On Mar 11, 11:37 am, mluttgens <lutt...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 11 mar, 10:41, PD <thedraperfam...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > On Mar 11, 8:30 am, mluttgens <lutt...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On 10 mar, 17:54, PD <thedraperfam...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > On Mar 10, 3:17 pm, "hanson" <han...@quick.net> wrote: > > > > > > The only conclusion one can realistically draw is, that > > > > > since it is experimentally shown that an electron does > > > > > have mass, it can NOT be a thingy that has no spatial > > > > > expanse, IOW the electron is not a zero volume point > > > > > particle,... BUT it comes very close to be so... > > > > > This is precisely Marcel's presumption as well. > > > > Yes, if the electron were a volumeless box, how could it > > > contain something physical? > > > Again, you assume that "something physical" NECESSARILY occupies > > nonzero volume. > > But you don't have a rationale for believing that this is so. It's > > just something you believe. > > Mass is something physical, but perhaps not for you.
Oh, but it is. So is volume. But neither property is *intrinsic* to being physical, any more than electric charge is. And having mass as a property doesn't *necessitate* having volume as a property. Can you explain why you think it must?
> Could you explain why the mass of the proton occupies a nonzero > volume, but not, according to you, the mass of the electron?
Sure. As we discussed earlier, composites have volume by virtue of the nature of the interaction between the constituents. For example, an atom (which has mass) has volume not because of the atom's mass but because of the interaction between the electrons and the protons, and it's this interaction that determines the spacing between the electron and the proton and therefore the size of the atom. Likewise, a proton has constituents -- quarks and gluons -- and the interaction between those constituents determines the spacing between the constituents and hence the size of the composite proton.
An electron doesn't give any indication of having constituents.
This is the critical difference between protons and electrons. Protons are known to be composite. Electrons don't appear to be so.
> Don't tell me that's because the proton is a baryon, whereas > the electron is a lepton. It would be better to show that > those masses behave differently, for instance in a gravitational > field.
The fact that they have mass doesn't have anything to do with it. The difference is that one is composite and the other is not. The mass is incidental. It's not like there are two different kinds of mass involved.
I thought I explained this all to you previously. Does it help to see it again?
> > Marcel Luttgens > > > > The only thing it could contain > > > is nothing. > > > > Marcel Luttgens > > > > > Why do you think that having mass implies having volume for ALL > > > > things? > >
