For the sake of simplicity, let's imagine that the entire universe is empty except for a single lump of (classical) matter with mass m. In its center of momentum frame, it is clear that the total energy is simply ECoM=mc2. However, in a frame moving relative to it with speed v, we have Emoving=√m2c4+p2c2>mc2 for all nonzero v.
Are we to infer that the energy content of a system can be different relative to the observer? Does this not violate the first law of thermodynamics?
No comments:
Post a Comment