Explain Mass.

[lindagarrette]

Mass is energy in motion. A particle at rest has no mass. But when it picks up speed it acquires mass. Mass is not matter. Matter is a concept. If you fall off the roof and hit the ground, your molecules are not bumping into each other. They are impacting force fields.

 

I've been struggling with this for years. It still isn't intuitive. How is it that when I look at something, I see something, rather than "empty space," which is what is all there is?

[Qfwfq]

In the modern terminology, the word 'mass' is just short for 'rest energy'.

[arkain101]

I've been playing around with some experiments. It is very strange how movment of matter creates a greater inertia, but doesnt appear to affect its mass. For example, a simple thing as spinning a bicycle wheel in your hands. Its weight or mass does not change, gravity pulls on it the same when you speed it up. But, with the cyntrifugal forces happening, the wheel feels that it has more inertia in all ways perpindicular to its main direction of motion. It becomes hard to move side to side, and rotational side to side. We all know this, its been explained, but it still intrigues me when you think about it at the quantum level. It all sounds so simple but are we not somehow in the vacuum of space creating a force, and is this force emminating from the wheel/system? or is it interacting with space-time..

[TheFaithfulStone]

I think if you get it going fast enough, you will actually see an increase in mass.

 

Mass is mediated by the Higgs Boson, which is made of Unicorn Gas and Rainbows.

 

TFS

[sanctus]

I don't think you can easily measure the increase in mass, but if you can measure the speed of rotation of the wheel and then look what acceleration you get if the wheel is spinning or not applying the same force you might see a super-tiny differency (or if you are very strong a huge one).

[arkain101]

Kind of a hail mary thought.

 

But what if we consider "anti-matter" to be gravity, gravity to be matter - the anti.

nearly everywhere attracted to matter, apearing as a frozen such entity in the dimension of time, on the other side of the time intersection but tied in the dimension and rate of the time flow. See time has a 'freezing' point, a reverse point, and a forward point in a linear system. Matter existing on either side of these points are 'opposite' but as reasonably in purpose be they are reversing or forwarding in time. Must time be contimplated as a one way street?

And so the force gravity creates would be mathamtically shown as differences in curves of the bend of time flow in space-time if you catch my drift.

I am a little boozed up here at the moment but as i do, I like to write out ideas, and might aswell share them while Im at it.

[IDMclean]

I have a simple but confusing answer...

 

Mass is charge. Inertia is the resistance to leaving the influence of one set of fields and the inverse being the "willingness" to enter another due to mutual attraction/repulsion due to Like and unlike forces...

 

All things that have mass (even some that don't) have Charge. So perhaps a better refinement is this: Mass is Energy, Energy is defined as Equal Electric Field at a 90*angle to Equal Magnetic field in Harmonic Ocsillation. Therefore by proxy Energy is dual-charge (Electric Charge & Magnetic Charge).

 

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[InfiniteNow]

All things that have mass (even some that don't) have Charge.

0.o

 

Hmmm.... So, how would a neutron fall into such a description? :)

[arkain101]

But that still leads us no where further. Then we have to wonder what is a charge, why is it charged, what causes the difference between opposite charges.. "forces" "charges" "magnitism" "gravity" names for things that are observable. But they are more just words than they are explanations.

[CraigD]

I am curious to hear some people's best description of what exactly seems to give 'mass' its mass.

My personal belief is that mass is non-negative scalar property of the known fundamental particles (electrons, quarks, etc) that determines their interaction with each other. As such, I consider it to be similar to charge, except that it can’t have a negative value, and it’s subject to the statistics of Special Relativity

What or how is it that mass has inertia. What reason exactly does it want to be as it is and fire back an equal force of anything that forces upon it?

I believe that particles are fully described by their quantum wave functions. Therefore, when, for example, 2 electrons interact via the exchange of quanta of magnetic force (photons), the functions describing these photons are complimentary – of all the potential photons that could emitted and absorbed by each electron, only a range determined by their interaction with particles outside of their 2-particle system (AKA “measurement”) according to the Uncertainty Principle have a non-zero probability of existing, and the photons exchanged must be identical in energy and opposite in direction.

 

Here are more of my beliefs about mass, beyond the original questions

• I believe that particles with non-zero mass interact via an as yet undiscovered boson, commonly termed the graviton.
  
• I fail to see a role for the proposed Higgs boson in creating inertia – I don’t understand and affirm, nor understand and reject its roll as proposed by current theory, but rather don’t understand the theory - leading me to suspect that my understanding of mass and inertial are inadequately informed.
  

I’m not currently able to work competently within the formalism of the terms I’ve used above, a personal – though, I hope, not insurmountable - technical failing.

 

Despite my lack of formal analytic ability and theoretical understanding, I’m suspect with near certainty that mass is a real, fundamental property, that will find expression in any successful “Theory of Everything” or “Grand Unified Theory”.

[infamous]

But that still leads us no where further. Then we have to wonder what is a charge, why is it charged,

I personally believe that charge is the result of the angular momentum of the orbital energy flux. Depending on the geomety of spin, one observes either a positive or negative charge. In the case of a neutron where no charge is apparent, the two opposing energy spins cancel each other out. This is only a vague opinion for I am not currently qualified to make absolute assertions based on proven facts.....................Infy

[arkain101]

awesome responses all the way through.. I thank you all for your thoughts.

[IDMclean]

I will note that the Neutron does not infact have NO charge, it has No NET charge. It is composed of Quarks which have charge it's just that the net Charge (That is the product charge of the component Subatomic particles) is Zero.

 

Up Quarks have a +2/3e charge down have -1/3e when you add them up then you get the Net charge. For a neutron which is made up of UP, DOWN, DOWN; this is Σq = 2/3-1/3-1/3 = +-0q however the charge has not disappeared it's still there.

[arkain101]

quite amazing they can figure these thing out.. of such tiny particles

[Akw2000]

quite amazing they can figure these thing out.. of such tiny particles

Yes, But the real question remains: How do our universe works, what is it built of at the lowest level? Energy? or a spider web of dimensions which creates the physical laws and PRODUCED energy to the big bang?

[GOLDEN]

This is the challenge of my question. Why does mass have mass.

 

The real answer to this question can only be obtained though a unified field theory. This is still the holy grail of unsolved problems in theoretical physics. in essence you are asking what gives a particle mass, but the term mass is defined by the measurement of the interaction of an object with its local relativistic space-time. The answer to this question at our scale as answered by Newton's inverse squared law. At high speeds Einstein’s general relativity provides the answer and relates gravity with inertia but quantum mechanics can only talk about gravity/inertia in theoretical terms because the associated force is so much smaller then that of the other forces of the quantum field. However we know that objects with giant masses such as stars are made up of incredible numbers of very small particles. Thus it stands to reason that each of those tiny particles must contribute to the over all mass large objects. Unfortunately the actual property of a quantum particle that is responsible for its mass has not yet been successfully found and verified. There are theories on the cutting edge of physics such as M theory and Higgs theory that provide possible answers but still none have been successfully tested and in my personal opinion do not provide a complete explanation. In reality the problem is so revered that if someone could actually answer the question of what mass is exactly, they would probably be received as the most ingenious physicist of all time.

[Akw2000]

haha, I'll tell you when I solve that one :)