Higgs Boson Discovered?!

[edd]

I'm sure Einstein would have a big problem with it.

I'm sure you're sure. I'm sure that you being sure is not a sure sign of much though, other than that you're sure.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Read Einstein's 1905 paper. Note "the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content". No way is that in any way compatible with "the mass of a body is a measure of its interaction with a space-pervading field".

Nor is that what the Higgs mechanism claims. The Higgs mechanism does not determine the mass of any particle. It determines the rest mass of some particles. But even then, the particle's total mass is still proportional to its total energy.

You seem to think that the Higgs mechanism says that the mass of an electron is 0.511MeV/c^2 regardless of its energy content. But that is not what it says. It just says that the mass of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV/c^2, which implies that the energy of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV. A moving electron has more energy, and as a result, more mass.

Not proportional to its energy content. Is a measure of its energy content.

It is both. The mass of a particle is a measure of its energy content because it is proportional to its energy content. That is what E=mc^2 literally means. It is saying that E is proportional to m, with the constant of proportionality c^2.

So where is the principle of inertia depending on energy content being violated?

Where it's replaced by something else.

Where what is replaced by something else? Please be specific. I gave a specific example of how the energy, rest mass, and inertia of moving and non-moving electrons are related. Please point out to me exactly which part of that you think violates the principle of inertia depending on energy content.

The Higgs mechanism just puts a non-zero value on the minimum energy that a particle can have (which obtains when the particle is not moving).

It doesn't actually do that. I mentioned binding energy yesterday. When an electron binds with a proton, in the 1s orbital there's a 13.6ev mass deficit. The system has less mass/energy than the individual components at rest.

Yes, the system has less energy than the combined rest-energy of the two particles. So what? How does that contradict what I said? And how is that relevant to what I said. The fact remains that the Higgs mechanism does not somehow allow the particle to have mass without the corresponding energy required by E=mc^2.

It doesn't change the relationship between inertia and total energy at all. It does change the relationship between inertia and kinetic energy. But as I explained before, that in no way violates E=mc^2.

It casts it aside Stimpson. Imagine you have a photon in a gedanken mirror-box. The mass of the box is so negligible that we can ignore it, like Susskind said in the lecture Robo linked to. The photon adds mass to that system, and like Susskind said about his box of radiation, it's got nothing to do with the Higgs mechanism.

Yeah, so? We all know that the Higgs mechanism is not the only mechanism by which an object can acquire, or gain mass. For that matter, we all know that the Higgs mechanism is only responsible for a very small percentage of the mass of ordinary matter. So what?

The box is a body, its inertia depends upon its energy content, its mass is a measure of its energy content. When it radiates, its mass is reduced. The electron is a body too. When it radiates in annihilation, its mass is reduced to nothing and it no longer exists. It would violate what Einstein said to assert that the mass of some bodies is a measure of the energy content, and the mass of some other bodies isn't.

I agree. It would. But the Higgs mechanism does not claim this. You keep asserting over and over again that it does, but you won't give any specific examples.

In the standard model, the Higg's mechanism provides the electron with 0.511MeV/c^2 of rest mass. The standard model also says that the energy of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV. So how exactly is the electron's mass not a measure of its energy content here? Are you saying that the Higgs mechanism somehow claims that a non-moving electron has 0.511MeV/c^2 of mass, but no energy? Or that it somehow claims that a non-moving electron's energy is less than 0.511MeV?

See this bit of wiki and note the quote at the bottom: "It is better to introduce no other mass concept than the ’rest mass’ m".

Well then you need to stop saying "the mass of a particle is a measure of its energy content", because that is not true of rest mass. This should be obvious, since photons have energy but zero rest mass, and since massive particles which are moving clearly have more energy than when at rest, but exactly the same rest mass.

So no, there is no flip-flop between mass and momentum. Momentum is always conserved. There is a flip-flop between rest-energy and kinetic-energy.

Yes there is. You aren't paying enough attention to energy-momentum and you're being led astray by the vector-quantity aspect of momentum. Take a look at energy-momentum relation on wikipedia. See where it says the equation simplifies to E=mc² for a body in its rest frame. Then a bit lower down it says if the object is massless then the energy momentum relation reduces to E=pc as is the case for a photon. Two photons each have momentum p=hf/c. When you insist that one has negative momentum, countering the positive momentum of the other, E=pc or E=hf and p=hf/c then forces you to claim that E is negative.

