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<blockquote data-quote="Theo R Cwithin" data-source="post: 5121765" data-attributes="member: 75712"><p>One thing to remember when thinking about burning fuel for energy is that the vast majority of that energy doesn't actually come from converting mass into energy. Rather the energy generated comes from changing the <em>configuration</em> of that mass.</p><p></p><p>Take a rubber-band and stretch it between two posts. Now it's in a configuration with a lot of tension. If you cut it, it goes flying off and hits someone in the eye-- lots of energy is released, giving the rubberband flight and "oomf" when it smacks into something, but the rubberband itself isn't any lighter. When it was under tension, it had a lot of <em>potential</em> energy; when you cut it, you released that energy stored up in its stretched-out state, yet virtually none of its actual mass was converted into energy.</p><p></p><p>Burning gasoline or digesting food is similar, except instead of cutting rubberbands, these processes are cutting chemical bonds in the molecules. Big molecules get broken down into several smaller ones, and the energy that was tied up in holding them together is released-- and <em>that's </em>the energy we're getting access to by tanking up a car or eating cheetos, not the energy from mass-to-energy conversion. If you could track down every atom involved in the reactions, you'd find that they're all accounted for, before and after!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Theo R Cwithin, post: 5121765, member: 75712"] One thing to remember when thinking about burning fuel for energy is that the vast majority of that energy doesn't actually come from converting mass into energy. Rather the energy generated comes from changing the [I]configuration[/I] of that mass. Take a rubber-band and stretch it between two posts. Now it's in a configuration with a lot of tension. If you cut it, it goes flying off and hits someone in the eye-- lots of energy is released, giving the rubberband flight and "oomf" when it smacks into something, but the rubberband itself isn't any lighter. When it was under tension, it had a lot of [I]potential[/I] energy; when you cut it, you released that energy stored up in its stretched-out state, yet virtually none of its actual mass was converted into energy. Burning gasoline or digesting food is similar, except instead of cutting rubberbands, these processes are cutting chemical bonds in the molecules. Big molecules get broken down into several smaller ones, and the energy that was tied up in holding them together is released-- and [I]that's [/I]the energy we're getting access to by tanking up a car or eating cheetos, not the energy from mass-to-energy conversion. If you could track down every atom involved in the reactions, you'd find that they're all accounted for, before and after! [/QUOTE]
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