MarkE

Thanks for all your comments, and for the links and information that you’ve provided! I’m going to do some research on my own before I ask questions regarding this subject on this forum. Goal: to understand why only an energetic particle could be responsible for any mass (such as dark matter or a black hole), and why there’s no such thing as the ‘physics of nothingness’, describing the attractive force towards particles from some kind of ‘hole’ in spacetime. I’ll keep you updated! P.S. Thanks for these Higgs field equations, Mordred, I think I'm actually able to read and understand them .

I'm not a particle physicist, but I really would like to understand what mass is as a non particle physicist. I'd like to understand it as intuitively as possible. Could you recommend a book/youtube video/anything to take a first step in order to understand what mass really is? (Hopefully without too much maths).

Then why do all BHs shape different types of galaxies? They all seem to have different structures, such as spiral galaxies like our own, the sombrero galaxy and the pinwheel galaxy. Compare that to galaxies with no structure at all, such as irregular/peculiar galaxies, and thus aren't behaving all in the same way. That’s not an explanation, what is giving it its mass? A particle that gives other particles mass has mass by itself? In maths you can create a cosmological constant, or a field, or numbers in general to describe certain phenomena, but does it therefore really exists? In string theory models it is shown that several dimensions may exist. What does that prove about reality? If mass can be converted into energy, then they have to be two distinct phenomena, because otherwise there wouldn’t be any conversion involved. Not all energy has mass (such as photons and gluons), so why are we allowed to make the conclusion that all mass has to be energy already, and thus has to be moving (since no energy is sedentary). It can be converted, yes, but that’s the conversion of potential energy, not energy by itself. The space in between a particle, and the point it came from, has a natural attraction back, hence the space in between can be coined with the term 'potential energy', but you're not describing an actual particle, only the space in between (therefore the term 'potential energy' can be a bit misplaced and misleading). Mass is not the same thing as energy, in fact, it's the exact opposite. The difference between and mass and energy is that mass is inert, it’s “sedentary”, not doing anything, which would logically be the starting point of any Big Bang particle. You can't create particles with energy you already possess, because where does this initial energy coming from? You have to conclude that the first form of energy couldn't have come from another energy source, you can only overcome this paradox by acknowledging that something that is sedentary, inert (mass) can be converted into movement, energy, a photon, but it's not a particle itself. This is, in my view, the only comprehensible explanation how particles in our Universe could have been converted to something from nothing at all to start out with. There's nothing that "gives" mass to anything, we don't even know whether there is mass at all, the only thing we know for sure is that there are degrees of attraction. There's no need to raise your voice. If you would like discuss a certain subject which I didn't explain clearly, please ask me a specific question, and I'll to try to explain it in another way. I said that attraction is caused by energy and gravity. There have to be at least two things around in order for gravity to exist between them. One particle can't cause attraction by itself, it needs something to be attracted to. Where does that initial force come from? Does the desire to lift your arm start inside of a neuron? If so, where in the neuron exactly, could you be specific?