Seriously, this has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have seen you post. You honestly don't realize that the p in E=pc is not the momentum vector, but the magnitude of the momentum vector? This is basic algebra here. You can't set a scalar quantity equal to a vector quantity.

It isn't. It's like what I was saying to edd about the cannonball. It's got no momentum if its sitting there in front of you, but if it's coming at you, it has. It doesn't matter if you say it's got positive momentum when it's coming at you this way ? and negative momentum coming at you this way ?. It only has negative momentum in a book-keeping sense. You know you can't stop that cannonball in -5 seconds. You know you're going to have to duck.

I really don't see your point. There is still no case where momentum disappears to be replaced by mass, or vice-versa. The example you gave with a single photon turning into an electron-positron pair is physically impossible. And there is no physically possible example you can give.

It isn't nonsense Stimpson. That's where the buck stops. When you say the inertia of a body doesn't depend upon its energy content but instead depends on that body's interaction with the Higgs field, you've contradicted Einstein.

Nobody has said that. Not anybody. The Higgs mechanism doesn't say that. I didn't say it. And nobody in this thread has said it.

I suppose you might think it would if you did not understand that a particle's rest energy is proportional to its rest mass. But then it would be you contradicting E=mc^2. Or at least misunderstanding it.

I'm not misunderstanding it. I've bought the T-shirt. And it says E=mc² not E?m.

Are you serious? What do you think "proportional" means? If I say "x is proportional to y", that means the same thing as "x=yk, where k is some constant".

 

[ben m]

It's really funny to watch Farsight try to argue that the Higgs Mechanism goes, somehow, against Einstein. If you look at the Standard Model Lagrangian---which, by construction, includes Einstein's energy/momentum equations exactly---Farsight is arguing about the difference between this term, which is precisely what Einstein would have called the mass term, of (e.g.) the electron:

\Delta \mathcal{L_e} = -m_e (\psi_L \psi_R + \psi_L \psi_R)

versus what Higgs/Englert/etc. proposed for the mass of the electron:

\Delta \mathcal{L} = -m_e (1 + \frac{h}{\nu}) (\psi_L \psi_R + \psi_L \psi_R)

Break out the smelling salts, folks, because the Higgs-based mass has exactly precisely the same energy/momentum/mass relationship as the old-fashioned "bare" mass. (Obviously, in a sense. No one would have spent five minutes on it if it hadn't. ) ETA: the reason we prefer the Higgs-y version has nothing to do with kinematics---the kinematics are indistiguishable---and everything to do with gauge invariance.

 

[sol invictus]

Energy content depends on how much energy you put in.

It costs more energy to make an electron in the presence of a Higgs condensate then without a Higgs condensate, because electrons interact with the Higgs condensate.

This really isn't very hard to understand, Farsight.

 

[Farsight]

Stimpson: I'm going to split up my response becuase very long posts deter the casual reader.

Nor is that what the Higgs mechanism claims. The Higgs mechanism does not determine the mass of any particle. It determines the rest mass of some particles.

Which doesn't square with Einstein's E=mc² paper, which states that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content. The mass depends on the amount of energy that's there, that's all. And look in section §9 here. See this "If we imagine the electric charges to be invariably coupled to small rigid bodies (ions, electrons)..." It's clear that Einstein considered the electron to be a body. The paper also states that radiation conveys inertia between the emitting and absorbing bodies. So when you let two gamma photons escape from two boxes, where the Higgs mechanism has nothing to do with mass, they convey inertia. They don't interact with the Higgs field, but they do interact with each other to form an electron and a positron. These are bodies formed by that interaction, and afterwards those gamma photons are gone. They've been absorbed. Inertia has been conveyed from the emitting to the absorbing bodies. So anybody who asserts that inertia has somehow been switched on via the Higgs mechanism is disregarding Einstein.

You seem to think that the Higgs mechanism says that the mass of an electron is 0.511MeV/c^2 regardless of its energy content.

No I don't. I fully understand that a fast-moving electron comprises more energy than an electron at rest.

