Destroying Physical Matter

[Laurcus]

Hello! First post here, and I have a few questions.

 

1. Is it possible to completely destroy physical matter so that absolutely no scientifically measurable trace of it remains? If this is possible, what is the scientific term for it? For a long time I used the term vaporized, but looking up the word I'm sure that's incorrect. If it's not possible to destroy physical matter, what's the smallest form it can be reduced to and is there a scientific term for that?

 

2. How much energy would it take to completely destroy, (or reduce to smallest possible form if that's not possible) ordinary rock?

[mathematic]

What is your definition of "destroyed"? There is a fundamental conservation principle - matter can be transformed into other matter or energy, but the total remains the same.

[Laurcus]

Okay, that answers part of my question, thanks! My definition of destroyed in this case is to be completely gone, to not exist at all in any form whatsoever. So I guess that means physical matter can't be destroyed. So, I'm guessing that the most damage that could be inflicted on an object, (assuming infinite energy is applied to said object) is to reduce/transform it to its electrons/protons/neutrons that make up its base atoms? And is there a scientific term to describe that? For example, transforming liquids or solids into vapor is called vaporization, or being vaporized, is there a similar term for transforming something into subatomic particles? Forgive me if my questions seem stupid, this is very out of my area of expertise, and I'm having difficulty finding the correct words for my questions.

[doG]

See Conservation of mass:

 

The law of conservation of mass, also known as the principle of mass/matter conservation, states that the mass of an isolated system (closed to all matter and energy) will remain constant over time. This principle is equivalent to the conservation of energy, in the sense when energy or mass is enclosed in a system and none is allowed in or out, its quantity cannot otherwise change (hence, its quantity is "conserved"). The mass of an isolated system cannot be changed as a result of processes acting inside the system. The law implies that mass cannot be created or destroyed, although it may be rearranged in space and changed into different types of particles; and that for any chemical process in a closed system, the mass of the reactants must equal the mass of the products.

[Laurcus]

<br />See <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_mass' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>Conservation of mass</a>:<br /><br /><br />

<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Yes, I believe mathematic answered that part quite well. That still does not answer the other part of my first question, (Is there a scientific form for converting a solid into subatomic particles, and if so what is that term?) or my second question, (How much energy would it take to convert a solid into subatomic particles? If that varies between the mass and density of objects, assume a 5 foot thick wall of rock. If rock isn't specific enough, assume granite.)

 

Edit: Huh, quoting you really messed up the formatting of that post. Oh well, too lazy to try and fix it.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Laurcus

[swansont]

See Conservation of mass:

 

Note that conservation of mass is often used as a chemical interpretation. In physics you need to pay attention to how you've defined mass; often we simply say that energy is conserved and mass is a form of energy.

 

——

 

As for the OP, I don't think there's a general term, since it doesn't happen. There are effects on much smaller scales; you can have ablation, in which you remove small but still usually macroscopic pieces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablation

 

Plasmafication is a term sometimes used for ionizing a sample and creating a plasma.

 

I don't think there is a term for completely breaking up a nucleus into its constituents, you have fission and, probably closer to the point, spallation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spallation

 

If this was for sci-fi, you might consider coining a term, like superspallation or ultraspallation (except I just did and expect royalties)

 

The minimum energy required is almost entirely nuclear. You'd need to find the nuclear binding energy of all the atoms, which is [(mass of the individual nucleons) - (mass of the material)]*(speed of light)^2, or [math](m_{nucleons}-m_{material})c^2[/math]

 

The chemical/atomic energy will be in the roundoff error of that calculation.

 

1 kg of iron (Fe-56) has roughly (1/56)* 6e26 atoms, with 26 protons and 30 neutrons. Actual atomic mass of 55.9349421 amu per atom. The mass of the protons + neutrons is 26.20345 + 30.25995 = 56.4634. That's 492 MeV per atom (reality check: 8.8 MeV per nucleon. OK so far)

 

492 MeV is 7.9 e-11 J, which gives us around 8.5e14J, or 850 TeraJoules. That's about a minute's worth of the worldwide energy use (474×10^18J), assuming all my math is correct. You may want to double-check.

[Laurcus]

All right! Thank you very much, that's exactly the sort of information I was looking for.

[DrRocket]

Hello! First post here, and I have a few questions.

 

1. Is it possible to completely destroy physical matter so that absolutely no scientifically measurable trace of it remains?

 

Yes.

 

If this is possible, what is the scientific term for it?

 

Politics.

[MigL]

Doc, you DO have a sense of humour.

Oh wait, you were being serious.

[JohnStu]

You can destroy a physical matter and it dissapears completely in World of Warcraft, such as the case with my Epic Woolen Waistband of Owl.

 

You cannot destroy a physical matter completely in real life, as they just break into radiation, which is still matter really since they have energy.