Q
QED
Guest
Does the idea seem crazy? Perhaps it's not the theoretical higgs, maybe the graviton that is responsible for gravity... and mass. I probably sound like an idiot so please tell me if I am making no sense.
Jerromy":1mnncm4a said:Welcome to the universe! It might be a bit constraining but try to get a realistic grip on the proven physics and grow from there... then you will know better than to refer to yourself as a noobie.
All matter in the universe that has been proven to exist has a distinct amount of rest mass. (see periodic table of elements) The only thing that determines an object's mass is the total of its atoms mass. It's weight is only relative to a larger mass's attraction, and it's velocity through space amplifies its mass up to but not including the speed of light at which any atom would in theory have infinite mass. (Theoretically impossible as the force required to accelerate even the smallest particles to c approaches infinity)
Then I guess, one would have to explain why photons have no [rest] mass: Since a single photon has very little energy at the speed of light and the smallest particles with mass have very high energy at close to the speed of light, logic would lead one to believe that a photon is like matter that gave up its mass just to be able to go that fast!
Well, no, photons are massless because they're quanta of an Abelian gauge field.