"Mass is Conserved, and Velocity is Conserved, but can Mass and Velocity be Exchanged?"
alt: "Is Conservation of Energy, actually Conservation of Mass and Velocity?"

by Ted Huntington
06/10/2008


Ted Huntington

ABSTRACT
Most people accept that for all particle collisions, mass is conserved, and velocity is conserved. The popular interpretation of the conservation of energy is that mass and velocity are convertible. The view of conservation of momentum (p=mv) may suggest to some that mass and velocity are interchangeable. However, are mass and velocity in fact, interchangeable? Can mass be changed into velocity and velocity into mass? The author argues that the more logical interpretation, is that, while mass and velocity are individually conserved, they cannot be exchanged. For example, in any collision, no portion of mass may ever be converted into an increased velocity of some other mass, and likewise, the velocity of some mass can never be converted into matter. Examining more closely the implication of this theory of “conserved but not converted”, in particular regarding the popular interpretation of that famous equation, E=mc², suggests a new interpretation that these and similar equations are mathematically true since they are multiples of the basic mass and velocity conservation principle. In this view mass and velocity are separate quantities and concepts which cannot be mixed, in particular if one accepts that light is composed of particles of mass. This implies that mass (including photons) are never created or destroyed, and that the velocity (and acceleration) of all mass, which is created from gravity, is also separately conserved over all sum velocities. Since mass and velocity are conserved, a simple realization is that all multiples of m and v are conserved. For example, not only is mv conserved, but so are: 1/2mv², 1/2m²v, m/v, m³v⁵, 1/mv, m^-19v^-10, etc.