| > The measurement of mass is done by the measurement of force.
| > Hence we can ASSUME electrons and monopoles are, they being
| > the carriers of charge and chass, and calculate their mass (if they have
| > any).
|
| But if you are willing to grant a 'marge' then charge should go away.
| You just replaced it.

I've got magnets sticking to the fridge door, I don't put batteries in them.
They do so because iron and steel are good conductors of marged monopoles.


| This is a more proper unification than the Maxwellian style which
| really is just a tight relation.
| We should be seeking a basis that is simple which yields the
| complications that are observed.

Ok, marge is simple. A moving magnetic field makes electrons flow
in copper wire, a moving electric field makes monopoles flow in sheet iron.
Why isn't that simple? Perhaps we use iron wire and sheet copper instead.

| I keep finding geometrical arguments
| that line up with some of these behaviors so I'm trying to travel down
| that road rather than jump straight up to the observed 'properties'. To
| assume that the observation is the basis is not sufficient, no matter
| how simple and well behaved that property is. By going below this if
| one finds multiple properties emanating from a single principle applied
| in different dimensional contexts then that is arguably a more
| consistent basis, albeit an unobservable one. Yet its consequences
| would be consistent with observation. Down at this lower level which I
| sometimes call a substrate we have to do pure theory, not impose the
| physical upon it. The physical should be a consequence of it.
|
| Suppose mass, charge, and magnetism are all the same force.

What do you mean by "force"? Newton was perplexed by "action at
a distance", which is force between two bodies, but if we turn the whole
concept on its head and start with force, then we have to define what
is meant by "bodies" or mass. The Bohr model of the atom is
largely empty space, just as the solar system is. It is the force between
the electron and the nucleus that makes an atom, whatever we mean
by "mass". I'm not disagreeing with you, I think a paradigm shift is
called for.

At first
| glimpse mass is a monopole property. But the monopole has no
| complement. This is one-signed math. It's a different class from charge
| which is two-signed math.

No no... now I have to disagree. For every electron there is a
corresponding proton, for every South monopole a corresponding
North monopole. The force is between them in each case.
That's two-signed, magnets have two poles, capacitors have
two plates. The weird thing about mass is that the force between
bodies is one-signed, there is no gravitic repulsion.
We know how do this, though:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2926400396387878713

But now charge may be something different
| too. The progressive dimensional topology
| 0D 1D 2D ...
| will allow a natural maxwellian form as an operator between 1D and 2D.
| This is effectively what we think of as a traditional 3D cross product.
| But we have to get from this substrate up to spacetime. In effect the
| complications are due to the structure of the substrate.

I don't want to get to spacetime, that's old hat and garbage.
I want to know what mass is. To me, spacetime is outlandish idiocy.
I prefer time-mass and mass-space. It's only math, after all.

|
| If this theory exists then it can actually derive spacetime as well as
| provide the observed properties of matter in spacetime.

I don't care about spacetime. I want to know what mass is.



| This method
| goes for the whole kit and kabootle instead of being modest and trying
| for replacing just a few pieces. It is a bit outlandish. Certainly it
| would be a gamble worth taking since the worst that can happen is being
| wrong.
|
| But we can always go back to observation and try to draw from it. What
| do you make of the proton versus the electron? Are they two species of
| particle

What's a "particle"?
Is it the smallest mass imaginable? We clump particles together to make
a "body"? No, because we refer to photons as massless particles.
Yet m = E/c^2. Is that really meaningful, or is it merely recursive?
m = mc^2/c^2
= m(mc^2/c^2)/c^2
= m(m(mc^2/c^2)/c^2)/c^2 .... ad infinitum.

or are they complementary by construction; more like a male
| and a female of the same species?

I don't know. Seems to me it depends on the model we choose
for mass and force.

| n-poles get some quick results from
| something like a string of magnetism as the interaction for point
| particles.

There is no such animal as a point particle. Point particles are
mathematical constructs, and as such cannot apply to physics.
We can consider the Sun as a point particle for the purpose of
computing an elliptical orbit, but there it ends. The Sun is the largest
mass in our neck of the woods and it certainly isn't a point.

| There appears to be some room to get mass out of it but I
| don't know how. The n-pole has not been tied into the proposed topology
| yet.
|
Perhaps we should begin with fields and consider point masses/particles
as the place where the field acts. A negative gravity would be most useful,
then we could have tthe electric, magnetic and gravitational forces
orthogonal
to each other.

http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/f/l/flemings%20left%20hand%20rule/image001.jpg


| >
| > Y'know, I quite like the idea of electrons being particles, it's an
| > excellent working model for a TV engineer to design a tube and
| > calculated how many turns of copper wire he needs to deflect
| > the beam, but I'm far from convinced an electron has "mass",
| > whatever that may be. Millikan's oil droplets may fall or rise
| > according to the charge upon them and the electrostatic field
| > applied, but that is not evidence of mass, it is a ratio of forces.
|
| Right. A very convincing experiment. Quantization is irrefutable
| fromMillikan isn't it?
| I suppose we could still go to some continuous property that generates
| a discrete consequence, like zero crossings of an oscillator. It's nice
| to leave problems open.
| But this is such a nice clean experiment. Still what you say is true.
| Without the mass concept the experimental conclusion will not work so
| the two forces are mixed here and treated as independent entities
| allowing a conclusion about charge based on an assumption about mass.
| When we null the electric field we get the gravitational acceleration
| of the oil droplet. Turn on the field and force the droplet stationary
| and we have balanced the force allowing a correspondence to the
| strength of the applied field. Q=ma/E. All very fine and consistent
| with modern theory.
|
Yes, but how good is modern theory? It seems to me that although
theory is adequate for engineers to design maglev trains and TV sets
which work to the satisfaction of the users, the role of the physicist
is to dig deeper into the nature of mass instead of saying it exists
and pondering the forces involved. The approach I'm advocating
it to say the force exists and ponder the mass involved.
In other words, perhaps mass doesn't "exist" at all, there are only
forces which act at a distance. The thing we call an atom is then
seen as a force-ball and not substance, flubber, phlogiston, matter
or whatever you want to call the stuff electrons are made of.
http://www.matter.org.uk/diffraction/electron/electron_diffraction.htm
A.