Why not bring it up again? Short version: hawking radiation evaporates black holes. Energy is conserved because HR is the exact amount of energy that the BH loses. I’ve mentioned it briefly here because it has already been discussed in another thread. But to bring a short version of it up again: there was a disagreement about the nature of a black hole, and whether it’s necessary for a black hole to be an object, since ‘degeneracy pressure’ forbids matter to be clumped together into objects that exceeds three Solar masses (such as neutron stars), and SMBHs are multiple times more massive than that. That being said, you’re arguing that energy is conserved because a black hole releases the same amount of energy as it evaporates, but the only thing we know for sure is that it loses mass, not energy. Mass can be transformed into energy, yes, but that’s something different. We still don’t fully understand what mass is, since we don’t fully understand how the (5 sigma) Higgs boson gets its own mass, whether the graviton exists, or how to explain the rotation of the celestial bodies without a new exotic form of matter we have coined the term ‘dark matter’. We seem to need (new) particles to explain mass over and over again, but I’m not convinced yet that it's only matter to be able to have mass in the first place, because mass and attraction might be the same thing. What causes the attraction? The curvature of space-time. What is mass? The curvature of space-time. Every particle has mass or attraction, but that doesn't have to be a property of the particle itself, on the contrary. I’ll give you an example: if you want to move your arm, you’re exerting a mental force onto your body, which initially has started somewhere in your brain as an intention, which causes your arm to move. Where is this force coming from? Not from particles such as electrons themselves, because they are well described in models that describe how atoms and subatomic particles behave. An electron or a photon can’t change its trajectory by itself, their wave functions are described by Maxwell/Schrödinger, and are bound to a field, and can’t just deviate from that… unless acted upon by an external force. The conclusion therefore should be that the Standard Model of particles can’t describe everything we observe in the Universe, as well as our own human behaviour here on Earth. It would be really nice if you could provide a quote to what you're getting at from the paper you linked to. I don't have the time or patience to look for what you may want to say exactly while I'm at work, and even less once I get home. Same as before. Also, it would be nice if you mentioned what the source is if it isn't obvious from the link text. An interesting quote from the first link: "Most of the ingredients of the standard cosmological model are poorly understood in terms of fundamental physics". An interesting quote from the second link: "But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe." This paper has an interesting statement as well: "If these anomalies are in fact primordial, then understanding their origin is fundamental to either validate the standard model of cosmology or to explore new physics". So life existed on earth when it was a hot chunk of molten rock? Let me answer your question with another question: how would you qualify the moment at which a sperm fertilizes the ovum, and when it becomes a zygote, well before it is developed into an embryo? Do you consider this stage to be a living human individual already, or is this a pre-life stage, and real actual "life" will be manifested into it at a later developmental stage? Humans are the cause of the input for pair production? Really? Where did I say that humans are the cause of input for pair production? Then why did you say: "That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter. I don’t support that notion." If life is "just atoms", why don't you think it could just arise as those atoms rearrange themselves into more complex forms? Because I have no reason to argue against the idea that life is inherently related to energy itself. I simply have no need for something else to add to this energy to achieve "life", because life is energy, and energy is life. That doesn’t mean that all atoms have consciousness, far from it, but it’s a matter of hierarchy, just like the hierarchy between humans and lower animals, and how atoms are related to other atoms. Even though all carbon atoms are exactly the same, some of them are part of neurons inside your brain, some of them are part of your liver tissue, and others are part of a chair. Nothing has changed to the carbon atom, only how it is used and what force is acted upon. Human being are made of atoms only, and nothing more than that. It’s an interesting idea you’re making by noting what would arise from rearrangements into complexer molecular (life) forms. A different arrangement may “have” more energy stored than others. If glucose for instance is broken down, the same atoms are there, yet some of the stored energy has been released. A star is continuously rearranging itself by generating helium atoms (4 nucleons) from 4 free nucleons. This is a reaction to an external force, gravity, a star is forced to this to keep its hydrostatic equilibrium. It doesn’t have a choice, but a star is not alive of course. Still, it seems to look a lot like evolution on Earth, which has shown to make new arrangements continuously by evolving into new species who are able to conserve energy longer, live to a longer age, and develop ways to control certain attractions (think about your prefrontal cortex). Living organisms are behaving as a reaction to a changing environment, a changing climate, of which our Sun is greatly responsible. So that means we are connected to the ever changing composition of the Sun. Are living organisms, by evolving, changing and rearranging, balancing something out here? Because there is another force (gravity) that is doing the exact opposite, and we have to react to that? Do we even have a choice to evolve, or is it inevitable? I believe that evolution is indeed inevitable, because of the Red Queen hypothesis ("It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place"), and we have to do mental work, which leads to physical work, because we have to stay balanced, in order to stay alive. Energy doesn't cause attraction. Where did I say that energy causes attraction? No, because the black hole loses mass. We can talk about the scientific understandable part of the Universe, sure, but that’s like talking about a human emotion such as for instance ‘jealousy’, by referring only to the neurotransmitters, blood flow, the limbic system and others that are involved in generating this emotion. But it’s caused by some external event. By describing these biological effects of that event, you’re making the correct observations, and you're not making any mistake, but you’re still missing the point, since you’re only focussing on half of what’s actually going on. We don’t know. As far as we know it has always been there. Let’s consider this to be true for a moment, let’s consider that you are right by arguing that energy has always been there. A part from the fact that you seem to break a conservation law (because the only logical thing to exist without any input should be… nothing, zero should remain zero), and the fact that you can’t explain how it got there in the first place, the definition of energy by itself is ‘movement’, right? There is no form of energy that is sedentary. Movement is energy and vice versa, every movement is a change from one location to another location. You are suggesting that something that has energy could have been present from the start without any input that causes it? That doesn’t sound scientific at all. If you are going to exclude any input that must have preceded it, in order for it to be present, you’re not only ignoring scientific laws, but you’re also ignoring a very importing aspect of the Universe, which is us. Humans. Living organisms in general. Why are you ignoring yourself as living proof of input, by making such a statement? So, to get back to the beginning of this topic, and what the nature of dark energy is. The first form of energy (what goes up) must have experienced gravity as a reaction for its presence (must go down), and the Red Queen arms race had begun. To stay alive, to stay balanced, energy had to be kept actively in circulation, which is what we’re indirectly doing everyday by working, staying active, adapt to ever changing environments, and thereby rearranging ourselves. Nature isn’t doing anything by itself, it’s inert, lazy, only us, living organisms, are something beyond this inertia, and thus are living proof of thoughts that precede any change which allow us to physically change the world around us. Attraction back to the (hypothetical) edge of the Universe, representing the (hypothetical) cosmological constant, can’t ever stop as long as we’re here. And we're nothing more than energy, continuously changing into different arrangements, due to an external counter force. That’s why the Universe could be seen as the centre of something that is surrounded by an edge of primitive gravity as our origin where this event happened, even though we have centres of gravity within that Universe as well. Just like entropy, hot, high density is attracted by cold low density, and since we are energy, we’re flowing back automatically to where we came from before the Big Bang, in all directions. Living organisms feel the same force as celestial bodies, but only on another level, because chemical attraction on Earth is stronger than gravitational attraction, but it's not absent. So to keep in the same place, to stay balanced between those two forces (energy and gravity) we have to use, maintain and change our energy, keep it in circulation, and fight against the gravitational force outwards that “wants” to rip us a part.

