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Request advice on my "On the Concept of Mass in Relativity" article


pmb

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I want to get some ideas and oponions from my the people I've grown to admire here. Please check the paper I wrote called On the Concept of Mass in Relativity at http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.0687

 

Please take a glance throught it and let me know what you think. Let's start with the abstract. I changed my mind on what I want the purpose of this article should be about. I want it to address all the errors used in counter arguments used against the concept of relativity and to give counter examples where needed. Here's the abstract as it reads now.

Within the past fifteen years the use of the concept of "relativistic mass" has been on the decline and has been replaced by the concept of "proper mass" (aka "rest mass") - ?simply referred to as "mass" and labeled "m" by its proponents. This decline in usage appears to be due to arguments presented in several journal articles over the last thirty-five years, as well as to standard practices in the field of particle physics. The aforementioned debate consists of arguments as to how the term "mass" should be defined to maximize logic as well as to be less confusing to the layman and people just starting to learn relativity. Lacking in the debate is a clear definition of all types of mass and all its usages in a wide variety of cases. The purpose in this article is to bring a unifying perspective to the subject. In doing so I will explore those things omitted from previous articles on this subject including the importance of point particles vs. extended objects; open vs. closed systems and gravitational mass. Although I argue for the usage of relativistic mass I do "not" argue that proper mass is not an important tool in relativistic dynamics.

Mind you that I don;t wamt people to get the idea that I'm pushing the conecept of relativistic mass since people who know about it have already made up their minds for the most part. The goal here is to present arguments used against the concept of rel-mass which are erroneos, such as the claim that its just another term for energy. I give a counter example on that point whereby I present a worked out example where the relativistic mass is not equal to the energy/c2 as is often claimed.

 

I eagerly await your result.

 

This is not an excuse for those who oppose the idea to try to prove that nobody uses it. That would be hijacking this thread.

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