Explain Mass.

[arkain101]

its okay the thread went haywire.. I got enough kicking around here anyways.

BTW, you need to create version of explainations. These versions would be, a simple summerized interesting, point to point type, then if you hook a reader they will investigate the work and complex versin. We cant take hours out our days to read everyones gigantic theory , y'know what-I-mean?

[IDMclean]

Yah I know, I'm just so scatter brained (thank god for compton scattering) that I have hard time putting down into writing what it is that I mean to relay.

 

So my ultimate answer to the question of "what is mass?" is thus:

 

Mass is field imbalance. Photons have no imbalance and as such do not have mass. Charge and Fields are Constant, Mass is not.

[arkain101]

It helps to write down a web of thought.

 

Start with the idea, then branch off the catagories, and details that want to be mentioned in the catagories. One words are best. Then as you write out your thoughts you follow the checklist and branch system you have beside you.

Of course you probably know this, but hey, sometimes it makes the world of difference for me when I am trying to explain complex subjects.

[IDMclean]

Thanks Ark, I know way more than I remember. The shear number of things I've forgotten would be enough to build a universe with. :) *not ment to be sarcastic*

[HappytheStripper]

What bridges the Gap between No-Mass and Mass??

 

Before matter existed there was a void .. in a matter of thought the universe became self-aware ..

 

Kinda like an opening eye .. and the eye began to a-void the matter before this time .. creating a space within which matter began to build up .. creating a mass .. taking it all in ..

 

Mass is matter condensed .. Hope this clears up any confusion of exactly what mass is without reading what KAC hijacked .. :eek2:

[infamous]

Thanks Ark, I know way more than I remember. The shear number of things I've forgotten would be enough to build a universe with.

Geeewizzzzz, I think I've forgotten that last remark already...............Infy

[Farsight]

arkain: our sled and puck discussions and Craig's expert contribution might have given you something useful about mass. Now, I can't tell you the answer, but I can give you a "feel" for it:

 

Something massive has got a whole lot of inertia. It takes a whole lot of pushing to get it moving. Then when it is moving, you have to push yourself up to it's speed to give it a bit more of a push, and so when it's going twice as fast it's got more than twice as much pushing in it. And then we talk about the object having a whole lot of momentum, and this takes a whole lot of pushing too if you want to stop it. Only you're not sure whether it's you moving or the thing you're pushing against, so momentum and inertia are sort of the same sort of thing. You can call this thing pushing.

 

Now get two magnets. Arrange them so the North Poles face one another. Now push one with the other. But do it with your eyes closed. You can feel the shape of the magnetic field, the force of something, something like a soft rounded object but in reality some kind of distortion. Push your magnet forward and the object feels somehow harder, push it further forward and the other magnet slides away from you. All the while the thing you can feel is the pushing. Now turn the magnet in your hand around, let the two magnets snap together. You can't feel the pushing any more, but it's in there. That's what mass is like. Kinda. Something like that.

[arkain101]

Right, and MASS does not even have to be something you can really see or really touch. It can be like the invisible distortion and force that you described with the magnets. Not only invisible but just a programmed, mathamatical like control.

 

Instead of mass being something imagined as tangible or materialistic (which actually logically seems on the supernatural side of things).. It can be thought of as design and operation desribed by an equation that unites mass, intertia, and momentum as the same thing with different names from different perspectives of observation.

[Farsight]

If you were made out of magnetic field, that magnetic repulsion would feel like something really there, something solid.

 

To boil it right down, I guess mass is made out of "pushing". People call it energy, but maybe it's just spacetime tension, maybe vibrating like a spring. Or a distortion, a bump, a crease, a knot. Whatever. The thing is, so are we.

[HappytheStripper]

If you were made out of magnetic field, that magnetic repulsion would feel like something really there, something solid.

 

To boil it right down, I guess mass is made out of "pushing". People call it energy, but maybe it's just spacetime tension, maybe vibrating like a spring. Or a distortion, a bump, a crease, a knot. Whatever. The thing is, so are we.

