George Levy wrote:
>
> I settled for the gold atom as the unit for the prize. However, I found myself
> facing the puzzle of why does the gold atom (or even the proton) have its own
> particular mass which in fact resolved the mass frequency indeterminacy I was
> grappling with earlier.
>
> George
>
Ah yes... The answer to this question may well net you a Nobel prize. I
believe that answer can be computed from the standard model provided
one takes the measured values for proton and neutron masses as given,
but that these masses are still somewhat of a mystery. Perhaps Higgs
will do it. Perhaps vacuum fluctuations will do it (see recent New
Scientist article). On the latter subject, I remember one of my
costudents when I was studying Physics actually suggested to me that
mass might come about from blocking some form of radiation. I did the
back of the envelope calculation at the time, and derived the usual
Newtonian law of gravitation for two spheres of the same density, but
didn't take it any further because of how crazy the idea sounded. Of
course that was sometime before I'd even heard of vacuum fluctuations!
Cheers
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Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit, Phone 9385 6967
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
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Received on Tue Apr 03 2001 - 21:18:01 PDT