You are using the word incorrectly.

As for your recommendation, I don't mean to be trite, but did you realize I'm a cosmology grad student?

I know a thing or two about quantum physics.

 

[Meow Mix]

Thank you!

It disagrees with your position, though.

From the article:

• Matter and Energy really aren’t in the same class and shouldn’t be paired in one’s mind.
• Matter, in fact, is an ambiguous term; there are several different definitions used in both scientific literature and in public discourse. Each definition selects a certain subset of the particles of nature, for different reasons. Consumer beware! Matter is always some kind of stuff, but which stuff depends on context.
• Energy is not ambiguous (not within physics, anyway). But energy is not itself stuff; it is something that all stuff has.
• The term Dark Energy confuses the issue, since it isn’t (just) energy after all. It also really isn’t stuff; certain kinds of stuff can be responsible for its presence, though we don’t know the details.
• Photons should not be called `energy’, or `pure energy’, or anything similar. All particles are ripples in fields and have energy; photons are not special in this regard. Photons are stuff; energy is not.
• The stuff of the universe is all made from fields (the basic ingredients of the universe) and their particles. At least this is the post-1973 viewpoint.

Emphasis added.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

no, matter doesn't "evolve into energy."

creationist!!!!!

 

[Meow Mix]

Matter is stuff.

Energy is what stuff has.

That is what the article points out. I think you would do well to read it, and I'm sure it'll be a good discussion for Legion and Meow Mix to throw their hats into as well.

My hat's thrown in with the article, which is correct

 

[Meow Mix]

creationist!!!!!

With energy I'm a non-creationist thanks to FLoT and Noether

Matter though? Yeah. Hardcore creationist.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I think you would do well to read it, and I'm sure it'll be a good discussion for Legion and Meow Mix to throw their hats into as well.

My hat's thrown in with the article, which is correct

And I don't have to read whatever the article in question was. I throw my hat in with the cosmology grad student. Also, never doubt someone dubbed "Meow Mix" when it comes to string theory (which I am quite positive has something to do with cats and yarn).

 

[Slapstick]

And I don't have to read whatever the article in question was. I throw my hat in with the cosmology grad student. Also, never doubt someone dubbed "Meow Mix" when it comes to string theory (which I am quite positive has something to do with cats and yarn).

Actually the article is about the ambiguities of using the word matter in the English language and the purpose of it is to be more precise as to what matter and energy is or actually are. He then goes on to use the word stuff to describe matter and says “energy is not itself stuff, it is something that all stuff has.”

And further tries to stress the point that “In reality, matter and energy don’t even belong to the same categories; it is like referring to apples and orangutans, or to heaven and earthworms, or to birds and beach balls.”

And now that I read it I wish I didn’t because it was somewhat agonizing to read. So be glad you passed and threw your hat in!

 

[Slapstick]

Just to further my point. That stupid link only adds more ambiguities to the discussion.

 

[gnostic]

No. The "m" in E = mc^2 stands for mass, not matter.

Yeah, I've mentioned that to him too. I'm not sure if he understood that, or that he ignored it.

He seemed to confuse mass with weight. Because we normally use weight as kilogram in non-scientific context, we sometimes forget that weight have different meaning in science.

Perhaps, I should start a new thread on matter, mass and energy, because creationists seemed to fail to grasp the difference. If they are going to debate about science or against science, then they should, at the very least, use the proper terms, and know and understand how to distinguish one term from others.

 

[Meow Mix]

Yeah, I've mentioned that to him too. I'm not sure if he understood that, or that he ignored it.

He seemed to confuse mass with weight. Because we normally use weight as kilogram in non-scientific context, we sometimes forget that weight have different meaning in science.

Perhaps, I should start a new thread on matter, mass and energy, because creationists seemed to fail to grasp the difference. If they are going to debate about science or against science, then they should, at the very least, use the proper terms, and know and understand how to distinguish one term from others.

I'm not sure it's a creationist thing so much as a New Age thing. There's a lot of New Age hype about quantum mechanics and the whole "consciousness causes collapse" debacle that happened for a bit.

Misinterpretations of energy or using woo-soaked contexts of the word "vibration" are two of my biggest pet peeves as a physics student and a skeptic. I'd certainly contribute to a thread on the matter (see what I did there?)

 

[Meow Mix]

Actually the article is about the ambiguities of using the word matter in the English language and the purpose of it is to be more precise as to what matter and energy is or actually are. He then goes on to use the word stuff to describe matter and says “energy is not itself stuff, it is something that all stuff has.”

And further tries to stress the point that “In reality, matter and energy don’t even belong to the same categories; it is like referring to apples and orangutans, or to heaven and earthworms, or to birds and beach balls.”

And now that I read it I wish I didn’t because it was somewhat agonizing to read. So be glad you passed and threw your hat in!

Just to further my point. That stupid link only adds more ambiguities to the discussion.

It's not very ambiguous at all. In fact, it's quite truthful.

The fact of the matter is that the word "matter" is used egregiously differently between scientists, popular science, laypersons, and the public. The article is just accurately reporting this fact. (For the record, the most common scientific use of the term matter is to describe anything with spatiotemporal extension and which possesses energy as a direct property. This doesn't include fields (though fields carry energy through the virtual particles, which are matter), though fields still fulfill the definition of physical (to have spatiotemporal extension).)

