What do we know about Relativisitic Energy and Momentum

       
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Brainstorm


In a small group write down everythingyou know about the applications of energy and momentum in HEP on butcher paper. At the same time write down questions or ideas that you are not sure about on another sheet of paper. After you have 10-20 good items, or just feel it is time to stop, go back and discuss each one. Look for connections between the items. Reorganize them into a diagram . . . this will serve as your first-order conceptual framework for discussing the energy-momentum relationship.


These questions build a foundation for investigating this topic:



  1. How much energy in Joules is 1 eV? 1 MeV? 1 GeV?

  2. What is the rest mass of the electron in kg? of the proton? (Look it up!)

  3. What do we mean by E = mc2?

  4. Can we use it to calculate the rest energy of an electron? of a proton? Can we give those rest energies in MeV or GeV?

  5. What do we mean by "rest energy" and why do particle physicists use the terms "invariant mass" or just plain "mass" to mean the same thing?

  6. Holding potential energy as zero (why?), if a particle has kinetic energy T and rest energy M, what do you think its total energy is?

  7. If an electron has kinetic energy 2.06 MeV, what is its total energy? If an proton has kinetic energy 0.32 GeV, what is its total energy?

  8. What data do we need to find the relationship between E, P, and M?