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Andrew Mason
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The electrons represent stored or potential energy. Would you say that potential energy is equivalent to other forms of energy?Bob3141592 said:But what if you don't have a bunch of positrons? Are those isolated electrons equivalent to energy or not?
The bits of matter are still there. But the atom has less mass. So I guest that the bits of matter must have lost part of what it is that makes them matter.And I don't think matter is being converted into energy in the case you described. Both before and after the emission, we have the same protons, neutrons and electrons, just in different relationships with each other. What matter has disappeared? Seems to me in one sense all the bits of matter that were there earlier are still there. You can count them, and nobody's missing.
AM