Re: What Hath Einstein Writ?

[Jim Green <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>]

>Nobody is advocating eliminating "rest mass" per se. Only that the
> modifier "rest" is superfluous, so it can just be called "mass,"
> which is, of course, related to the energy by E=(gamma)mc^2. The
> concept of binding energy is safe.

In the usage of _some_ the term "rest mass" is indeed superfluous, but if
one wants to make the physics clear to one's students a distinction between
"rest mass" and "relativistic mass"  is very useful.

BTW the idea of relativistic mass is not confined to fast things.

Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen