52
If we took material like rock from space and got it back to Earth enough times, would Earth grow as a planet?
(sh.itjust.works)
As the title says. I'm actually thinking about this hard with my friends because everything that's produced on Earth stays on Earth so it doesn't change size, but what if it's not from Earth but it stays on Earth?
We do, an infinitely small amount. Remember you gotta divide by c².
Isn’t this just a matter of units though?
Like we could define our own units such that 1 unit of e equals 1 unit of m.
I have no clue what units that c^2^ formula are actually in 😕
c is the speed of light, so you can use any distance over time unit. But most commonly it's given as 299 792 458 m/s
So you can't since m is multiplied by c and c isn't equal to 1.
Oof - I have to rethink everything I thought I knew about E=mc^2^ 🫠
I’ve always discounted c^2^ as “just a number” and didn’t consider it was a number of specific units 🫣
This is actually very common and I even remember physics teacher basically using the words "don't worry about it, it's just a really big number", because their point was to imaging the big amount of energy you could get from very little mass.
But I mostly blame old documentaries about atom bombs that just threw in the absolute basics to make what is basically explosion porn.
Ok - This is literally the origin for me. My 8th grade “physical science” teacher told us this.
Yeah, that checks out. It is an interesting concepts that can peak student's curiosity, but to early to really get into quantum mechanics. So for people that don't further pursue an interest in physics, that's often the last impression they are left with.
I had the fortune to have a physics professor as a dad. I carried a laminated double sided periodic table since elementary school. We didn't even have chemistry of physics until secondary school ....
Actually you can.