In a recent debate around a camp fire in Robertson over the New Year, I stated that "if you had to take the mass of the wood before burning it and take the mass of the ash after burning it, the difference in mass would be that of the smoke". Everyone around the fire fiercely disagreed. In fact, one person in particular said flat-out "You are wrong!" They said the difference in mass is not the smoke but a conversion to energy. If this was the case, none of us would be here today, but I will get to that later.
As they confidently defied what I had said, it seemed to me that they seriously doubted the level of my intelligence, and that I had come up with what they thought to be a ridiculous statement. Perhaps they should have conducted a similar exercise to the one I am conducting now.
We took a bet and they said they wanted to see proof, however in science, there is never any proof - an hypothesis merely remains a valid theory for as long as it remains unrefuted by evidence, or until the emergence of a theory that explains at least the same phenomena more efficiently. No theory is ever comprehensively proven.
It really is rather simple. There are several types of energy, but we will be for the purpose of this investigation mainly concerned with heat, chemical, and nuclear energy.
The whole universe is made up of matter and energy. The Lomonosov-Lavoisier Law basically states that matter cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form. The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form. However, in Einstein's discovery of E=mc2 it states that mass and energy are equivalent and that mass can get destroyed, in which case it will be "conserved" in the form of energy. With the "c" part of the formula (speed of light) being so large, a tiny amount of mass would result in a large amount of energy. This can only occur in a nuclear reaction.
Consider the example of burning wood: this stores chemical energy that is converted into heat energy as it burns. The heat energy released in the chemical reaction (in this case the fire) results from the component molecules being broken up, and their constituent atoms rearranged into different molecules that collectively have lower energy levels This means that each atom's electrons will orbit its nucleus at lower valency levels after the molecular reconfiguration, than they did in their previous molecular form. The energy released as heat in the fire is quantitatively equivalent to the difference between the old and new valency levels, but the 'before' and 'after' number of atoms involved in the reaction will ALWAYS be exactly the same. These atoms are what make up the mass.
In this chemical reaction, the sum of the mass of the reactants (the wood, fire, and oxygen) equals the sum of the mass of the products (the ash and smoke). As the Lomonosov-Lavoisier Law states that matter cannot be destroyed, this would mean that all of the matter as it existed before (as the piece of wood) would be converted into other forms of matter as it burned. This would be the product of the chemical reaction. The smoke (scientifically called hydrocarbon) is a byproduct of the chemical reaction. It is created when oxygen, consumed by the fire, combines with the carbon and hydrogen in the wood to form carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water vapor. Considering we only weighed the wood, when we started, the mass of the smoke plus the mass of the ash would actually be MORE than the original piece of wood, as we had not taken into account the oxygen used by the fire to support the combustion process. If we really want to be technical this would make my original statement incorrect as I stated it would be equal, where it is actually more.
Everyone around the fire stated that part of the mass is converted to energy, and that the smoke was not the difference in the mass. We know this is not possible as mass cannot convert into energy except in one situation: a nuclear reaction, in which case the E=mc2 formula would be used. A fission or fusion reaction can either split or join atoms using extremely high temperature or pressure, respectively. In this case, a small part of the mass would be converted into energy. This mass is called a binding mass and creates binding energy. Now if this was the case when lighting our fire, the list would read Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Robertson, and the barbeque would definitely be overdone.
In conclusion, according to the theories that have been thought out by some of the greatest physicists of all time, which, in all fairness, have been based on a great deal of probability, I feel confident that this paper shows that my hypothesis on this subject is correct. However, should any of these probabilities been incorrectly calculated, perhaps, and only perhaps, my theory would go up in smoke.
Furthermore, we as the unknowledgeable in many subjects and fields, find ourselves discussing topics that we don't really know much about. This is all very well because it makes our conversations interesting. However, unless we are absolutely categorically sure that we are right, never tell someone else that they are wrong, because we may find ourselves receiving papers just like this one.
Matthew Chaplin website: http://www.calculatorsonline.co.za