But that is not what it says. It just says that the mass of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV/c^2, which implies that the energy of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV. A moving electron has more energy, and as a result, more mass.

Only when you say relativistic mass is mass. Look at the relativistic mass section of the wiki mass in special relativity page. Pay attention to this On the other hand, in his first paper on E=mc² (1905) he treated m as what would now be called the rest mass.[15] [16] [17] In later years Einstein expressed his dislike of the idea of "relativistic mass [18]." You're disregarding Einstein again.

It is both. The mass of a particle is a measure of its energy content because it is proportional to its energy content. That is what E=mc^2 literally means. It is saying that E is proportional to m, with the constant of proportionality c^2.

But it's still not what Einstein said. He didn't use the word proportional.

Where what is replaced by something else? Please be specific.

Where the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content is replaced by the mass of a body is a measure of its interaction with the Higgs field.

I gave a specific example of how the energy, rest mass, and inertia of moving and non-moving electrons are related. Please point out to me exactly which part of that you think violates the principle of inertia depending on energy content.

Where you said An electron has, due to the Higgs mechanism, a rest-mass of 0.511MeV/c^2. It has a rest-mass of 0.511MeV/c^2 because it has an energy content of 0.511MeV.

Yes, the system has less energy than the combined rest-energy of the two particles. So what? How does that contradict what I said?

You said The Higgs mechanism just puts a non-zero value on the minimum energy that a particle can have. But when those particles are bound, they have even less energy than "the minimum energy that a particle can have". Spot the problem?

 

[smartcooky]

Read Einstein's 1905 paper. Note "the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content". No way is that in any way compatible with "the mass of a body is a measure of its interaction with a space-pervading field".

Surely though, if Higgs' Theory is correct, then this body's energy content would relate directly to its interaction with the "space-pervading field", and therefore its the same thing.... A = B, B = C ∴ A = C

As I stated earlier, Einstein died nearly 10 years before Higgs' Theory was first postulated. Would he have made the same statement had he known about Higgs Theory?

 

[edd]

But it's still not what Einstein said. He didn't use the word proportional.

He wrote an equation which showed one thing is proportional to another and because he didn't use the word proportional there's a problem?

 

[Farsight]

Yeah, so? We all know that the Higgs mechanism is not the only mechanism by which an object can acquire, or gain mass. For that matter, we all know that the Higgs mechanism is only responsible for a very small percentage of the mass of ordinary matter. So what?

See above. The electron got its inertia from the photon that conveyed it from the emitting body. That means it doesn't get it from the Higgs mechanism.

[Re The box is a body, its inertia depends upon its energy content, its mass is a measure of its energy content. When it radiates, its mass is reduced. The electron is a body too. When it radiates in annihilation, its mass is reduced to nothing and it no longer exists. It would violate what Einstein said to assert that the mass of some bodies is a measure of the energy content, and the mass of some other bodies isn't.
I agree. It would. But the Higgs mechanism does not claim this. You keep asserting over and over again that it does, but you won't give any specific examples.

Again see above. The Higgs mechanism claims that some bodies have mass because the body interacts with something external to that body. This "violates" what Einstein said, which I will paraphrase as a body at rest has rest-mass because of the energy-momentum internal to that body.

In the standard model, the Higg's mechanism provides the electron with 0.511MeV/c^2 of rest mass. The standard model also says that the energy of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV. So how exactly is the electron's mass not a measure of its energy content here?

Quite simply: by being a measure of its interaction with the Higgs field instead of being a measure of its energy-content. The underlying problem is that the "frightfully ad-hoc" Higgs sector has supplanted a symmetry between momentum and inertia. We know full well that an electron can be diffracted and that in atomic orbitals electrons exist as standing waves. We also know that a photon in a box can exist as a standing wave where it's moving this way → and that way ← at the same time. It appears to be motionless, but if we were to open the box it would shoots out at c, so we know that it only appears to be motionless. And we also know that it resists our attempts to change its state of motion, and the result is what we call mass. This isn't fundamentally different to the way a photon propagating at c resists our attempts to change its state of motion, and the result is what we call momentum. The only difference between the two is a transformation from the photon has no net overall motion relative to us, to the photon has motion relative to us of c.

Are you saying that the Higgs mechanism somehow claims that a non-moving electron has 0.511MeV/c^2 of mass, but no energy? Or that it somehow claims that a non-moving electron's energy is less than 0.511MeV?

