Is Mass A Field?
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In physics last year, I learned about two different types of quantities Vectors and scalars. A vector has both magnitude and direction. An example of that is velocity. Let's say you're in a car going 5 m/s North. 5 m/s is the magnitude and North is the direction. A scalar has only magnitude. For example, temperature. I was told that mass is a scalar.
I believe it's a field.
Here's what I mean
- <---------------------------> -
I identify left as positive and right as negative. Here is a stationary mass
v=0m/s
I1 < ----- M----->I2
The two lines represent the field lines of the mass in one dimension. The mass here is the relativistic mass, which is the same thing as inertia. Inertia is resistance to change. Since the object is not moving in that dimension, the field lines are equal and inertia at point 1 is equal to the inertia at point 2.
Moving the ball into motion from one side would be equal to doing the same action in the opposite side. Now let's look at an object in motion
v=-5m/s
I1 <--M------------------------> I2
Since I identified right as negative earlier, the object has to be moving to the right since its velocity is negative. The inertia at point 1 is now smaller than the inertia at point 2. This might help you picture it Imagine that mass M is a soccer ball. The ball is moving with a velocity of -5m/s. If you were standing on the right side, the ball would hit you with a great force since its resistance to change is very high. If you stood on the left side and kicked the ball in the direction of motion, the force the ball would exert on you would be very small since it's moving in the opposite way and so would have very little resistance to change on the left side.
All this leads to two ideas
- A mass that is not moving has field lines of resistance to change that are equal in all directions.
- A mass that is moving has the field lines that are in the direction of motion increase.
Another idea I was thinking about is if mass is energy and the universe is filled with dark energy, then couldn't dark energy be the anti-energy of regular energy which would cause warping in spacetime, which would then be responsible for gravity?
If there is anybody here that is good at physics or has any ideas or comments, please respond.
Thank you.
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It's nowhere near that simple and I won't pretend to understand it but the Higgs field operates under that general idea.
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It's nowhere near that simple and I won't pretend to understand it but the Higgs field operates under that general idea.
I'm confused myself..i just always thought that if you have some sort of scalar quantity i.e. mass then if it depends on its position in space then that would make it a scalar field. So tracing the movement of an object in space could be classified as a scalar field...i think.. ??? i'm not sure if my assumption complies with higgs though.
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ok, i just realised that mass is a scalar field. In the case of projectiles. Anyway, an object which is stationary is not a scalar field Hope thats clear now...sorry i didn't bother going into lectures when i should have done and so i really should have picked up on that straight away.