kk9w@pur-ee.UUCP (01/28/84)
All of this talk has really got me curious. I always thought that the unit of mass was electron volts per c squared (eV/c^2). eV is a unit of energy, and I sure don't weigh 10 Joules. Dave
rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe @ N41:48:31, W88:07:13) (01/30/84)
How many megatons of trinitrotoluene do YOU weigh? :-) Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (01/31/84)
If there is a formula giving one quantity as a constant times another quantity,
sometimes measurements of the one quantity are expressed in units of the other
quantity for computational and notational convenience. Since the mass of
something and its energy are related, in relativistic physics, by a constant
whose value is the square of the speed of something massless (like light),
if one is working in relativistic physics one can measure mass in units of
energy or vice versa.
Guy Harris
{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guystern@bnl.UUCP (Eric Stern) (02/01/84)
1 eV = 1.6E-19 Joules c = 3.0E8 meters/second so 1eV/(c**2) = 1.6E-19/9E16 Joules/(meters/second)**2 = = 1.8E-36 kg.
nathanm@hp-pcd.UUCP (02/18/84)
For the answer to this dilemma, let us engage in a little
"dimensional analysis":
Yes, eV is a unit of energy. Energy is also expressed
as mass*distance*distance/(time*time). Divide that by
c^2 (c is in distance/time) and, lo and behold, you have
mass. This is a common way of expressing mass in relativistic
physics, in accordance with Einstein's mass-energy relation:
m=E/c^2
where E is energy.
----
Nathan Meyers
{hplabs,allegra!harpo}!hp-pcd!nathanm