No. I'm saying that the Higgs mechanism is the wrong solution to the Standard-model initial position of massless particles, and the right solution, which is fully in accord with Einstein, has been overlooked and is now actively resisted for no sound reason.

Well then you need to stop saying "the mass of a particle is a measure of its energy content", because that is not true of rest mass. This should be obvious, since photons have energy but zero rest mass, and since massive particles which are moving clearly have more energy than when at rest, but exactly the same rest mass.

You said it, not me, see your post 482. I've just checked back through the last few pages, and I didn't say it. I know full well that a photon is massless. I've spoken repeatedly of a massless photon in a box increasing the mass of that system.

 

[sol invictus]

As I stated earlier, Einstein died nearly 10 years before Higgs' Theory was first postulated. Would he have made the same statement had he known about Higgs Theory?

Sure. It's true for theories with a Higgs mechanism as well as for those without. It's just that the "energy content of an electron" in the Standard Model of particle physics varies depending on the Higgs condensate.

Of course what this really boils down to is that Einstein formulated everything mathematically, and the Higgs mechanism is 100% consistent with his fundamental equations. Higgs' theory is Lorentz invariant, and the mass (squared) of the electron in his theory is the square of its energy-momentum 4-vector, just as it is in a theory with no Higgs mechanism.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Which doesn't square with Einstein's E=mc² paper, which states that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content. The mass depends on the amount of energy that's there, that's all. And look in section §9 here. See this "If we imagine the electric charges to be invariably coupled to small rigid bodies (ions, electrons)..." It's clear that Einstein considered the electron to be a body. The paper also states that radiation conveys inertia between the emitting and absorbing bodies. So when you let two gamma photons escape from two boxes, where the Higgs mechanism has nothing to do with mass, they convey inertia. They don't interact with the Higgs field, but they do interact with each other to form an electron and a positron. These are bodies formed by that interaction, and afterwards those gamma photons are gone. They've been absorbed. Inertia has been conveyed from the emitting to the absorbing bodies. So anybody who asserts that inertia has somehow been switched on via the Higgs mechanism is disregarding Einstein.

Anyone who asserts that inertia has been somehow switched on via the Higgs mechanism is also completely and utterly misunderstanding the Higgs mechanism.

No I don't. I fully understand that a fast-moving electron comprises more energy than an electron at rest.

The where's the problem? If the Higgs mechanism does not imply that the total energy of a body is not equal to its inertial mass times the speed of light squared, then how can you claim that it violates E=mc^2? That doesn't make any sense!

But that is not what it says. It just says that the mass of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV/c^2, which implies that the energy of a non-moving electron is 0.511MeV. A moving electron has more energy, and as a result, more mass.

Only when you say relativistic mass is mass. Look at the relativistic mass section of the wiki mass in special relativity page. Pay attention to this On the other hand, in his first paper on E=mc² (1905) he treated m as what would now be called the rest mass.[15] [16] [17] In later years Einstein expressed his dislike of the idea of "relativistic mass [18]." You're disregarding Einstein again.

No, I am not.

Look. If you want to claim that the E=mc^2 where E is the total energy of a body and m is the rest mass, then you are just plain wrong. Is this what you are claiming?

Or are you somehow saying that the equation E=mc^2 should only be used when E refers to rest energy and m refers to rest mass? If so, then how does the Higgs mechanism violate E=mc^2? Are you claiming that the Higgs mechanism somehow says that a particle at rest has zero energy?

I can't make any sense out of your position. Please give a single example of a condition or reaction where what the Higgs mechanism says will happen violates E=mc^2. Can you do this? And I mean a concrete example. Something like "in situation A the Higgs mechanism claims that the inertia of particle p is x, and that its total energy is y, where y is not equal to x times c^2".

It is both. The mass of a particle is a measure of its energy content because it is proportional to its energy content. That is what E=mc^2 literally means. It is saying that E is proportional to m, with the constant of proportionality c^2.

But it's still not what Einstein said. He didn't use the word proportional.

What difference does that make? I'm quite certain that Einstein understood that E=mc^2, where c is a constant, means that E is proportional m. I'm also sure that figured that anybody capable of understanding the mathematics in his paper would also understand this rather trivial fact.

