>> No. Any process that releases energy must destroy mass. Exploding a
>> million tons of TNT would convert as much mass into energy as would
>> exploding a one-megaton nuclear bomb.
>> But things like chemical and biological weapons don't destroy mass.
> That doesn't sound right.  Chemical explosives don't destroy mass
> either, do they?  It's just a release of molecular binding energy -- a
> chemical reaction that releases energy in the form of heat.  I thought
> the mass was still all there.
> ---
> # OLXWin 1.00b # The future is not what it used to be.
Technically speaking, the molecular binding energy does have mass, and when
it is released in a chemical reaction, the combined mass of all the
reaction products is just a little less than the mass prior to the
reaction.  A very small difference, hard to measure if possible at all.

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