Hopefully. Life forms only consist of atoms. Consciousness, feelings, and giving meaning to the world around us in general, is not some kind of external addition to these atoms. Attraction, caused by energy and gravity, is all we need to understand any movement (which in my opinion includes all good/bad human thoughts and feelings).

So you are just going to ignore all the conservation laws? Isn’t Hawking radiation also ignoring conservation laws? Well, not if you assume that a black hole is an object/body, which I don't, because that doesn't necessarily have to be the case (but we've already had that discussion in another topic, so I won't get into that here again). The Big Bang isn’t testable in a lab, yet science is making statements about it, because we're able to logically deduct knowledge about rules and laws of nature without testing everything. By applying only science and scientific reasoning to explain the natural world around us, you're ignoring all human-ness and other aspects of life that could be attached to it. Take subjectivity for instance, by describing how human emotions and feelings work, you could argue that certain chemicals are responsible for it. But is that the entire answer? Really? You're not able to detect the feeling and meaning that goes along with that chemical. Does this mean it isn't there? Well, obviously.Duh. The universe existed for billions of years before life arose. So what’s responsible for this energy then, and for the change of the state of ‘nothing’ into something, if you insist on the notion that it can't be caused by a certain form of life? Does "life" have to be Earth-like anyway? We tend to think that life has to be carbon based, and all life forms need water, but that's knowledge regarding life on Earth. Is that really fair to do? Who are we to make statements about life in general? If all life needs water, then why does water itself has nothing to do with it? Or a hydrogen atom, if atoms are lifeless, and you consist only of atoms, what does that make you? That doesn't mean you're not allow to disagree with this, but what's the alternative you find more plausible? I mean, you have to be able to explain it in another way. If you don't agree that every change, the movement of anything, is due to some kind of input by a living creature (which is what we see around us), then why would you all of a sudden suggest that this couldn't have been the case if you go further back in history? On what grounds are you making that suggestion? Why on Earth would anyone believe that? I guess some religious people might. But that has nothing to do with science. Again, the only evidence that we have to make any change around us can be achieved by applying a certain mental input, by thinking, and as a result doing things, moving things, from one place to another. This means that we're not living in a pure mechanical world where gravity is attracting matter, and thus makes it change its position. We're also here, humans, with human input, you can't ignore that force of nature. It's not just gravity that is responsible for movement of massive objects, so why are you suggesting that that anything is able to move by itself, without any input that caused it? That doesn't make sense. All physical change you make is preceded by mental input. Not all scientists agree about that. There has been much publicity about analysis of results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and Planck mission that show both expected and unexpected anisotropies in the CMB. If we would look at the Universe far from our location, we would not see the same concentric cell structure, or a non-homogeneous Universe. (There's about 250 million light years space between every shell in the picture below). There's still much debate regarding this subject (which is much debated in the movie "The Principle"), but the CMB map does indeed correlate with plane of the Earth orbiting the Sun. If the Universe can be seen as an implosion (which is why I started this topic), it would agree with these observations as well. How would you explain these anomalies without us being the centre?

