3 Simple Ways to
Share What You Make

With Instructables you can share what you make with the world — and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts.

PhotosPhotos

Share one or more photos of a project, recipe, or whatever you've made, quickly and easily.

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

Step by StepStep-By-Step

Share your step-by-step photos with text instructions of what you made so others can do it too!

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

VideoVideo

Share your how-to video. You'll need your embed code from a video site such as YouTube.

Get Started

Learn more & Get Tips

Answers : Technology

Energy to matter?

One of my friends recently talked to me. The first thing he said was, "Energy to matter." He said it in the way he talks when we're planning on building something dangerous, unlikely to work, and quite possibly FBI watchlist-worthy. Though I know it's been looked into before, this got me thinking: does anyone have any ideas on practical applications of the equivalency between energy and matter? (aside from the atomic bomb--e.g. Fabricators that carry hundreds of products' worth of materials in a small, energy-dense source, like a battery?)

2 answers	Answer it!

May 5, 2010. 6:26 AMkebmoore says:

Converting energy to matter in a controllable manner is not really practical, especially the idea of a universal fabricator with a compact battery pack or power source. A single gram of matter is equivalent to the energy of 21.481 kilotons of TNT. To put it another way, you would need something on the order of 1.2 billion alkaline D cell batteries to provide the same amount of energy (assuming my research and quick calculations are correct).

The fact that energy and matter are convertible does hint at a solution. The “battery” could be a device that would convert a dense mass of matter (lead, uranium, etc.) to energy to power the fabricator that would create the desired elements and assemble something according to a pattern. Efficiency would be critical in operating the device, since losing with even a small fraction of the energy involved to waste heat would create a rather large mess.

May 4, 2010. 6:47 PMRe-design says:

It's funny you should utter the phrase or more correctly write that phrase "energy to matter".

I believe that it is the basis of ALL existence.

If you for a moment and for the discussion rule that there is not GOD (but there really is this is just for the discussion).

Then where did this all come from. I'm not going to accept the twisted theories and maths from the astrophysicists. But when there was nothing where did all this matter come from?

It had to come from pure energy. So much energy that it is the actual definition of infinite.

That energy must have coalesced and become the matter that we have today.

Think about how much energy it would take to make just one pound of matter. Any matter you choose. Tremendous amounts of energy. Compared to the energy released by all the atomic bombs in the universe they would be just one molecule in the universe to the energy of the beginning.

Not what was your original question? Oh yes. Practical applications of all that energy in matter. Well the nuclear reactor comes to mind right off. The Mr. Fusion will be one of the better inventions of this century. Right after the universal cancer cure.

P.S. There really is a GOD so all of this conjecture is a "cow's opinion".