Indestructable matter?

[Romeo]

Is there anything in the universe which cannot be destroyed once it has been created? Some matter, energy or particle which, once brought into existence, cannot be put out of existence?

[jake-the-peg]

Not in the way that I think you mean.

Matter itself is indestructable in that if you have 1Kg of wood and you burn it you end up with ash, water and carbon dioxide etc. and all of these add up to 1Kg

The same goes for all matter and all reactions.

The only exception to this is nuclear reactions. In these some matter can be converted to energy or energy can be converted to matter.

This is the famous E=mc� equation, E= energy, m=matter and c= the speed of light.

So basically all matter and energy can be distroyed but you always end up with the same amount of it - is that then truely distroyed? you'll have to make your own mind up on that

[Romeo]

Hi jake - does that mean that matter can be broken up or moved around but never actually eliminated?

[feellinold]

Indeed. Conservation of energy has so far never been observed to be broken, except in quantum mechanics, which says that you can break conservation of energy provided that the 'borrowed' energy is given back.

This is important in two ways:

1. The vacuum is actually filled with particles constantly flipping in and out of existence. This was verified by an experiment involving the polarisation of light in a vacuum.

2. Hawking radiation from black holes is thought to occur when a particle-antiparticle pair that flips into existence finds itself at the event horizon. The pair separates and one particle radiates out and the other one, the antiparticle, annihilates with mass in the black hole, creating energy. This then flips out of existence to return the 'borrowed' energy. Therefore, black holes could theoretically radiate and lose mass despite there being a boundary with which light cannot escape.


But to answer the question, no. No such particle has been observed.

[Physicsgirl]

particles can suddenly wink into existence but they are living on borrowed time. The more massive they are, the shorter their lifespan before they revert back to energy - this means they can't get far and don't make much difference on our scale of things.

[boobesque]

"The only exception to this is nuclear reactions. In these some matter can be converted to energy or energy can be converted to matter."

according to E=MC� energy also has mass yes? like a charged battery weighs more than an uncharged battery (like 0.0000000000000000000000001 % more) but the huge energy releases of nuclear reactions make up the lost mass. So really mass is a form of energy and vice versa

I'm no nuclear physicist, this is just what i have read