It’s just reverse gravity, a Universe in which massive objects are falling inwards, and massless objects falling outwards. It doesn’t have an effect on the speed of light, there’s only one speed of light, it has effect on the particle. A mass “particle” can become a photon particle and vice versa. So it’s just an unbound mass particle, that is being emitted, which becomes “un-massed”, and its falling back speed makes it look like it is going somewhere really fast, and “has” energy, but that is just because it’s falling back at a constant speed. I’m trying to find out whether the forces in our Universe would still behave the same way if we had this edge. If something is not in accordance with this, then the hypothesis must be wrong. I wasn’t referring to the Universe right now having the same pressure as a star, I said “The first form of energy that came into existence must have experienced the same force that a star experiences right now”. So I meant that this first energy particle must have felt gravity, and resisted to it, which is what’s essentially still happening in every star in our Universe right now. Are you sharing your own personal thoughts, or are you merely citing knowledge that you’ve borrowed from scientific books? Not that there’s something wrong with that, but scientists are not gods, they are humans, and humans sometimes make mistakes. Scientists look at our world in a very mechanical way. Do you believe that physical energy could exist before life existed, meaning that no conscious or mental input has to be responsible for physical energy? Just like some kind of machine, it just happened? Not by some kind of consciousness with mental input, which must have come later? I think you might be looking at the Universe in a mechanical way too. I don’t believe that we are energy + something else. Life is only energy and attraction. Think about your own human existence, you feel that you want certain things, and you think about certain things. That’s it. Those are just attractions of certain chemicals, gradient shifts and voltage switches. You’re only experience something good, and the absence of good (we call ‘bad’) in complex ways, which is why we have multiple forms of good, and multiple forms of bads, which we are able to hear, see, taste etc., but there’s only good and bad. I don’t see why we would need anything else than energy and gravity to understand the dualistic natural world and our own human experience of it. Taken literally, no, we're not photons, but what about in essence? How can you be so sure that this can't be the case? The Milky Way is a galaxy amidst a complex Local Group cluster in the Universe, where life exists on a planet that is made up of complex layers and structures, where humans are walking around that are members of complex governed civilisation structures along with complex laws and rules, but we’re also individuals that are made up of a complex organisation of organs, tissues and an extremely complex brain, and these structures consist of their own complex arrangements of molecules that are working together in a complex way, which in turn are made up of even smaller complex structures called atoms, which themselves are complex structures of subatomic forces. Well, in one of my other post (about 2 days ago, in another thread) I have given a few reasons why all three forces of nature, in one way or another, could be seen as derivatives of electromagnetism, or has at least have something to do with electromagnetism, since they share a history, and still have the same (two) charges, and the same massless force carriers. Different, yes, it’s another kind of force, sure, but it’s not another kind of energy. No, we’re not photons, of course not, but it’s electromagnetism that is responsible for everything we call life, and it’s electromagnetism that makes up all of biology, so even though more complex life forms seem to behave differently compared to us, all organisms are made up of the same energy and the same forces. Animals follow their so-called instinct, but this is nothing more than a certain attraction. Humans have the same attraction, but we're able to control it. So, taking also in account that the two charges/dipoles of nature that we see everywhere can be annihilated back into one simple photon, could meant that it originated from it, and we could be closer to photons (pure energy?) than you perhaps might think.

Dark energy is said to cause the expansion of the Universe. Massive bodies that are closer to the (hypothetical) edge of the Universe seem to be attracted stronger than massive bodies further away from it (since they are moving away from us faster). Massless bodies are attracted at a constant rate. This is also a property of gravity, since objects with different mass on the moon are both attracted equally strong, but on Earth mass does make a difference. See my next answer where I elaborate a bit more about these "different gravities". Perhaps there is a center, that's the hypothesis, even though there are many centers, that doesn't mean that there can't be an outside edge. If you consider the possibility that there is an outside, you might be able to explain dark energy, which is my intention. And yes, all particles are flowing outwards, but for instance the Milky Way is gravitationally bound to Andromeda. On Earth we see the same thing, on smaller scales, particles are attracted more strongly to each other. But if you zoom out to larger scales, gravity seems to always take over as the strongest force. So perhaps these smaller forces are also gravity, but just smaller gravities. I'm hypothesising that every particle "has" at least a little bit of the gravity bound to it. Think about every force of nature as a different gravitational intensity: the strong force is stronger than any electromagnetic force between atoms, but if we zoom out, all atoms are bound to the center of the Earth, and the Earth is bound to a BH. Do you see the same trend occurring there? Why would you describe gravity and particle attraction as different phenomena, rather than different intensities of the same thing? I know that "explosion" is not the right word here, just like Big "Bang" was not a bang, it even didn't make a sound, but I couldn't find a better word to describe the expansion, which followed the inflation, from a point in space. And to answer the last part of your question, about the idea of an implosion, it doesn't have to be getting closer together if the rate of getting smaller/inward is higher than that the edge is attracted towards the center. Like a reverse event horizon. We are getting closer together, life is getting closer together, but that's us, those who have input. Aristotle once said "Nothing is more present than the past", so just like we see history all around us (in the form of animals that show our evolutionary past), the same way we're looking into the past of the Universe when we're looking at other galaxies that are surrounding us. The same attraction as all other attractions, the only difference is that one attraction is more intense than the other (just like SMBH is more massive than a normal BH, which is more massive than a star, which is more massive than a planet etc.). A photon is therefore not bound to matter anymore, matter has "lost" part of its energy, it has lost some of its chemical attraction, so now part of its gravitational attracted is lost, and therefore it’s attracted back to the edge naturally, because that is the strongest gravitational field of them all (let's call it "dark edge"). So every photon can be seen as falling back to the edge of the Universe, naturally. That's why a photon is constant in every direction, because the edge is everywhere. Or are you perhaps supposing that there can't be an edge, and that there must be infinite galaxies, always and everywhere? Literally infinite particles? There is no pressure countering gravity in a star? A star is in hydrostatic equilibrium, which is what it does to counter the force of gravity. So by generating energy outwards, a star of course is not creating any new energy, but can be seen as a fight against an inward force, it’s like a thermal tie, just as the Red Queen hypothesis states "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place". That would mean that, at some point in history, life all of a sudden manifested itself in matter. I don’t support that notion. Maybe a different consciousness did, but not life itself. All living organisms are made of only matter, and there not some kind of consciousness-particle. The fact that we don’t believe in animism anymore, like our ancestors did in the Paleolithic era (the idea that everything, even a brick, is alive) doesn’t mean that it doesn't have the potential. Every time when a superior species goes extinct, and thereby loses its rule over other species, a lower animal will fill up that new niche (just like our ancestors did when the dinosaurs went extinct). When a dominant male disappears, a different consciousness is generated, and thus a female will sometimes even change itself to a male. If you look at this in a larger scale, every particle has a place in the hierarchy, and how it behaves is completely relative to how others are behaving. True, but we seem to have sufficient energy, since humans are the cause of input. Is that ever taken into consideration by any scientist to describe the movement of any particle?

