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Newton taught us that bodies with mass attract each other according to the universal law of gravitation (mass-mass attraction) and Einstein taught us that mass and energy are equivalent though his famous formula :E = mc^2. Also, experiments showed us that light (photons, which have no mass (only energy) are influenced by gravity as they have their trajectories warped (mass-energy attraction). But does energy somehow attract energy? Does it somehow clump up in a form other than normal matter?

I was reading a book on General Relativity and wondered about the possibility of this idea.

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    $\begingroup$ Yes, the gravitational charge is energy, and the source of for the gravitational field is a more complicated stress-energy-momentum tensor. This is (edit: related to) this question, $\endgroup$
    – Stan Liou
    Commented Feb 9, 2015 at 0:12
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    $\begingroup$ I recommend Stan's link, here's my own two cents--a sharp way to illustrate the fact that energy does attract energy is the fact that in principle one could collapse a shell of massless photons to form a black hole, and it would be indistinguishable from a black hole made up of uncharged matter (according to the no-hair theorems of GR). $\endgroup$
    – Surgical Commander
    Commented Feb 9, 2015 at 3:26

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Yes, energy is attracted to energy. The more energy that is collected in one area the more attraction there is. The best example of this is gravity from planetary bodies. The larger the planetary body, the greater the the gravity. Another good example of this would be electro-magnets. When you charge something that can store energy like a nail(or other small piece of metal), it becomes magnetic, because of the energy collected within it.

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  • $\begingroup$ The gravity example covers matter attracting matter and matter attracting energy, but not directly energy attracting energy. The electromagnet example shows that energy can be stored, but how is it attracting other energy? $\endgroup$
    – Nuclear Hoagie
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 17:59
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    $\begingroup$ Electromagnets do not seem to be a good example of how energy is attracted to energy. $\endgroup$
    – Ben51
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 19:19
  • $\begingroup$ There are many different types of energy. Different types of matter store different types of energy. The energies drawn to each other cause the matter they are stored in to be drawn to one another. $\endgroup$
    – Terry Bowman
    Commented Jan 26, 2018 at 15:44

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