One thing that's for sure, though, is that energy isn't something that exists on its own. It's always a property. That's why the article says "energy is something stuff has." This is just saying "energy is a property," which is correct.

The article correctly points out that energy and matter aren't in the same category -- this is also correct, because one of them is a property and the other is not.

Imagine instead saying, "length and rulers aren't in the same category" or "length isn't itself stuff, it's something that stuff has." Maybe that makes it more obvious. Length, like energy, is a property -- a property of matter.

 

[Slapstick]

It's not very ambiguous at all. In fact, it's quite truthful.

The fact of the matter is that the word "matter" is used egregiously differently between scientists, popular science, laypersons, and the public. The article is just accurately reporting this fact. (For the record, the most common scientific use of the term matter is to describe anything with spatiotemporal extension and which possesses energy as a direct property. This doesn't include fields (though fields carry energy through the virtual particles, which are matter), though fields still fulfill the definition of physical (to have spatiotemporal extension).)

One thing that's for sure, though, is that energy isn't something that exists on its own. It's always a property. That's why the article says "energy is something stuff has." This is just saying "energy is a property," which is correct.

The article correctly points out that energy and matter aren't in the same category -- this is also correct, because one of them is a property and the other is not.

Imagine instead saying, "length and rulers aren't in the same category" or "length isn't itself stuff, it's something that stuff has." Maybe that makes it more obvious. Length, like energy, is a property -- a property of matter.

So how did matter get energy?

I don’t buy into the whole notion of KE or PE seeing how it’s influenced by something outside of thermodynamics or an isolated system. A rock can’t roll up a hill by itself.

It is ambiguous when someone who claims to by a physicist can’t explain anything in simple English and resorts to a word like “stuff” to explain matter and how it differs from energy, which I will agree with because mass and energy are not the same as matter.

 

[Meow Mix]

So how did matter get energy?

I don’t buy into the whole notion of KE or PE seeing how it’s influenced by something outside of thermodynamics or an isolated system. A rock can’t roll up a hill by itself.

I'm really not sure what you're saying here. You don't accept the distinction between kinetic and potential energy? The distinction is important for things like the work-potential energy theorem. I'm confused on what any of this has to do with rocks rolling uphill.

It is ambiguous when someone who claims to by a physicist can’t explain anything in simple English and resorts to a word like “stuff” to explain matter and how it differs from energy, which I will agree with because mass and energy are not the same as matter.

This is also confusing. You say this person "can't explain anything in simple English," then in the next breath you complain that they refer to things as "stuff."

I don't know about you, but I would call that "simple English." The intent to demarcate matter as a thing rather than as a property of a thing by calling it "stuff" seemed pretty obvious to me.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So how did matter get energy?

The same way it (some physical system) "got" velocity, acceleration, angular momentum, work, etc. I used work as an example in my discussion of Einstein's relativistic energy-mass equivalence because both work and energy are properties of physical systems but only one has an "exciting" corresponding concept in "common parlence". We tend to think of energy in ways that are exciting and have little or nothing to do with physics, while we think of "work" as awful and in ways that have actually quite a bit more to do with physics, but both are quite similar in physics. I find that comparing energy to work helps take a bit of the mysticism of energy out of the equation (bad pun intended).

 

[Meow Mix]

The same way it (some physical system) "got" velocity, acceleration, angular momentum, work, etc. I used work as an example in my discussion of Einstein's relativistic energy-mass equivalence because both work and energy are properties of physical systems but only one has an "exciting" corresponding concept in "common parlence". We tend to think of energy in ways that are exciting and have little or nothing to do with physics, while we think of "work" as awful and in ways that have actually quite a bit more to do with physics, but both are quite similar in physics. I find that comparing energy to work helps take a bit of the mysticism of energy out of the equation (bad pun intended).

I find as a rule of thumb that if someone who's talking about energy also starts talking about work, they are 90000% more likely not to be talking out of their nether regions. That's a statistical fact.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I find as a rule of thumb that if someone who's talking about energy also starts talking about work, they are 90000% more likely not to be talking out of their nether regions.

Clearly you haven't taught/tutored enough high school kids about physics. The only way to make them understand is try to evenly balance to concepts that they insist on relating to things other than physics, one hated and the other awesome, so that they cancel each other out.

That's a statistical fact.

Not unless you used Bayes'. It's the in thing in epistemic justification. Everyone is doing it.

 

[Meow Mix]

Not unless you used Bayes'. It's the in thing in epistemic justification. Everyone is doing it.

The probability that you said that given the probability that I'd find it hilarious approaches one.

 

[Slapstick]

It's also a statistical fact that someone who talks about energy as being work in an isolated system is full of malarkey.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It's also a statistical fact that someone who talks about energy as being work in an isolated system is full of malarkey.

Little did you know that "malarkey" is Akkadian for genius brains.

 

[Slapstick]

Little did you know that "malarkey" is Akkadian for genius brains.

I knew that I just like the word malarkey.