Here’s an idea I’m currently thinking about. Perhaps it could help us in understanding what a photon is. To understand one thing, you have to understand other things that are affecting it, so by studying a single photon, you’ll never be able to understand it, just like if you intend to understand the behaviour of a single ant, you need to understand the colony. A photon is definitely a particle, and something causes it to have a wave nature. No photon is going in a straight line, neither on Earth nor in space, because there is always a massive celestial body or black hole that is exerting a gravitational attraction on it, which makes it bend/curve. A photon is electromagnetic radiation, yet it isn’t electrically charged or has a magnetic north or south pole. But what causes its constant speed? Think about dark energy. Nearly all galaxies are receding, they are moving away from us). Something is actively propelling the expansion rate of the universe. Dark energy is seen as an “addition” of some sort, as if something from the outside is coming inside into our Universe, a 'constant density' which can be described as a cosmological constant. Where does it come from, does it violate conservation laws, and how is it being generated? What if it’s the other way around. What if there is no dark energy that is being added from outside to the inside, but almost all particles and celestial bodies in our Universe are in fact flowing outwards, from the inside of the Universe towards the outside. Why would they do that? Simply because the Big Bang could be seen as an implosion, rather than an explosion, meaning that the Universe is in fact very small, instead of very big. This would imply that the Universe is surrounded by something that has the same basic properties as a black hole, we could call this a “black edge”. That explains the attraction towards it. This would explain why the speed of a photon is always a constant, whatever its direction, just like gravity is a constant in the vacuum (a hammer or a feather that is being dropped on the moon falls at the same constant rate towards it). I'm hypothesising this idea, because I'm supporting the notion that once there was nothing at all, no energy and no gravity. The first form of energy that came into existence must have experienced the same force that a star experiences right now. As you all know, gravity continually bares down on a star, trying to crush it down to non-existence, and it is only by generating sufficient pressure through heat in its interior that a star can push back on gravity to hold itself up. That's what I'm trying to describe for the Universe as a whole. Any particle/force, anything different from absolutely nothing, would experience a counter-force automatically, because it's not the natural state of the Universe (assuming that the natural state of the Universe is that there is nothing at all without any input). This would explain why life on Earth exists, because we have to stay active, think, use energy constructively, and we can’t sit around and enjoy the free energy of the Sun every day, because we have to counter-act this natural entropic flow outwards. We have to stay alive, and therefore have to reproduce, just like photons are not only able pair produce, but they have to (which is why I support the zero-energy Universe, and the notion that the Big Bang was a large-scale quantum fluctuation). Remember that all living organisms, all of biology, is made of electromagnetism. I’d like to hear your ideas about this hypothesis!

Excuse me, amplitude. GUILTY!

