I continue studying QM and trying to figure out how the universe operates. Today, I learned that quarks, held together by gluons into hadrons (the most prominent of which are protons and neutrons) don't just bind together into groups of two or three... the gluon has sufficient energy such that E > mc2. IOW, the strong force is strong enough to make virtual particles that are persistent in the physical plane... they cluster together into giant clusters until their energy level breaches the energy barrier which concretizes matter.
Gluons are analogous to virtual photons... gluons mediate the strong force, just as virtual photons mediate the electromagnetic force.
This means that for every single particle of matter you see, there is a giant cluster of virtual quarks (and anti-quarks) bonded together by gluons, and the particle of matter you see is just the 'tip of the iceberg', pokingabove below the energy level necessary to concretize matter.
{EDIT: That should be "poking below the free energy level necessary to concretize mass". Apparently, while the QVZPE field is fairly highly entropic, it is also fairly highly energetic (it is, after all, QVZPE field radiation pressure which is driving universal expansion, which obviously requires a lot of energy... that the higher-frequency modes of the QVZPE field are above the plasma frequency and thus experience a negative index of refraction, allowing that electromagnetic energy to exceed c (the speed of light which is set by that universe-permeating paramagnetic plasmic medium called the QVZPE field), thus causing universal expansion faster than c obviously means the QVZPE field contains a lot of energy). Thus, we're the "bottom layer", the fairly low-energy component of the universe. That free energy is bound up in mass.}
This is why massive particles have mass (because in pokingabove below that energy level necessary to concretize matter, they interact with the Higgs field, which slows the gluon interaction of the strong force, imparting inertia that is sensed as mass), and why matter has so much energy bound up in it... 25 terrawatt-hours per kilogram.
It also happens to explain why the Quantum Vacuum Zero Point Energy Field underpins the stability of all matter... without the ZPE field, there would be no gluons holding the quarks together, they would break apart and the energy holding them together would be released.
This is why artificially suppressing the QVZPE field radiation pressure (as happens in a Casimir cavity) would be a good means of forcing matter to dissociate back into energy. For a mere 7 pounds of matter per day, we could provide all the energy necessary to power the entire planet.
Gluons are analogous to virtual photons... gluons mediate the strong force, just as virtual photons mediate the electromagnetic force.
This means that for every single particle of matter you see, there is a giant cluster of virtual quarks (and anti-quarks) bonded together by gluons, and the particle of matter you see is just the 'tip of the iceberg', poking
{EDIT: That should be "poking below the free energy level necessary to concretize mass". Apparently, while the QVZPE field is fairly highly entropic, it is also fairly highly energetic (it is, after all, QVZPE field radiation pressure which is driving universal expansion, which obviously requires a lot of energy... that the higher-frequency modes of the QVZPE field are above the plasma frequency and thus experience a negative index of refraction, allowing that electromagnetic energy to exceed c (the speed of light which is set by that universe-permeating paramagnetic plasmic medium called the QVZPE field), thus causing universal expansion faster than c obviously means the QVZPE field contains a lot of energy). Thus, we're the "bottom layer", the fairly low-energy component of the universe. That free energy is bound up in mass.}
This is why massive particles have mass (because in poking
It also happens to explain why the Quantum Vacuum Zero Point Energy Field underpins the stability of all matter... without the ZPE field, there would be no gluons holding the quarks together, they would break apart and the energy holding them together would be released.
This is why artificially suppressing the QVZPE field radiation pressure (as happens in a Casimir cavity) would be a good means of forcing matter to dissociate back into energy. For a mere 7 pounds of matter per day, we could provide all the energy necessary to power the entire planet.