Let’s understand it by an example. Suppose you have a little glass ball of 10\rm \ gram weight. Let’s convert this 10\rm \ g completely into its energy contains. By using the formula E=mc^2, you get almost 9\times 10^{14}\rm \ J, the same amount of energy as is released in the explosion of a 125,000-ton hydrogen bomb. But is it possible to release this much energy from 10\rm \ g of a glass ball?
Whenever this question is asked, one thing always comes to our mind and this is nuclear fusion reaction. Because we all know that fusion in stars creates an enormous amount of energy. But even fusion in stars does not convert matter completely into energy.
How much mass is converted to energy in nuclear fusion?
For hydrogen fusion, the figure is something like 0.7% of the mass is turned into energy. So, if it is not possible by nuclear fusion then by which method we can be able to convert matter completely into energy?
The only way to get close to 100% is direct annihilation of matter with its direct anti-matter equivalent. First, let’s understand the process of Annihilation.
What is Annihilation?
Annihilation is a process that is mostly observed in the collision of subatomic particles. In this process, matter and antimatter collide with each other and all the energy is released in the form of electromagnetic waves.
For example, an electron and a positron, which is an antielectron, come together and annihilate and are completely converted into energy in the form of a gamma photon. So, let’s come back to our main question.
Can we convert matter completely into energy?
The answer is no. Actually, the only way to convert all of the mass into energy is through matter-antimatter annihilation. But this process is not that common as there is not much antimatter around. So finally, we can say that it is impossible to convert matter completely into energy.