Where what is replaced by something else? Please be specific.

Where the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content is replaced by the mass of a body is a measure of its interaction with the Higgs field.

1) The rest mass of a body is not a measure of its energy content. If you think it is, then you are simply wrong.
2) The fact that the inertial mass of a body is a measure of its energy in no way contradicts the claim that its rest mass is a measure of its interaction with the Higgs field. If you think it does, you need to explain why, rather than just asserting over and over again that it somehow does.

I gave a specific example of how the energy, rest mass, and inertia of moving and non-moving electrons are related. Please point out to me exactly which part of that you think violates the principle of inertia depending on energy content.

Where you said An electron has, due to the Higgs mechanism, a rest-mass of 0.511MeV/c^2. It has a rest-mass of 0.511MeV/c^2 because it has an energy content of 0.511MeV.

Question: Does it have an energy of 0.511MeV or not? If it does, then E=mc^2 has not been violated. End of story. You are making a nonsense argument here. Yes, it has a rest mass of 0.511MeV/c^2 because it has an energy content of 0.511MeV. And it has an energy content of 0.511MeV because of its interaction with the Higgs field. This has been explained to you before. It isn't that hard to understand.

Yes, the system has less energy than the combined rest-energy of the two particles. So what? How does that contradict what I said?

You said The Higgs mechanism just puts a non-zero value on the minimum energy that a particle can have. But when those particles are bound, they have even less energy than "the minimum energy that a particle can have". Spot the problem?

No, what I spot is an obvious attempt to quibble semantics.

Amend what I said to say that it puts a non-zero minimum energy that a particle can have in the absence of any other potentials. I don't care. The point is that the Higgs interaction results in the particle having a non-zero rest energy. And since the mass of a particle is a measure of the energy content of the particle, this means that it has a non-zero rest mass.

The Higgs mechanism does not say that a particle's rest mass will depend on how strongly it interacts with the Higgs field instead of on what its energy content is, as you seem to be claiming. It says that a particle's rest energy depends on how strongly it interacts with the Higgs field, and that because the particle's rest mass is proportional to its rest energy, it's rest mass will thus depend on how strongly it interacts with the Higgs field.

At this point you seem to be complaining about semantics more than anything else. If the Higgs mechanism does not claim that a particle's total energy will not be proportional to its inertia with proportionality coefficient c^2, then it does not violate E=mc^2, and it does not violate the principle that inertia is a measure of energy content. End of story. If you think that the Higgs mechanism does make such a claim, then give a specific example. If you don't, then stop claiming that it violates E=mc^2, because it clearly does not.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

No. I'm saying that the Higgs mechanism is the wrong solution to the Standard-model initial position of massless particles, and the right solution, which is fully in accord with Einstein, has been overlooked and is now actively resisted for no sound reason.

And here we have it. You admit now that the Higgs mechanism does not actually claim E is ever not equal to mc^2. That is what everybody besides you understands the statement "The Higgs mechanism violates E=mc^2" to mean. You admit that the Higgs mechanism does not claim that a particle's inertia will not be proportional to its total energy. That is what everybody besides you understands the statement "The Higgs mechanism violates the principle that the inertia of a body is a measure of its energy content" to mean.

What you disagree with is the claim that the Higgs mechanism is the correct solution. You can't cite any example of it quantitatively giving an answer that disagrees with the empirical evidence. You can't cite any example of it making predictions that are incompatible with other predictions made by the standard model. You can't cite any example of it making predictions that violate Special Relativity. Put simply, you've got nothing other than your own insistence that it must be wrong, and that you think Einstein would agree with you.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Well then you need to stop saying "the mass of a particle is a measure of its energy content", because that is not true of rest mass. This should be obvious, since photons have energy but zero rest mass, and since massive particles which are moving clearly have more energy than when at rest, but exactly the same rest mass.

You said it, not me, see your post 482. I've just checked back through the last few pages, and I didn't say it. I know full well that a photon is massless. I've spoken repeatedly of a massless photon in a box increasing the mass of that system.

Hang on. If a photon is massless, and it has energy, then how can mass be a measure of energy content?

It can't.

