Does electricity have weight?

[spanish_emperor]

A lot of people believe living objects have souls, but i am not so sure. One of the arguments is that when someone dies it loses around five grams? or a figure around that. People claim this is evidence for a 'soul', but we know that living objects use electric pulses to direct the actions of the brain onto the human parts. When we die this electric pulse vanishes does it not?

I therefore wonder if this could be the 'soul' so many people claim exists? I am not entirely sure but i think Einstein said electricity had mass or weight.

What do people think?

[Gaidin]

Electricity is the flow of electric charge. Thus it has no mass, and thus no weight.

However, objects that have charge, like electrons and protons, do have mass. But that is not electricity.

[Ancient Aliens]

This question would be more appropriate for the EMM, but since you placed it in the Athenaeum, I will give you a scientific answer.

You misunderstand what electricity is. Electicity (electric current is actually what you are refering to here), is the motion of charged sub-atomic particles. We generally associate electricity with the transferal of charged electrons, but many sub-atomic particles can be charged. The charged sub-atomic particles themselves do have mass, but the phenomenon itself does not. When a current is sent through a wire, for example, the wire makes use of the charged sub atomic particles in its copper to complete the electrical circuit. Those particles remain within the wire, and when cutting off the circuit, no mass is lost due to the preservation of the sub-atomic particles. The electricity is not generated in or fuelled by the copper wire.

The same concept applies to the human brain. The mass that is being lost after death is most likely the air escaping from ones lungs, not a persons "soul".

[1x1]

Also the "losing weight after you die thing" is totally untrue.

[Lordinquisitor]

Also the "losing weight after you die thing" is totally untrue.

Well, depends. If you die many people take a last , so..

[The Holy Pilgrim]

Well, depends. If you die many people take a last , so..

So...

Your (not you, just generally ) soul is actually your bowel movement?

That's kind of a crappy way to look at it.

[Dubh the dark]

A lot of people believe living objects have souls, but i am not so sure. One of the arguments is that when someone dies it loses around five grams? or a figure around that. People claim this is evidence for a 'soul', but we know that living objects use electric pulses to direct the actions of the brain onto the human parts. When we die this electric pulse vanishes does it not?

I therefore wonder if this could be the 'soul' so many people claim exists? I am not entirely sure but i think Einstein said electricity had mass or weight.

What do people think?

That myth is based on the research of Duncan McDougall who weighed six patients before and after death in 1907. He averaged the mass lost and came to the infamous 21grams.

This experiment has been replicated and failed to garner the same results. There is no real evidence that this is true.

As was pointed out immediately by Dr. Augustus P. Clarke in a rebuttal also published in American Medicine, MacDougall failed to consider another obvious hypothesis: that the weight loss (assuming it was real) was due to evaporation caused by the sudden rise in body temperature that occurs when the blood circulation stops and the blood can no longer be air-cooled by the lungs.

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.c...-21-grams.html

[CtrlAltDe1337]

This whole argument is strange because, if a soul exists (which I think yes), then its a spiritual substance not physical, thus has no weight anyway.

[Nimthill]

A lot of people believe living objects have souls, but i am not so sure. One of the arguments is that when someone dies it loses around five grams? or a figure around that. People claim this is evidence for a 'soul', but we know that living objects use electric pulses to direct the actions of the brain onto the human parts. When we die this electric pulse vanishes does it not?

I therefore wonder if this could be the 'soul' so many people claim exists? I am not entirely sure but i think Einstein said electricity had mass or weight.

What do people think?

You mean, Dan Brown states that the soul loses weight. Just like he states that sang real is san greal and more of that nonsence which has been debunked numerous times.

Still, if it's true... I could sell my soul, make money AND loose weight!

[Vizsla]

People claim this is evidence for a 'soul', but we know that living objects use electric pulses to direct the actions of the brain onto the human parts. When we die this electric pulse vanishes does it not?

Electricity in the body is different from electricity in your computer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential

Cells have ion pumps which pump positively and negatively charged ions across membranes. If there are more positively charged ions on one side and more negatively charged ions on the other then the membrane has a 'voltage'.

When you die it’s not as if all those positively and negatively charged ions have gone anywhere. They’re just not being corralled back and forth across membranes all the time. There is no overall loss in electrical charge. The charge that your body created across its membranes would even out as the charged ions moved to reassert equilibrium.
It would probably take a while too so the charge would not disappear at the moment of your death.
In time, as your body decayed the ions would react to form neutrally charged compounds like: NaCl.

So not the soul then. Nice try though.

[Mr. Crow]

electricity does have weight, according to relativity all energy has mass, it is just so tiny it does not matter.

[Gaidin]

electricity does have weight, according to relativity all energy has mass, it is just so tiny it does not matter.

Except we're not measuring energy when we talk electricity. Not in the fashion you'd seem to like to think. We're measuring the flow of charge.

[Mr. Crow]

Except we're not measuring energy when we talk electricity. Not in the fashion you'd seem to like to think. We're measuring the flow of charge.

think termomass, only Charge instead of kinetic momentum, charge after all comes from the kinetic momentum of smaller particles.


the number of electrons in motion is diminished do to resistance, thus there is less kinetic energy and less overall energy over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermomass_Theory


still the "weight" of electricity is negligible.

sorry for thew delay, it has been a busy month here.

[Gordon Freynman]

charge after all comes from the kinetic momentum of smaller particles.

Err, no it doesn't. Perhaps you're thinking of magnetic fields created by a moving charge?

[Ancient Aliens]

think termomass, only Charge instead of kinetic momentum, charge after all comes from the kinetic momentum of smaller particles.


the number of electrons in motion is diminished do to resistance, thus there is less kinetic energy and less overall energy over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermomass_Theory


still the "weight" of electricity is negligible.

sorry for thew delay, it has been a busy month here.

The thermomass theory has little to do with electricity. It's subject is heat transfer.

[Nikitn]

Energy doesn't have weight, it has mass as if the energy leaves the system (the universe) mass replaces it and vice versa.

[Mr. Shaboobies]

I see what you did there...

[Helm]

"An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton"

So yes, a little bit. Actual weight will vary depending on the celestial body it occurs upon.

[Gaidin]

"An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton"

So yes, a little bit. Actual weight will vary depending on the celestial body it occurs upon.

That's the electron. Not the charge of the electron. Not the movement of the charge of the electron. There's a difference. Think of it in the sense that the object has mass, but the velocity it's moving at doesn't. There's a distinction between an event and an object.

[John Doe]

That's the electron. Not the charge of the electron. Not the movement of the charge of the electron. There's a difference. Think of it in the sense that the object has mass, but the velocity it's moving at doesn't. There's a distinction between an event and an object.

This, and when an electron moves, another one takes its place, so the weight remains the same (at least in metals, not sure how electrolyte works, but electricity is always a flow).