Between quarks, which make up protons and neutrons, and other Hadrons (Wikipedia). The strong force binds neutrons and protons to create atomic nuclei. Without the strong force to hold protons and neutrons together, positively charged protons would repel each other. Say what? I was referring to electron decay as in 'decay which involves an electron' (radioactive beta decay). Come on, you knew that this is what I meant. I don’t know enough either, but this was my attempt to consider the opposite. Perhaps you could provide more facts/laws in advantage to claim the opposite, ore the other way, in advantage for the author's statement, either way, more information and facts opens a discussion, and will hopefully lead us to the most (and least) plausible explanation. But wait, you've made already a great statement: Since electromagnetism seems to be involved with all three forces of nature one way or another, I don't think it's fair to claim that photons can't be the true 'pure' nature of energy. I couldn't find any arguments in advantage of this notion it in the article, the author is only basically saying "It’s not photons, it’s pure energy, because electromagnetism is just one of the three forces", but he doesn't explain why energy by itself has to be something different from electromagnetic radiation. On the other hand, photons have the characteristic to merge together into one wavelength by modulating it (such as constructive interference), or make an electron jump a from one shell to another. That means that you might not see or detect a photon, but that’s because it('s energy?) has been integrated.

I’ve read the article that you’ve shared earlier (in the topic that preceded this one). The author is discussing an interesting idea, but I’m still skeptic about one of his conclusions, how about you? The author made this (in my opinion questionable) remark: “Photons should not be called `energy’, or `pure energy’, or anything similar. All particles are ripples in fields and have energy; photons are not special in this regard. Photons are stuff; energy is not”. He's arguing that all particles are ripples in fields. But is there evidence for the fact that every particle must be an excitation of its own field? Every particle? I'm asking this because he continues by stating: "the Higgs field (whose particle is not yet certain to exist..." In earlier conversations on this forum, we were debating whether the Big Bang could have been initiated from a large-scale quantum fluctuation in vacuum energy, perhaps even from one single point, and you could even debate the possibility that this single point could have been just 1 single particle. In that discussion the question arose what the nature of this particle could be, or what it has to be, or what it can’t possibly be. Could it be a particle that is on the Standard Model right now, or did those particles came later? It has been calculated that atoms could only have formed 400,000 years after the Big Bang), and light was already around in the Universe before matter was. Still, that doesn’t mean that an electromagnetic particle such as the photon couldn't have been around before all the other particles and forces, and in order to describe what 'pure' energy is, you therefore have to look beyond Standard Model particles (which is what the author basically is saying). Let's look at the other forces of nature, and how/of they are related to electromagnetism: It has been shown that electromagnetism and the weak force were once united (electroweak force). The weak interaction is a different force of nature, compared to the electromagnetic force, yet it’s still involved with electromagnetic particles (such as electron decay). Concerning the strong force, this force of nature is carried out between protons and neutrons. When a neutron decays, electromagnetic particles seem to be involved as well (a neutron will decay into proton, electron and antineutrino). Quarks have electrical charge, and gluons also have no mass/charge (like the photon). If it is true that electromagnetism is involved in all three forces of nature, I don't quite understand how the author can be so sure to know that 'pure energy' is different from electromagnetic radiation, which force carrier is the photon. He isn't explaining what 'pure energy' should be then, if it can't be photons. Do you agree with this statement of the author?

Instead of changing his whole hypothesis, I might have given him a something to ponder in order to approach and edit his initial starting values.

It’s impossible to involve mass when you’re describing a photon NOW. You have to involve a certain change in time. Photons and mass are interchangeable (E=mc2), so you can have either mass or a photon, but you can’t have them both at the same time when you're describing the same thing. What IS a photon right now WAS mass earlier, or vice versa. Hawking radiation states that a black hole evaporates. It decreases in size and loses mass by emitting photons. In our Sun, the difference between 4 hydrogen atoms that are converted into one helium atom, in terms of mass, is only 0,7%. This percentage of mass has been converted into photons. This conversion also happens the other way around, photons are able to change into an electron-positron pair, which is matter, and therefore has mass.

With the only difference that there’s no evidence for pink unicorns, but there is evidence that not only particles may exert attraction (i.e. 'have mass'), because 1) there's no evidence that dark matter has to be a particle, and 2) there's no evidence that the graviton exists, and 3) there's no evidence that any object/particle is able to reside in the center of a BH (and hence is responsible for its mass), and 4) massless photons in flat space (geometrically non curved space) are still attracted by the gravitational field that is created by massive BHs. So I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree (again ). Remember that I've never said that you are wrong at any point in our discussion, I just haven't been provided with irrefutable evidence why it should be more plausible that only a (yet undiscovered) particle may possess and exert gravity/attraction/mass, that's all. Thanks anyway for sharing your thoughts (again), and enjoy your Saturday!

