No. I've told you how mass works and you can't fault it because I've got Einstein and all the evidence on my side.
I'm sorry to tell you this yet again, but the loopy photon model of the electron has been comprehensively refuted. That has nothing to do with the Higgs mechanism, either. If the recent Higgs candidate is what it seems to be, it is merely putting a redundant nail into a coffin that was buried long ago.
Now it's your turn. You tell me how you think mass works, and I'll rip it to shreds.
OK, Farsight. Let me first describe a very simplified picture of the mechanism, before we even think about moving on to anything more complex.
Let's start with two fields: a neutral massless spin-1/2 field ψ (a spinor) and a neutral massless spin-0 field φ (a scalar). The equations of motion of both fields are Lorentz-covariant (the
Dirac equation and the
Klein-Gordon equation, respectively).
We can write down a simple
Lagrangian (actually a Lagrangian density) for this two-field theory:
L = (Dirac kinetic term) + (Klein-Gordon kinetic term)
This Lagrangian business is really just a shorthand for the field equations, at least as far as we're concerned for now. You can get the Dirac and K-G field equations from L by a basically mechanical mathematical process.
I hope you have followed this well enough so far to appreciate that the simple two-field theory we've constructed is, at least so far, Lorentz-covariant, i.e. compatible with SR.
Now let's introduce the simplest possible non-trivial Lorentz-invariant
interaction between the two fields. We change the Lagrangian like so:
L ---> L - gφψ'ψ
The symbol g here is our coupling constant. The field ψ' is (basically) the antiparticle field corresponding to ψ (technically it's the
Dirac adjoint of ψ; normally denoted differently, but LaTeX isn't working, so...). The interaction term -g.φ.ψ'ψ is a product of Lorentz-invariant terms, and so we're still compatible with SR.
Now we introduce some "potential energy" terms for the φ field, an interaction between the φ particles if you like, like so:
L ---> L - W(φ).
Here, W is just some Lorentz-invariant scalar function with the special property that it is minimized at some positive value of φ. Before introducing these terms, the energy of the scalar field was minimized at φ = 0. Now, however, it is minimized at some non-zero value of φ, let's call it k.
Note that all we've done so far is take our original Lorentz-invariant simple Lagrangian and add a few Lorentz-invariant terms to it. The end result is still, clearly, Lorentz-invariant.
Now, when we observe particles, we're really observing small disturbances of the fields around their vacuum states, and vacuum states are just those states where the field has minimum energy. With the introduction of W above, the vacuum is no longer at φ = 0, but rather φ = k. So when we observe particles associated with the φ-field, we'll actually be looking at small oscillations of the field around φ = k. We say that the φ field has acquired a non-zero
vacuum expectation value of k.
So, in experiments we'll see that φ = k + (a small oscillation). For our own convenience we can define a new field, call it ρ, equal to (φ - k). This field ρ has a
zero vacuum expectation value, by construction. If we rewrite the Lagrangian in terms of ρ, we find:
- The kinetic terms are trivial to work out, as they depend only on the derivatives of the scalar field.
- The interaction term -gφψ'ψ is equal to -gρψ'ψ - gkψ'ψ. This is important, as we'll see.
- There is still a "potential energy" term which, by construction, is now some function V(ρ) which is minimized at ρ = 0 (this was the whole point of introducing ρ).
In other words,
L = (Dirac kinetic term) - gkψ'ψ + (ρ-field kinetic term) - V(ρ) - gρψ'ψ.
Look at this closely:
- The first two terms, as you can check for yourself, are the Lagrangian for a massive spinor field with mass gk.
- The second two terms are the Lagrangian for a scalar field ρ with a mass and self-interactions depending on the details of the function V(ρ).
- The last term describes an interaction between the spinor and scalar fields with a coupling constant g.
- Each term is Lorentz invariant, and so the whole thing is Lorentz invariant.
In conclusion, we started with a theory of a massless fermion coupled to a scalar field, where the scalar field acquired a non-zero V.E.V. As a result of the coupling between the scalar and the fermion, we find that the
observable particles of the theory actually appear to be
massive fermions interacting with a (different) scalar field.
At no point did we break the Lorentz invariance of the Lagrangian. I'm sure you understand what that implies.
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To the physicists here: if I made any errors above (algebraic or logical), I apologise unreservedly. Please point them out (gently) and I promise to try harder next time 
