Four groundbreaking papers on quantum theory, relativity and other topics were written by Albert Einstein in 1905. It was known as Einsteins Annus Mirabilis, or the wonderous year. One covered brownian motion; one won him the Nobel prize for science in 1921. The other outlined the foundations and special relativity. It is Einsteins 1905 paper that is most surprising.
This paper has just two pages and explains how special relativity could explain strange aspects of radioactive decay. Marie Curie famously demonstrated that certain materials, such as radium-salts, can emit particles with more energy than simple chemistry. Einstein's paper was a little speculation about how the excess energy could be countered by a loss in the mass of the nuclei. This led to Einstein's most famous equation E = mc2.
Marie and Pierre Curie in the lab. 1904. Author unknown.
This equation is commonly used to mean that energy and matter are two sides of one coin. This actually refers to the fact that the apparent mass of an object and its energy depend on the relative motion of an observer. Because of this, they are intertwined in a similar way as the relationship between time and space. This relation has one consequence: objects should be capable of producing energy through a loss in mass.
This is what radioactive decay does. This is how stars use nuclear fusion to create energy in their cores. If matter can be made into energy, it is also possible for energy to be made from matter. This trick was a little more complicated and required particle accelerators. This is what we do all the time. Accelerate particles up to the speed of light, and then slam them together. The particles' large apparent masses release enormous energy. Some of this energy is converted back into particles. The history of particle physics is traceable back to Einstein's two-page paper.
Two gamma ray photons can transform into matter Credit: Mathieu Michel Lobet
The laws of physics don't just state that you can make energy from matter, but it also places restrictions on the nature and origin of created matter and energy. This is illustrated by electron-positron destruction. This occurs when an electron collides and its antimatter counterpart. These two particles share the same mass but have opposite charges, so they collide and produce two high-energy photons. Both the electron's mass and that of the positron can be transformed into energy. Although this experiment was first proposed in 1930, it wasn't completed until 1970.
You should be able convert all matter into energy if you are able to do so. This is known as the BreitWheeler procedure. It involves colliding two photons in order to make an electron-positron couple. Although we have created matter many times before, it is difficult to convert two photons into matter. Recent experiments show that it is possible.
This team used data from Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider to examine more than 6,000 events that produced electron-positron pairs. The team didn't just beam two lasers at one another, but used high-energy particle collisions instead to produce intense bursts full of photons. These photons may have collided to form an electron-positron pair in some cases. They could also show when a pair was formed directly from light, based on the data.
The team also discovered vacuum birefringence, which is an interesting phenomenon that occurs when pair productions occur in the magnetic field. Normal birefringence is when light is divided into two beams with different polarization. This happens naturally in materials like Iceland spar. Vacuum birefringence is when light passes through an intense magnetic field and splits into two polarizations. Each polarization takes a slightly different path. This is a remarkable effect that allows you to change the path of light in vacuum using only a magnetic force. Although vacuum birefringence was previously observed in light from a neutron Star, it has not been seen in the laboratory.
Reference: Einstein, Albert. Ist die Trgheit eines Krpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhngig? Annalen der Physik 323.13 (1905): 639-641.
Reference: Sodickson, L., et al. Physical Review 124.6 (1961), 1851.
Refer to Breit, Gregory, John A. Wheeler. Collision of two small quanta. Physical Review 46.12 (1934),: 1087.
Reference: Adam, Jaroslav, et al. How to measure e+ e Measurement of e+ e?