If that's the case, then how are you able to know for sure that I'm wrong? You've said this multiple times: and and Your conclusion seems to be that I'm wrong. Therefore it's not true that you "don't know" whether I'm wrong or not. If someone says he "doesn't know", it means that both possibilities are still optional, but you don't think that my suggestion is equally possible, it's not even optional, you've ruled it out completely, without backing up your own explanation in defence. But, if I understand you correctly, you don't need to back anything up, only I have to provide you with evidence: I really don't think this is how one should treat physics. If you have reasons to suspect that a particle is responsible for the mass inside of a black hole, you have to back that up as well.

Does this mean that your answer to my question therefore is 'yes'?

On the contrary, I've underlined those sentences that seem contradictory, and do not support it. Take for instance "Quark stars are considered to be an intermediate category among neutron stars and black holes", which indicates that it's not a denser, but an intermediate form. Or am I interpreting the meaning of that sentence wrong? "Few scientists claim that quark stars and black holes are one and the same" and "most astrophysicists assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that a neutron star above the limit collapses directly into a black hole" are both suggesting that it's more plausible that black holes are different from a neutron star or quark star, instead of the same thing. Or am I interpreting the meaning of that sentence wrong as well?

Quark-degenerate matter may occur in the cores of neutron stars. It may also occur in (hypothetical) quark stars, formed by the collapse of objects above the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff mass limit for neutron-degenerate objects. Quark stars are considered to be an intermediate category among neutron stars and black holes. Few scientists claim that quark stars and black holes are one and the same. Not enough data exist to support any hypothesis but neutron stars with awkward spectrums have been used in arguments (link). Because the properties of hypothetical, more exotic forms of degenerate matter are even more poorly known than those of neutron-degenerate matter, most astrophysicists assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that a neutron star above the limit collapses directly into a black hole (link). A stellar black hole (or stellar-mass black hole) is a black hole formed by the gravitational collapse of a massive star. They have masses ranging from about 5 to several tens of solar masses. The process is observed as a hypernova explosion or as a gamma ray burst. These black holes are also referred to as collapsars. Note that this proof of existence of stellar black holes is not entirely observational but relies on theory: We can think of no other object for these massive compact systems in stellar binaries besides a black hole. A direct proof of the existence of a black hole would be if one actually observes the orbit of a particle (or a cloud of gas) that falls into the black hole (link).

Let's get back to the physics. What’s the best evidence we have that Fermi gas is be responsible for the mass in the center of a black hole? Do you agree that, if it can’t be Fermi gas, a neutron star is the densest form of matter (degeneracy pressure being the best evidence for that statement), and therefore a black hole can’t be an object? If you don’t think this is the right conclusion to make, does that mean you think that a yet undiscovered particle has to be responsible?

Perhaps I didn’t give enough evidence to cover absolutely everything, fair enough, but does this allow everybody to accept the current explanation on what mass is, and how it is caused? Why don’t these explanations need any defence in their own behalf, what makes them so superior? Let me put it into one simple question then: Could you give me one law/rule/equation/observation/anything that proves that mass HAS to be a particle, and that it can’t be anything else than a particle? (Which automatically would mean that it rules out the possibility that a hole in spacetime, (NOT stuff, NOT a particle) could be responsible for mass/attraction/gravity).

You’re arguing in opposition of what I’m suggesting, not in favour of a counter-explanation. It’s not the most convincing way to claim that you’re right, and that somebody else is wrong. You’re telling me that I’m thinking the wrong way, that’s fine, but you aren’t targeting any of my specific thoughts, which I find unfortunate, because this way I'm not learning from you. So I really appreciate the fact that you spend time to comment on my words, but if you understand why Fermi gas is a likely candidate for a denser form of matter than a neutron star, you would have explained why, if you understand how the Higgs boson gives mass to particles, you would have explained why, or if you understand why mass has to be different from attraction, you would have explained why. Not by copying words from a scientific paper, but by describing your own thoughts, and why you personally believe this is right. This is what I’m doing, I’m describing my own thoughts, and I want to be proven wrong, I’m looking for irrefutable counter-arguments why my explanation can’t be right. That’s why I’m here on this forum. If I would think that I’m right, whatever you say, I would feel like a science God every day, and I wouldn’t take the time to share my superior thoughts with all of you, right?

