E=mc^2 and what's wrong with my experimental result?

[pbfred1]

A 1.9 % or 20 g mass increase of a 1 kg test mass

Figure 1 of my paper posted at viXra: 0907.0018 shows picture of a ~1.0 kg hollow copper sphere hovering over a hot-plate heating element capable of producing 1000 W spreading infrared radiation. The sphere is attached to a long wooden dowel, which in turn is attached to force sensor that is located above and is housed in a thermally isolated wooden box. In order to facilitate the upward flow of heat from the heat-element, three copper containers filled with ice have been placed ~25 cm above the hovering sphere. When the inside bottom of the sphere reaches a temperature of 240 C, sphere has increase its weight by 1.9% or .2 N or 20 g.

Einstein on heating a test mass 10 degrees and its relation to E=mc^2

In Out of my later years Einstein writes "...every gram of material contains this tremendous amount of material. Now we may reverse the relation that an increase of E in the amount of energy must be accompanied by an increase in E/c^2 in the mass. I can easily supply energy to the mass--for instance if I heat it by 10 degrees. So why not measure the mass increase.... The trouble here is that in the mass increase, the enormous factor of c^2 occurs in the denominator of the fraction. In such a case the increase is too small to be measured....
(taken form S. Hawking, A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion p 394. )


Four other experiments revealing similar results to the above mentioned experiment are also described at viXra : 0907.0018. It looks to me that there is a discrepancy between the results of my experiments and Einstein's interpretation of his formula E= mc^2.

Any comment would be appreciated.

 

[AlphaNumeric]

Why would that help? It doesn't alter the radiative profile of the heating element and the difference in temperature between the heating element and the air is huge compared to the block of ice and the air.

Unless you can provide large quantities of statistical data and experimental error analysis I'd be inclined to put your results down to sloppy work. It's easily checked, you get two identical containers and two sets of scales, puting a container on each set of scales. You pour 1 litre of cold water into one and 1 litre of boiling water into the other. Is there a weight difference? Then swap the scales and repeat.

I doubt you'd find a difference.

 

[pbfred1]

AlphaNumeric

Unless you can provide large quantities of statistical data and experimental error analysis I'd be inclined to put your results down to sloppy work. It's easily checked, you get two identical containers and two sets of scales, puting a container on each set of scales. You pour 1 litre of cold water into one and 1 litre of boiling water into the other. Is there a weight difference? Then swap the scales and repeat. I doubt you'd find a difference

.

What happens if your quess is wrong? Count Rumford weighed water at different temperatures and found no difference. I get such a large change in weight such as 1.9% for a 1 kg mass or a 19 gm gravitational mass increase and 22% change in weight for a 214 gm mass or a 47 gm gravitational mass increase.

This is quite a large gravitational mass increase thus reporting about a 5-10 standard deviation weight change is getting a little ridiculous isn't it?

You are probably hoping my result reflect a statistical error. I use quite a sensitive force sensor. If there is something wrong with my results, it most likely due the experimental design. Since I suggested this possibility, are you now going to hastily conclude that this is the reason why I get such a large gravitational mass increase.

P.E. Shaw, in 1916 who published in refereed journal, found an increase in the force on the smaller two masses in a Cavendish torsional experiment by heating the larger of the two masses. His results produce quite a clamor in Nature.

Both Shaw and Rumford in their experiments did not provide a way for the heat to flow upwards as I did by placing copper containers full of ice above the test masses. Incidentally, with the planet earth, with other planets and with the stars , heat flows radially along the radius vector from center of these bodies to the outer space where it is cold like 1-2 kelvin degrees.

You might find it interesting to go to my paper and read about how this radial flowing of heat may theoretically be related to why the value of g runs proportional to the radius vector in a large spherical astrophysical body of uniform density. viXra (0907:0018).

 

[AlphaNumeric]

Since I suggested this possibility, are you now going to hastily conclude that this is the reason why I get such a large gravitational mass increase.

Because a great deal of precision machinery which gets hot during use has been built over the years and noone has noticed it. Such things as formula 1 car engines are precision built and get very hot during use yet don't behave oddly, as they would if there were a mass change of order a percent.

And what about cold things, the effect cooling something down to 3K would have on the mass, if you're right, would be measurable in a great many experiments involving precision equipment like superconducting electromagnets.

If it happens for copper but not water, why? Why would one kind of atom somehow have a mass increase but not another kind?