Also, forget about photons. The rest mass of an electron is always 0.511MeV/c^2. That is true no matter how much energy the electron has. So, what is the mass of a 10MeV electron? Is it still 0.511MeV/c^2? If so, then clearly its mass is not a measure of its energy content.

Like I said, rest mass is not a measure of energy content (unless, of course, the particle is at rest). If you don't like using the term "mass" to refer to inertial mass, then stop saying that mass is a measure of energy content, because it's not.

 

[Farsight]

Seriously, this has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have seen you post. You honestly don't realize that the p in E=pc is not the momentum vector, but the magnitude of the momentum vector? This is basic algebra here. You can't set a scalar quantity equal to a vector quantity.

I fully realise it, and I'm deadly serious. The sign of the cannonball's momentum is arbitrary. You can assert that a cannonball coming at you from the left exhibits 1000kg m/s of momentum and a cannonball coming at you from the left exhibits -1000kg m/s of momentum. Or you can flip them around. But you don't change the momentum of those cannonballs one jot. Momentum is only a vector because it's an aspect of measure of energy-momentum. It's conserved when that cannonball hits you because it exerts a force on you for a given time, and you exert a force on it in the opposite direction for the same time. Kinetic energy is conserved if you and the cannonball are perfectly elastic because it exerts a force on you for a given distance and you exert a force on it for a given distance. The force is in the opposite direction but we don't care about that when we say energy = force x distance. Only you're not perfectly elastic.

I really don't see your point. There is still no case where momentum disappears to be replaced by mass, or vice-versa.

There is. Two photons, each of which conveys energy-momentum, interact as per two-photon physics resulting in electron-positron pair production. You had energy-momentum zipping through space at c, and now you've got mass. Like I said before, kinetic energy is your distance-based measure of energy-momentum, and momentum is your time-based measure of energy-momentum. They're merely two different aspects of the same thing, distinguished by c, a conversion factor between distance and time. You're in the rest frame of the electron and positron, which have moved apart and are momentarily motionless before they draw together. You can't see that energy momentum any more, what you see instead is mass. If you look closely and note the magnetic moment you'll appreciate that it hasn't actually disappeared, it's hidden, like it is in the standing wave. Then the electron and positron annihilate and you've got two photons again and the mass has gone to be replace by energy-momentum.

The example you gave with a single photon turning into an electron-positron pair is physically impossible. And there is no physically possible example you can give.

What example? I've spoken of two-photon phyiscs, or pair production where a photon interacts with a nucleon. The only time I've referred to one photon turning into an electron-positron pair is when I've criticized the QED given explanation of pair production. See wiki: "A photon can, within the bounds of the uncertainty principle, fluctuate into a charged fermion-antifermion pair, to either of which the other photon can couple".

Re when you say the inertia of a body doesn't depend upon its energy content but instead depends on that body's interaction with the Higgs field, you've contradicted Einstein.
Nobody has said that. Not anybody. The Higgs mechanism doesn't say that. I didn't say it. And nobody in this thread has said it.

You said repeatedly An electron has, due to the Higgs mechanism, a rest-mass of 0.511MeV/c^2. And the wikipedia article says this "According to this theory, particles gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field that permeates all space." For fermions, it says this: "An obvious possibility is some kind of "Yukawa coupling" (see below) between the fermion field ψ and the Higgs field Φ". If you're claiming that this and all those media reports are wrong, let's hear it.

Are you serious? What do you think "proportional" means? If I say "x is proportional to y", that means the same thing as "x=yk, where k is some constant".

I'm serious. And so was Einstein when he said mass is a measure of energy content. It's a different measure of energy-momentum, that's all. It's how you measure it when it isn't going past you, but instead is going back and forth or around and around in front of you. Just like c is a conversion factor between the measure we call energy and the measure we call momentum, c² is a conversion factor between the measure we call energy and the measure we call mass.

 

[Farsight]

Hang on. If a photon is massless, and it has energy, then how can mass be a measure of energy content? It can't.

It's a measure of energy-content for a body. A photon is not a body.

Also, forget about photons. The rest mass of an electron is always 0.511MeV/c^2.

Surprisingly, it isn't. It varies with gravitational potential. I'm not kidding you on that Stimpson.

