Related papers: The heavy spring at work
The concept of mass is central to any theory of gravity. Nevertheless, defining mass in general relativity is a difficult task, and even when it can be accomplished, we still need to investigate whether the typical properties of mass in…
In this article the concept of mass is analyzed based on the special and general relativity theories and particle (quantum) physics. The mass of a particle (m=E(0)/c^2) is determined by the minimum (rest) energy to create that particle…
The fact that the nucleus is lighter than its constituents, seems rather strange. How can the whole have a smaller mass than its components? To get some intuition about how this is possible, one can look at a simpler more familiar system…
The spectra of baryons containing two heavy quarks test the form of the $QQ$ potential through the spin-averaged masses and hyperfine splittings. The mass splittings in these spectra are calculated in a nonrelativistic potential model and…
Dynamical vacuum energy or quintessence, a slowly varying and spatially inhomogeneous component of the energy density with negative pressure, is currently consistent with the observational data. One potential difficulty with the idea of…
In the Higgs mechanism, mediators of the weak force acquire masses by interacting with the Higgs condensate, leading to a vector boson mass matrix. On the other hand, a rigid body accelerated through an inviscid, incompressible and…
Rest mass takes the place of inertial mass in modern physics textbooks. It seems to be wrong. But this phenomenon is hidden away by the facts that rest mass adherents busily call rest mass "mass", not rest mass, and the word "mass" is…
I show that with the discovery of the Higgs boson we have entered a new phase of our understanding of nature. This leads us towards a paradigm shift in the search for possible new physics, away from major extensions like supersymmetry…
The top quark is by far the heaviest known fermion [1]. In consequence, experiment is just beginning to explore its properties, and some of them may yet prove to be distinctly non-standard. The very size of the top quark's mass even hints…
We suggest that the Higgs might be unobservable as a free particle, due to its origin at a symmetry breaking mechanism. The standard model is kept intact, only the definition of the vacuum for the Higgs is changed. With the new (natural)…
Present data, both from direct Higgs search and from analysis of electroweak data, are starting to become rather restrictive on the possible values for the mass of the standard model Higgs. We discuss a new physics scenario based on a model…
We define passive gravitational mass operator of a hydrogen atom in the post-Newtonian approximation of general relativity and show that it does not commute with energy operator, taken in the absence of gravitational field. Nevertheless,…
Describing the phenomena of the surrounding world is an interesting task that has long attracted the attention of scientists. However, even in seemingly simple phenomena, complex dynamics can be revealed. In particular, leaves on the…
Helicity is a property of light which is familiar from particle physics but less well-known in optics. In this paper we recall the explicit form taken by the helicity of light within classical electromagnetic theory and reflect upon some of…
A simple model for solid friction is analyzed. It is based on tangential springs representing interlocked asperities of the surfaces in contact. Each spring is given a maximal strain according to a probability distribution. At their maximal…
Criteria for defining errors of a physical theory are formulated. It is shown that the Special Theory of Relativity (STR) has a solid mathematical basis. An enormous amount of experiments carried out in particle physics use beams of…
According to Newton's law of gravitation the force between two particles depends upon their inertial, as well as their active and passive gravitational masses. For ordinary matter all three of these are equal and positive. We consider here…
A simple model is presented to explain the Higgs boson physics to the grand public. The model consists of a children ball pool representing a Universe filled with a certain amount of the Higgs field. The model is suitable for usage as a…
We discuss the issue of complementarity between the confining phase and the Higgs phase for gauge theories in which there are no light particles below the scale of confinement or spontaneous symmetry breaking. We show with a number of…
We have recently shown that both passive and active gravitational masses of a composite body are not equivalent to its energy due to some quantum effects. We have also suggested an idealized and more realistic experiments to detect the…