Both Shaw and Rumford in their experiments did not provide a way for the heat to flow upwards as I did by placing copper containers full of ice above the test masses.

Your ice would be about -10C. The ambient air about 20C. The hot plate gets to 400C+. The difference having 0C air (since the cooling wouldn't be perfect) above the heating element compared to 20C air is negligible. Air heated to 200C will rise into air at 20C pretty much as easily as 200C air rising into 0C air and convection is the only heat transfer process which would be altered at all by that setup, you certainly wouldn't alter how the hotplate radiates heat as a function of direction.

Incidentally, with the planet earth, with other planets and with the stars , heat flows radially along the radius vector from center of these bodies to the outer space where it is cold like 1-2 kelvin degrees.

You might find it interesting to go to my paper and read about how this radial flowing of heat may theoretically be related to why the value of g runs proportional to the radius vector in a large spherical astrophysical body of uniform density. viXra (0907:0018).

Seriously? :bugeye: It doesn't occur to you that the reason stellar objects are hotter is because of their gravity giving them atmospheres or compressing together lots of material heated by initial kinetic energy due to collapse and then nuclear processes? You need a 'thermal blanket' to keep warm in a vacuum and gravitational attraction causes material to clump together, helping it to keep in heat.

And the fact you said 'g runs proportional to the radius vector' and not the more correct 'g is (anti)parallel to the radial vector' suggests its not worth my time to read.

 

[pbfred1]

AlphaNumeric said

And what about cold things, the effect cooling something down to 3K would have on the mass, if you're right, would be measurable in a great many experiments involving precision equipment like superconducting electromagnets.

In Figure 3 of my paper I show a picture of a hollow copper sphere having a mass of ~1.8 kg that hovers over a copper container full of ice. The sphere is attached to a ~45 cm wooden dowel that is in turn attached to a force sensor located above and housed in a wooden box. Just before the experiment begins the copper container full of ice is placed under the sphere which is at room temperature. After 300 s of taking force and temperature measures, the temperature of the bottom inside of th sphere has dropped about 1/2 of a degree Celsius. The force measure have dropped ~4.9 % or ~0.53 N. This amounts to a gravitational mass loss of ~54 grams.

Of the five experiments that I describe in my paper this gravitational mass change of 54 gm is the largest. .
I hope I have conveyed to you that it is important for the experimenter to control as best he can the direction of heat flow.

Podkletnov suspended a test mass over a vat of liquid nitrogen and observed a gravitational mass loss 1-3%. He claims, and most everyone else, that the spinning superconducting disc inside the vat caused the mass loss. I would like to think it was the extreme coldness inside the vat that caused the mass loss but I am not really that sure.

 

[CptBork]

Wow, if you can get 54g of mass converted into energy in your kitchen, you should be able to erect a pretty effective thermonuclear device on the fly. I did the math, 54g converted into energy would be about 55 Hiroshima bombs. How come you haven't taken over the world yet?

Seriously, I don't understand why you haven't even checked the math to see how little the mass would change from your energy change. If you had done that before trying to do your test, you'd have realized changing the temperature by a degree or two makes such a small difference to the mass, even a tiny breeze of wind would have an effect on your scale which dominates it by orders of magnitude.

 

[pbfred1]

CptBork says

hanging the temperature by a degree or two makes such a small difference to the mass,

This is what Einstein says as I have quoted above:

I can easily supply energy to the mass--for instance if I heat it by 10 degrees. So why not measure the mass increase.... The trouble here is that in the mass increase, the enormous factor of c^2 occurs in the denominator of the fraction. In such a case the increase is too small to be measured.

...

What I am saying is that my experimental results appear to run contrary to Einstein's above statement. You are attending graduate school in a very exciting time in physics. Harvard's Christopher Stubbs says in his video lecture that can be found at the Harvard website:

"Understanding dark energy is arguably the most profound problem in contemporary physics"

He also says that "

measurements are 'out of pace' with our theoretical understanding".

There are hints out there that due the dark sector problem that physics and astronomy is in a "Kuhian crisis" such as occurred when the photoelectric effect, the blackbody spectrum and Rutherford's gold foil results were discovered.

Thus if you are going to take advantage of your education and the present exciting but fluid situation in physics, I would think you would want to question some of things written in the physics and astronomy text books that your are paying good money to learn and not be sidetracked as to whether or not I am a crackpot.