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I often read, hear and talk about pure energy. What is meant by this? Does pure energy consists of the forces between matter, or the force mediating particles, like the massless photons and gluon? I explicitly don´t mention the W- and Z- particles which are supposed to transmit the weak force, because they possess mass and as such they don´t are a form of pure energy, if what I said is actually pure energy. Maybe an indication that the W- and Z-particles don´t transmit a truly elementary force but a residue force of a force that´s being transmitted by massless particles, like the hyper colour force in Harari´s rishon model, wich accounts for all known subatomic reactions, the decay of the proton (without the ultra heavy X-boson), the presence of only normal matter, instead of equal amounts of matter and anti-matter (in fact there are in this theory equal amounts matter and anti-matter) and it gives a nice and very simple model for the quarks and leptons, wich consist out of only two particles. More economic you can´t make a theory of elementary particles.

Qmechanic
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Deschele Schilder
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    You are listening to the wrong people. Energy is the ability to perform work. There is no such thing as "pure energy". What would the opposite be? "Tainted energy"? – CuriousOne May 24 '16 at 00:08
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    "Pure energy" doesn't mean anything; things have energy, they can't "be" energy. It's one of those phrases that pop science likes to use because it sounds cool. – knzhou May 24 '16 at 00:09
  • Does anybody have access to the Oxford English Dictionary? I would actually like to know who is responsible for the coining of this horrifically bad phrase. That person should be given a price for one of the most science-illiterate additions to the English language. Its almost as bad as "god particle", but at least we know who committed that crime. – CuriousOne May 24 '16 at 00:22
  • Possible duplicates: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/9731/2451 , http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/15122/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic May 24 '16 at 02:58
  • @CuriousOne searched for "pure energy oxford dictionary" , nothing wrong http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/energy – anna v May 24 '16 at 06:19
  • @annav: Thanks for the effort, but the Oxford English Dictionary is a different beast, altogether. It collects the earliest written sources for English words and phrases and there is no free version. University libraries should provide access to it, but at $259/year it's a bit too expensive for me to keep a personal account. :-) – CuriousOne May 24 '16 at 06:27
  • There is a search on the site http://www.oed.com/ . "No dictionary entries found for ‘pure energy’." – anna v May 24 '16 at 06:42
  • @CuriousOne They must have a "one off" trial. I cannot get the search page again :( – anna v May 24 '16 at 06:49
  • @annav: Cool that it worked for you even once. I tried but didn't get anything. Maybe the site just had trouble. Too bad... maybe somebody on SE knows where this abomination came from. I am almost hoping it was some kind of scifi that had "extraterrestrial beings of pure energy" in it. :-) – CuriousOne May 24 '16 at 06:51
  • @CuriousOne It is said that things háve energy. And I´m not referring to pop science. Energy is the ability to perform work. By what means is this work performed? By the quanta of a force field which are emitted by matter. So the only quanta that can perform work are the force quanta, not the quanta of the massive quanta of electrons, quarks, you name it. That´s why I said that I don´t believe the W- and Z- particles are transmitting a truly elementary force (the weak one as you know). Like the pions in the early days were thought of as the quanta for the strong force. :-) – Deschele Schilder May 24 '16 at 11:16
  • Quanta are accounting units of physicists, just like units of energy, they are properties rather than real objects. Look, you think about these things like ever other person who had an overdose of popscience from the media and you have developed an imaginary version of physics that's just not so. If you want to get back on track you have to start with real phenomenology. I can only suggest a dozen units of university level physics... taken at a good university. – CuriousOne May 24 '16 at 20:02

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This is an every day term, with no meaning for physics. In the Oxford dictionary for "energy" one gets:

  1. Physics The property of matter and radiation which is manifest as a capacity to perform work (such as causing motion or the interaction of molecules)

In science fiction one might separate zero mass particles, like the photon and the graviton ( if it exists) from massive particles , and call the energy zero mass particles carry as "pure" energy, not connected with mass. In physics it is wrong, as an ensemble of zero mass particles does have mass due to special relativity, by the addition of the four vectors of the photons in the beam, for example. The term "pure" cannot qualify energy.

anna v
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  • Of corse the ensemble has a mass, but the momentum part of the fourvector of energy and momentum is 0/0, wich is undetermined so we can say that if m=0, we have the relation: E=pc. Which implies photons, or a bunch og them don´t have mass, only energy wich correaponds to a certain mass. The only things that are capable in doing work are the particles that transmit a force. The matter that produced these particles doesn´t perform the work. – Deschele Schilder May 24 '16 at 10:26