That is true no matter how much energy the electron has. So, what is the mass of a 10MeV electron? Is it still 0.511MeV/c^2? If so, then clearly its mass is not a measure of its energy content.

You're conflating relativistic mass and rest mass again. We say the body has it's rest mass, and when it's moving fast it has kinetic energy on top of that. We add the two together for relativistic mass. Which Einstein didn't like.

Like I said, rest mass is not a measure of energy content (unless, of course, the particle is at rest). If you don't like using the term "mass" to refer to inertial mass, then stop saying that mass is a measure of energy content, because it's not.

take that up with Einstein, who said The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content. He also said It is not impossible that with bodies whose energy-content is variable to a high degree (e.g. with radium salts) the theory may be successfully put to the test. So it's pretty obvious he was talking about a body at rest.

 

[Farsight]

Surely though, if Higgs' Theory is correct, then this body's energy content would relate directly to its interaction with the "space-pervading field", and therefore its the same thing.... A = B, B = C ∴ A = C

No, it's a non-sequiteur. The body's energy content depends on how much energy you put in to create it. Like Einstein said, the photon conveys inertia from the emitting body to the absorbing body, so the electron (created via pair production) gets its inertia because the photon delivered it. The emitting body could have been a box of radiation like what Susskind talked about, where the Higgs mechanism is not involved, and E=mc² is responsible for mass. A photon has no rest mass, but it does have "inertial mass" which isn't mass in the usual sense of the word. Have a read of Light is heavy by van der Mark and 't Hooft. I understand it isn't the Nobel-Laureate 't Hooft, it's some other guy.

As I stated earlier, Einstein died nearly 10 years before Higgs' Theory was first postulated. Would he have made the same statement had he known about Higgs Theory?

Yes. remember that the Higgs mechanism is said to be responsible for only 1% of the mass of matter. Einstein would have said that that figure was a little bit wrong. Like 1% wrong.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Re when you say the inertia of a body doesn't depend upon its energy content but instead depends on that body's interaction with the Higgs field, you've contradicted Einstein.

Nobody has said that. Not anybody. The Higgs mechanism doesn't say that. I didn't say it. And nobody in this thread has said it.

You said repeatedly An electron has, due to the Higgs mechanism, a rest-mass of 0.511MeV/c^2. And the wikipedia article says this "According to this theory, particles gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field that permeates all space." For fermions, it says this: "An obvious possibility is some kind of "Yukawa coupling" (see below) between the fermion field ? and the Higgs field F". If you're claiming that this and all those media reports are wrong, let's hear it.

None of the above is equivalent to saying that the inertia of the body doesn't depend on its energy content, as has been repeatedly explained to you.

That is true no matter how much energy the electron has. So, what is the mass of a 10MeV electron? Is it still 0.511MeV/c^2? If so, then clearly its mass is not a measure of its energy content.

You're conflating relativistic mass and rest mass again. We say the body has it's rest mass, and when it's moving fast it has kinetic energy on top of that. We add the two together for relativistic mass. Which Einstein didn't like.

I'm not "conflating" anything. And you did not answer the question. Yes or no: Does the 10MeV electron still have a mass of 0.511MeV/c^2?

If your answer is "no", then you are not using the word "mass" to refer to rest mass.

If your answer is "yes", then it is clearly not true that what you are calling "mass" is a measure of the energy content of the 10MeV electron.

You can't have it both ways, regardless of what you think Einstein "liked".

Like I said, rest mass is not a measure of energy content (unless, of course, the particle is at rest). If you don't like using the term "mass" to refer to inertial mass, then stop saying that mass is a measure of energy content, because it's not.

take that up with Einstein, who said The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content. He also said It is not impossible that with bodies whose energy-content is variable to a high degree (e.g. with radium salts) the theory may be successfully put to the test. So it's pretty obvious he was talking about a body at rest.

So now you are amending your claim that "mass is a measure of the energy content of a body" to be "mass is a measure of the energy content of a body if it is at rest"?

And if so, why go on about whether mass should refer to relativistic or rest mass at all, when for particles at rest they are exactly the same thing? Why are you so obsessed with purely semantic issues like this? What difference does any of this make to anything?

