The shocking source of all mass - It's Not What you Think. Where does mass come from?

What is Mass? And Where Does it come from? It's source is going to blow you away! It's (mostly) NOT from the Higgs Field.

We tend to think of mass as weight? So for example, you might weigh a 150 lbs. An elephant might weigh 12,000 lbs. But On the moon you would weigh 25 lbs, and the elephant would weigh only 2000 lbs. So is your mass 25 lbs or 150 lbs – neither. You weight is not your mass.

The force of gravity acting on your mass is what gives you weight.

Your mass is the amount of stuff that your body is made of. It’s your body’s resistance to motion or a measurement of the number of atoms you are composed of. If you counted up the mass of all the atoms in your body, that’s what your mass would be.

Ok, but where does the mass of the atom come from?

You might think that I am going to reference the so called God particle or the Higgs Boson as the particle that gives all fundamental particles mass. The Higgs field is only partly responsible for mass – in fact, only about 2 % of the mass of the universe is directly due to the Higgs field.

Where does the other 98% come from?

Let’s take a closer look at the atom. Atoms are composed of Protons and Neutrons in the nucleus, with an electron cloud whizzing at high speeds around it.

But the mass of the electron is only 0.05% of the total mass of the atom. It is so small compared to the mass of the nucleus, that for our purposes here, we can ignore it. So let’s look at the nucleus of the atom only, which is responsible for 99.95% of the mass of the atom.

It is composed of Protons and Neutrons, both of which have about the same amount of mass. So let’s look at just the proton.

Where do protons get their mass?

If you go inside the protons, you will find that they are fundamentally made up of three even smaller particles called quarks whizzing around each other. But the problem is when we measure the actual mass of the these three quarks – 2 Up, and 1 Down quark – their combined mass only accounts for about 2% of the mass of the proton.

So where is the other 98% of the mass coming from, if there are no other particles inside the proton?

Well this is the amazing part. The three quarks inside the proton and neutrons are whizzing around each other at nearly the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, in a very tight space.

Their orbits are only about one quadrillionth (0.000000000000001) of a meter, or 1 X10-15 meters across. Particles with mass travelling that fast have a lot of kinetic energy.

In addition, when things are whizzing around each other so fast, there has to be a lot of force binding them together or they would fly apart – kind of like the sun keeps the orbits of the planets from flying apart.

This means there is energy in the form of potential energy binding the nucleus together. Now if you go back to Einsteins famous equation E = MC2 -- by rearranging the equation to read:
M = E/C2 – what you find is that the mass is actually coming from the kinetic and potential energy of these quarks whizzing around each other at high speed.

So the vast majority of the mass of particles at the fundamental level is nothing but energy swarming around inside the nucleus of atoms…that manifests itself as mass. And gravity acting on this mass results in your weight.

So all the “stuff” that you can see in the universe – like the stars, planets, comets, etc., including your weight, is a result of kinetic and potential energy trapped inside protons and neutrons.

Now do you think in the future we might have some kind of diet that reduces our weight by getting rid of some of that quark energy…hmmm? You never know.

[ArvinAsh]

2) The bit at the end about losing weight is a joke. It can never happen this way. Some people apparently took it seriously. Sorry for my lame attempt at humor.
3) Temperature has no effect on rest mass.
4) At 1:42 - the mass of Neutron should be 939.6 MeV, not 936.6 MeV.

[ghiblikami]

You totally blew my brains off! I was of the notion that mass was a result of the Higgs field alone. But I feel I'm enlightened today.

[johnnowakowski]

Watching this was such a religious experience, I decided to go to Mass and give thanks for kinetic energy...

[timearly]

I wish we had the internet/YouTube when I was in college.

[salmonkill]

I'm a retired National Laboratory Scientist that invented radiation detection technologies for nuclear arms control and I invented dosimetry technology used in 95 % of US Hospitals. I retired and I'm teaching Science at a Christian high school and I plan on using this video for my Physics class!!

Great video!!

[-Neutron-Star]

Arvin,
This is fantastic. Appreciate breaking down such complex phenomenon and explaining them using simple words. The animation certainly helps.
Great work.

[successfocus]

I did some further reading about quarks after having watched this video and it's very fascinating and took a lot of brain power to try to understand lol, I think I'm going to get a book about quantum physics, your videos have inspired me to do so and given me a new interest to explore. Thanks for these.

[AN-wkgo]

Accidentally I had to watch your video. Now I am totally addicted to them . Like your explanation very much.

[vaibhavsingh]

When you told that quarks are circulating at light speed, then I felt I am made up of extremely small particles spinning at light speed.
To view the world and human body from this perspective is amazing.

[chetankamble]

Hats Off to you is your Complex things too easy to understand & then make us learn these things in a amazingly fast that too in a &

[cosmoslogic]

Arvin you are a true positron for sure we have to many negatron in this world, i look forward to your comments.

[delmonti]

I'm binge watching all of Arvin's videos, so straightforward to understand. Thanks!

[stevoofd]

This was a great way of condensing grand ideas and theories into a bitesized chunk of digestible video.

Question: if you were to condense these ideas inside a video so small that the amount of information far exceeds the capacity of the video codec to carry it, will the information ever escape its event horizon?

[Jhossack]

Thanks Arvin. Just subscribed. i use your descriptions to drive my physicist nephew nuts.

[nomadexplorer]

Excellent Arvin. I follow you regularly. Your communication is superb. The explanation along with the superb visuals takes me through micro and macro of this universe intimately. I enjoy the ride with you always. You are a wonderful tour guide as to how the universe works from physics point of view. I understand the math and the microcosm intricacies. Thanks Arvin. Live healthy and broaden our cognitive ability with new light!

[altair]

Thank you. I learned more here in 5 minuets than I did in an entire year of high school physics. Love your channel. Please keep up the good work👍👍👍👍👍

[arharshalpatwardhan]

This video is very clear to the point no nonsense stuff. And very nicely put easy to understand. Great video

[pizdocivka]

Carbohydrates are the source of a mass, my nutritionist tells me.

I'll see myself out..

[DM-iepm]

Wow, this can be explained in simpler manner. Fantastic. Your videos explain the things in the simplest way. I doubt anyone watching ever would forget the reason of things having mass.

[Dug]

My mass became even great because of the amount that made my head spin.