I’ve read the article you've provided. To argue that BHs are like fuzz balls is like saying dark matter is like silly putty. It could be the case, but I didn't read anything that convinced me. Do you have any evidence for that? Only particles can have charge because charge is a characteristic of QED and QCD. Charge immediately suggests that there are 2 charges, + and - , and there’s only 1 type of a ‘hole in spacetime. Nothing indicates that some black holes are opposite in their behaviour, compared to other black holes. But only temporarily. It doesn't create any new matter. (Although we know that matter can be created from energy.) The process I was describing can create real matter. Hawking radiation suggests that virtual particles become real particles So it might Be temporarily at one place (in my example), but at another location (near a BH) new matter can be created. Yes, you’re right, this isn’t limited only near a BH, but I was referring to the other type (the one close to BH), so I should have been clearer here ☺. That is a bizarre statement. It could be a particle that is not part of the standard model. That is the basis of most hypotheses. We have measured all particles up until the 12th decimal place. Nothing indicates that we are going to discover a new particle (other than smaller ones inside already existing particles, but this hypothetically particle-particle would be a fragment of an existing particle that is already known to exist, which is of course different from discovering a NEW particle). If I understand you correctly, you are saying that dark matter can’t be at one central point such as a BH, but should rather be distributed in the surroundings. I agree with that, but I wasn't clear enough in my explanation. If this hole in space, “nothing”, indeed causes mass/attraction, than that doesn’t account only for BHs, but also for particles. But we can’t measure it (and hence discover quantum gravity) because it’s too small. If you can't observe/measure something, it doesn't mean it can't exert an attractive force. Firstly, I wasn’t addressing you ☺. Secondly, I’m merely applying reductio ad absurdum here, meaning that if there are only two possibilities, and one of them can’t be true, then the opposite must be true. We’ve already discussed that neutron stars are the densest form of matter (and I am not aware of any evidence supporting the claim that "Fermi gas" must be the likely remaining candidate), and neutron stars can’t exceed 3 Solar masses. Well, BHs are much larger than 3 Solar masses, so SM particles can’t be the source of mass inside a BH. If it can’t be matter, then it isn’t matter. We may have to revise our understanding of what mass is. There is a difference here: empty space is the space in between particles. An actual hole in spacetime itself is something else with other characteristics towards particles. If you assume that a particle is responsible for mass, caused by an excitation of a field (Higgs field), and this Higgs boson by itself has mass as well, and if there is another particle out there, which is responsible for gravity (graviton), and if there is yet another particle that is responsible for a totally different form of mass (dark matter), wouldn’t it make much more sense instead if all those forms of mass/gravity are one and the same thing? Well, sense alone is not going to convince you or me, so let me elaborate a bit more about this. Mass is the DNA of every star. Two stars with the same mass share the exact same characteristics. Does this mean it therefore that something else, another kind of particle, has to be responsible for this mass, and is located between celestial bodies and BHs? Why can’t it be due to the nature of the black hole and celestial bodies themselves? What's happening in their centers? We don't yet fully understand the nature of normal observable SM matter. We haven’t yet been able to explain how the Higgs boson gets is mass, what quantum gravity is and whether the graviton exists or not, but we shouldn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that there has to be some kind of different form of matter, even though all observations indicate that there isn't such a particle, neither a MACHO nor a WIMP has ever been detected. No particle is just 1 particle by itself. Particles have spin and a wave function, so they have a kind of dualistic nature, as if something is "attached" to all particles that give them this dualistic/symmetric nature, because it is moving away from it. Is there any particle out there that is not moving? Is there a sedentary form of SM matter/energy? If it would be only 1 particle, not influenced by anything else, it wouldn’t have a wave function or oscilation in the first place. What causes this continuous moving particle behaviour? Well, it’s at least an attraction of some sort that has to be involved, don’t you agree? But what causes the attraction? To answer this question, you can apply reductio ad absurdum again: what gives mass to a particle? Let's assume it's the Higgs boson, a particle. So, what gives this Higgs particle its mass? "Yet another particle"? If you go further and further with this, eventually you have to conclude it can’t be a particle that gives mass. "A field perhaps?" OK, let's assume it's field. So what gives mass to that field? The same logic applies again, eventually you have to conclude that this field has to be subject to yet another field, which eventually can’t be made actual normal everyday energy on the SM, the “stuff” we can observe. In GR, photons are bent by the curvature of spacetime (in fact, this is how Arthur Eddington made Einstein famous, by making this observation). But a massless photon that is attracted by anything, that doesn't make sense if you think about it. Weren’t objects attracted by other objects? Yet, the opposite seems to be the case. In conclusion: I don't think that objects are attracted by other objects, "stuff" is attracted by "not stuff". Could you explain me this one question in particular: why do attraction and mass have to be two different things?

Have you read this whole thread from the beginning? Multiple observations and laws of physics support it (which I won't repeat here). Keep in mind that there is no established science on dark matter yet. This doesn't mean that this explanation therefore has to be right, but I'd like to hear from you what observation and/or law of physics irrefutably prohibits it. Could you provide me that?

In short: that "nothing" can cause attraction. That a black hole is an actual hole in space, with negative attraction to particles (and we call this attraction "mass").