Q. Mass can be converted to energy -- but what happens to the inertia of that mass when it is converted?
What I'm thinking is, take a 50 billion ton object. Say it's a spaceship and I've accelerated it by slingshotting it near a star or something. Now I want to turn it 90 degrees to the left. That would take a tremendous amount of energy. Could I just convert it to energy, somehow rotate that energy, then reconstitute it as matter?
Of course, this is a stupid question. But for a science fiction idea, let's play with it. Is inertia a property of matter that persists when it's converted to energy? Or would it simply be converted into more energy, because its mass has actually increased with its speed. Then when I convert it back, I'd use that extra energy to accelerate it in the new direction.
And how about converting most of its mass to energy to speed it up incredibly. Store that energy -- the intertia would simply result in the smaller mass moving more quickly. Then I could slow it down again by converting that stored energy back into matter.
Maybe that's what stars are. Fuel dumps for an ancient civilization that seeded the universe with pit stops.
How dumb is this?