Theories of Relativity: Analogon

  1. An interesting observation I made while in chemistry lab was that volatile liquids follow a type of "relativity theory." Imagine temperature (T) as the speed of light (C) in this thought experiment. So, as the heated water approaches T>100 degrees Celsius, the water converts to another state of matter -- gas -- before the temperature is reached (that is, it is a limit and so is never reached, similar to C).

    Compare: The speed of an individual water particle cannot exceed 100 degrees Celsius whereas, in ToR, the speed of the particle cannot exceed C.

    As more thermal energy [E] is added to the liquid, the rate of evaporation (dr/dt) increases, rather than T of liquid. Analogously, as particles approach speed C, only the rate of conversion of energy to matter increases, rather than particle speed after a certain point -- say 99.99% of C.

    (dr/dt) increases as a function of E after a certain temperature threshold.

    Some further ranting:

    The particle possibly acquires wave-particle duality at that speed. Since mass is particulate and pure energy is wave-like, the particle seems to need wave-particle duality for the interconversion between matter and energy.

    Could all particles acquire wave-particle duality when sufficiently accelerated?
  2. jcsd
  3. chroot

    chroot 10,427
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    You have some rather severe misconceptions about thermodynamics. To start with, temperature is a statistical measurement. It refers to the average kinetic energy of a particle in the substance. The average kinetic energy of a particle in a gas is

    [tex]<E> = \frac{3}{2} k T[/tex]

    Many particles have smaller kinetic energies than this average, and many have kinetic energies larger than this average.

    Furthermore, particles in the liquid escape the liquid to exist in a gaseous phase all the time. This is how evaporation happens.

    The rest of your post in unfortunately just nonsense.

    - Warren
  4. Yes, but the particles with the highest energy evaporate first (consider evaporative cooling, e.g.). The point is that water cannot reach temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius because of the same type of problem in relativity theory with the speed of light. As the water particles approach the 100 degrees after being fed thermal energy, the ones with the highest kinetic energy convert to another state of matter (i.e., gas)
  5. You're not making any sense. Are you trying to prove that matter changes into a wave as it approachs the speed of light?

    P.S. Water can reach tempertures above 100C without evaporating. Example: pressure cooker.

  6. In the case of a pressure cooker or autoclave, you're just changing the threshold temperature by increasing the energy required for the water to evaporate, but not changing the phenomenon that I'm speaking of. The "100C" is arbitrary. The important point is that there is a certain threshold temperature that cannot be reached with respect to certain experimental conditions and that this temp. cannot be reached because the water converts to another state of matter. This phenomenon is upheld in a pressure cooker -- it's just that the temperature at which it occurs is different.

    The same is the case of acceleration to light. After a certain threshold speed, you cannot accelerate more and the extra energy is converted to mass rather than speeding up the particle to C.

    Also, how does energy applied to a particle convert to mass after the threshold speed (say 99.99+% C)? Imagine spinning a particle at the speed of light at an angle...what properties of the particle allow the interconversion between matter and energy? Does there need to be wave-particle duality?

    For instance, why does light possess wave-particle duality? Perhaps the particulate nature of light is due to its velocity. That is, it originally was only a wave but when extended over temporal dimension, it acquired wave-particle duality as an effect of its speed.
  7. chroot

    chroot 10,427
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    What you seem to be missing is that the water particles do this all the time, at all temperatures. Even ice does this.

    - Warren

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