It's THAT Equation... |
We can make the fairly educated guess that the fuel energy enhancement factor is
: the same as the time dilation factor.
Thus,
Thus, when the object is moving with respect to an inertial frame, its energy increases by a factor of . Since energy and mass are equivalent, it makes sense that wherever we see m in a familiar equation, we can replace it with m (as is very close to 1 at the low velocities we are used to).
This means that we can increase the energy of a body by increasing its mass (a fancy way of saying that more massive candles burn for longer!).
Conversely we can also increase the mass of a body by increasing its energy, i.e. by giving it a high velocity with respect to another inertial frame.
Activity 2 |
Try to work out what the approximate mass change would be when the internal energy of water is increased, say, by boiling a kettle, given that the energy required to heat a litre of water from room temperature to boiling point is approximately 300 kJ. How noticeable is this?
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