 

An aura may not be solid .. it is however a magnetic field .. people call it energy ..

 

Spiritual healing allows the healer to feel the knots and the space/time tension .. I have been in this practice for 10 years ..

 

In order to heal the body .. one must first heal the mass of tension in the mind ..

 

Ashley

[arkain101]

Yah, I suppose we are made of matter, energy, light, magnetism, gravity, nuclear forces.. Its all there to make us one.

[arkain101]

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[maxc]

A knowledgeable person told me......"THERE IS NO EMPTINESS FILLED WITH CHARGE. RATHER THERE IS MASSLESS CHARGE FROM WHICH EMPTINESS IS CONSRUCTED AND FROM WHICH SPACETIME IS CONSTRUCTED, AND FROM WHICH MASS AND MOTION ARE CONSTRUCTED"

[IDMclean]

Question, Does mass have an inherient density, or can mass be observed independent of density?

[Little Bang]

If I am out in space looking at an astroid that I am stationary with respect to it's position and I apply a force to the astroid it will start to move away from me. It will gain mass equivalent to the applied force. If I rerun the experiment but this time strap myself to the astroid I will find that the astroid's mass does not change at all. I guess what I am asking is how much does the observer have to do with mass? If we look at E = MC^2, C is an observer quantity, might M also be an observer quantity?

[Farsight]

That sounds like "pushing" again. If I can attmept to answer your question:

 

In a way yes. You can equate mass to energy, and energy is definitely something relative rather than something real and tangible.

 

It's a bit like money. By money I don't mean cash. I mean the intangible stuff that's "in your bank account". You can't feel it or touch it or smell it, and truth be told it doesn't really exist. It's a figment of our mutual imagination that we all agree upon. But it makes the world go round. Anyhow. If there were only two people in the world, and one guy had a million dollars while the other had two million dollars, only one million dollar "exists". Think about it.

[CraigD]

Question, Does mass have an inherient density …

Some guesswork at the precise meaning of this question is necessary. Here goes...

 

I think there is a limit to the maximum density that can be observed in any region of space at any time.

 

According the theory most feel best describes it (The Standard model of particle physics), mass is a property of fundamental particles. Particles are divided into 2 main kinds – fermions and bosons. All fermions have non-zero mass. Some bosons have zero mass, some non-zero.

 

Fermions, such as electrons and the quarks in protons and neutrons, obey Fermi-Dirac statistics, which prohibit 2 identical fermions from occupying the same space at the same time. Bosons, such as photons and gluons, don’t, so any number of them may occupy the same space at the same time.

 

So, in principle, there’s no limit to the density that a composite particle made of bosons could have, while one with any sort of finite ratio of fermions to bosons has a maximum density. However, most matter is predominantly fermions, so most matter has a maximum density.

 

The only bosons of the 5 predicted by the Standard Model that have mass are the W and Z bosons, which have been observed, and the Higgs, which has been proposed but not yet observed. I believe that is possible, in principle, to create a region in space exceeding the maximum density of fermionic matter, using the W and Z boson, but such a engineering feat would require great energy (the W and Z bosons have half lives of about 3*10^-25 seconds, so would have be accelerated to very high fractions of the speed of light (to exploit time dilation) and precisely focused at region of space. What practical value this would have, I’ve no sensible guess.

 

Some have suggested that gravity-dominated matter, such as in a black hole, might involve a failure of quantum field theory, and thus the Standard Model, and have a density much higher than it allows, perhaps infinite. Such speculation doesn’t lend itself to experimental prediction, so is difficult to consider scientifically.

… or can mass be observed independent of density?

The observation of mass can be independent of density. For example, an observation of a satellite in a perfectly circular orbit a primary body reveals the primary’s effective mass, but little about its density. A body of uniform density is indistinguishable using this kind of observation from one with all of its mass concentrated in a dense shell, or a dense core.