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Physicists Designed an Experiment to Turn Light Into Matter (gizmodo.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Physicists Designed an Experiment to Turn Light Into Matter::It would be a tangible demonstration of Einstein's famous E = mc^2 equation.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is it practical beyond confirming Einstein's equation works both ways, with all of the theoretical implications?

Considering you need a ton of energy to produce even a milligram of matter (8,99*10^10 J, or 24,7 MWh, assuming 100% conversion).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It's not practical given our current technology, but theoretically it could be in the (far) future, in a situation where energy is abundant but matter is not.

Which, admittedly, is likely gonna stay a very niche situation. Mass is the densest form of energy that we know of, after all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I also assume that if we get some exotic state of matter through this process and learn to extract energy at least 100x more effectively, this could become practucal for some applications