The fact remains that the Higgs mechanism does not claim that any particle at rest will have a mass m and an energy E such that E is not equal to mc^2, so you are simply wrong when you say that it violates E=mc^2, or that the Higgs mechanism claims that the mass of a particle does not depend on its energy content or that the Higgs mechanism claims that the mass of a particle is not a measure of its energy content.

 

[Farsight]

He wrote an equation which showed one thing is proportional to another and because he didn't use the word proportional there's a problem?

Yes. The problem is that the word measure is disregarded. Mass is a measure of energy-momentum, just as kinetic energy is a measure of it, and momentum is a measure of it. Mass is a measure of energy-momentum when it takes the form of a "standing wave" going back and forth or round and round at c as opposed to a wave propagating linearly at c. And from that grew a problem wherein the Standard model includes the "frightfully ad-hoc" Higgs mechanism when it ought to have a symmetry. It's going to change edd. It's only a matter of time, and when it happens you can tell everybody you heard it here first.

Kind of cool, don't you think?

All: If anybody wants me to talk to them again, they can apologise for calling me a crackpot. I'm the one who's with Einstein here. Call me a crackpot, and you're calling Einstein a crackpot. It's that simple. Just as this resistance to change-in-motion thing is that simple a child can understand it. And yet here we are on a skeptics forum and people cling to things they don't understand instead. The irony is delicious. It's why I like this place so much. LOL. And so to bed.

 

[Tubbythin]

Yes. remember that the Higgs mechanism is said to be responsible for only 1% of the mass of matter. Einstein would have said that that figure was a little bit wrong. Like 1% wrong.

Stop making unsubstantiated claims about what the dead would hypothetically have said in your Universe. It is tasteless.

 

[Tubbythin]

Yes. The problem is that the word measure is disregarded. Mass is a measure of energy-momentum, just as kinetic energy is a measure of it, and momentum is a measure of it. Mass is a measure of energy-momentum when it takes the form of a "standing wave" going back and forth or round and round at c as opposed to a wave propagating linearly at c. And from that grew a problem wherein the Standard model includes the "frightfully ad-hoc" Higgs mechanism when it ought to have a symmetry. It's going to change edd. It's only a matter of time, and when it happens you can tell everybody you heard it here first.

Kind of cool, don't you think?

Is there an arroganceometer to go with the ironometer?

All: If anybody wants me to talk to them again, they can apologise for calling me a crackpot. I'm the one who's with Einstein here.

No, no you are not.

Call me a crackpot, and you're calling Einstein a crackpot.

No, no it doesn't.

It's that simple.

No it isn't. You don't understand momentum conservation or the first law of thermodynamics. And yet you have the bloated self importance to think you understand the Higgs mechanism better than the entire particle physics community.

Just as this resistance to change-in-motion thing is that simple a child can understand it. And yet here we are on a skeptics forum and people cling to things they don't understand instead. The irony is delicious. It's why I like this place so much. LOL. And so to bed.

You don't understand momentum conservation. What makes you think you understand particle physics better than all the particle physicists in the world? When someone who can't even understand high school physics claims to understand particle physics better than all the particle physicists in the world, it is the job of the skeptic to put them in their place.

 

[dafydd]

Yes. The problem is that the word measure is disregarded. Mass is a measure of energy-momentum, just as kinetic energy is a measure of it, and momentum is a measure of it. Mass is a measure of energy-momentum when it takes the form of a "standing wave" going back and forth or round and round at c as opposed to a wave propagating linearly at c. And from that grew a problem wherein the Standard model includes the "frightfully ad-hoc" Higgs mechanism when it ought to have a symmetry. It's going to change edd. It's only a matter of time, and when it happens you can tell everybody you heard it here first.

Kind of cool, don't you think?

All: If anybody wants me to talk to them again, they can apologise for calling me a crackpot. I'm the one who's with Einstein here. Call me a crackpot, and you're calling Einstein a crackpot. It's that simple. Just as this resistance to change-in-motion thing is that simple a child can understand it. And yet here we are on a skeptics forum and people cling to things they don't understand instead. The irony is delicious. It's why I like this place so much. LOL. And so to bed.

The two cases are not on all fours. Einstein was a genius and a red-hot physicist. You are just you. You turn up here and post Mickey Mouse physics, real physicists point out your mistakes to you and instead of taking heed and learning you take umbrage and go home with your ball. Not really the scientific method, is it?