ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT MASS–ENERGY CONTRIBUTION IMPLIES WORK-ENFORCING STORAGE

This paper examines the foundational assumption that the contribution of internal energy to a system’s total mass–energy necessarily implies the presence of work-enforcing energy storage. Using a strict logical-necessity framework, it separates static physical presence (gravitational and inertial contribution) from active, boundary-crossing work enforcement. By applying enforcement, removal, and structural invariance tests, the paper shows that while internal energy contributes to mass–energy and thus passive gravitational effects, this contribution does not, by itself, enforce work on external systems. The analysis isolates and eliminates the assumption that mass–energy equivalence alone is sufficient to classify an internal state as work-enforcing storage.