[WildTurkey]

Here are some published guidelines for certain schools/districts for teaching:

"b. Students know the energy release per gram of material is much larger in nuclear fusion or fission reactions than in chemical reactions. The change in mass (calculated by E = mc2) is small but significant in nuclear reactions."

Above: Correct but misleading.

"Energy and mass equivalence
E= MC2
Exception” to E=EC2 (conservation) rule - only holds nuclear reactions sun (fusion), nuclear bomb, nuclear power; not related to combustion or day-to-day situations!"

Wrong!

[stremba]

I wasn't aware that this was how the subject of mass/energy equivalence was being taught. Personally, when I taught chemistry, I just talked about energy when dealing with chemical reactions and didn't bring up mass-energy equivalence until late in the year when we discussed nuclear reactions. At that time, I pointed out that all energy-producing reactions, chemical and nuclear, dervied their energy from mass conversion. I always thought that there wasn't any point in bringing the concept up during a discussion of chemical reactions, but I never would have intentionally miseducated students like that. I would guess that this is probably a result of poorly educated teachers who don't properly understand their subject matter.

[MHalblaub]

Don't mix up

E = mc^2

with

m'=m / sqrt(1-v^2/c^2).

The second equation shows an increase of mass!

You don't produce more elementary particle by just heating something but you get more mass!

You need an linear accelerator to get new particle or fission or fusion to make radiation out of particle.

The first equation tells how big the amount of energy is for a non moving mass.