Particle Accelerator

[JOEYSHABADO]

How can particles come from energy in a particle accelerator?

[JohnDTC]

i dont think particles 'come from energy' in a particle accelerator, sub-atomic particles are produced/displaced from existing matter/atoms which are travelling & collide at high velocities.

[mr. piper]

is there an increase in total mass when a particle is created? and if so is it the exact mass of the product plus the original particle?

[magicdice]

remember the equation e=mc^2? this means that if one gram of mass is converted into energy, 90000000000000 J of energy is produced (as c is the speed of light in a vacuum, 3000000000m/s)

it also works in the opposite way - large amounts of energy can form into particles, somehow - not exactly sure how because it's way above the level of what i'm currently studying, although it has been proven.

[jake-the-peg]

Try not to think of Energy and matter as seperate but as different faces of the same thing.

You know how in an atomic bomb matter is "distroyed" and energy is produced, well when enegetic particles collide the energy they've gained in the accelerator can be converted to into matter in the reverse manner.

In fact it's not just particle collisions one group managed to create particles by colliding electrons with light from a high power laser.

[Calvesy]

In the cold empty vacuum of space particle / antiparticle pairs spontaneously pop into existence. Those that remain stable do not violate any laws of conservation because matter always comes with a balancing negative energy field that we perceive as gravity. The total amount of energy in the universe is still zero. We don't know where the antimatter has gone, though. Blame it on asymmetry.