(8) Equilibruim?
Does anyone know how fire alarms work? Becayse I do. At least now i do. xD
It's kind of amazing, actually. Did you know fire alarms contain radioactive material? Just a little bit, not enough to hurt anyone. But they are actually powered by a nuclear reaction! THIS nuclear reaction!
24195Am95+ à 42He 2+ + 23793NP 93+
They actually have a little piece of americium in them! As the americium decays, it releases the stuff on the right of the reaction into the air. As the stuff is being released, it reacts with the air around the detector in a certain way, and that is the standard used as a base line in detection. Normal air will have a certain conductivity, and as long as it stays close to that, then it will not go off.
However, when there is smoke and shit in the air, the stuff being released with react with all the soot to form ions! Since electricity IS just the flow of ions, it will change the conductivity in the air, and when the detector senses a significant enough amount of conductivity, it knows there is smoke and it will go off!
Besides the fact that smoke alarms are super cool... DO you understand what's going ON in this reaction? It's amazing! Not only are the products on the right being made, but a tiny amount of mass is actually being lost.
Everyone knows about this equation. :P But just for referance, E is change in energy, m is change in mass, and c is the speed of light.
When you look up the masses of all the reactants, though the equation is balanced, it doesn't add up to the same mass!
Americium-241 = 4.002845 * 10 -22
Helium- 4 = 6.64466 * 10 -24
Neptunium-237 = 3.93628 * 10 -22
Add the masses of helium and neptunium together and you get 4.0027457 * 10-22
Subtract the mass of the reactants from the mass of the original Americium, and you end up with 9.93 * 10-27 just… MISSING.
How can that be? Where did the rest of the mass go? Isn't it a law of nature that mass can neither be created nor destroyed? But all the rules change in nuclear physics! It's amazing! You can have matter converted into PURE ENERGY. That's why nuclear reactions are so powerful.
But proving that it happens so sooo not the same as telling me HOW it happens. You have atoms, molecules, protons, neutrons, electrons, all this has mass. It has a weight and takes up space. But this just proves that you can take them, something with weight and that takes up space, and just turn it into energy. ENERGY. What IS energy, anyway? I know it's what makes stuff GO and all, but what does THAT mean?
And if matter can be converted into pure energy, eliminating the matter COMPLETELY (this blows my mind, sorry for repeating it so much) then does that mean that deep down everyone is just made of energy? Everything and everyone is just... ENERGY?
I know it's really random that i would make this connection.... but It seems kind of like god. "The force that flows through everything" and whatever. Isn't that how some people define god? :P
OMG WE FOUND GOD IN CHEMISTRY WHAT A GLORIOUS DAY. xD
Kidding, but it seems kind of similar, doesn't it? CAN you say taht everything is composed of energy? If everything we know today came about through nuclear fusion in stars and the big bang and whatever, then does that mean that all of THAT- all the original tiny particles like protons and neutrons and electrons and positrons- that THAT was formed out of energy? Or is there something else?
If everything IS pure energy, then how did energy convert back into matter? The equation above and all, if matter can be lost, shouldn't there be a way for it to be created? And if you can create matter from energy in the same way you can create energy from matter, then HOW is matter created?