On the Mass and Self-Energy of the Electron (and Other Fermions) and the Origins of Quantum Mechanics by Fred Diether

Hi Ben,

Thanks for reading my essay. The idea of gravity being the result of matter being less than the quantum vacuum is very non-intuitive. But if we are to take quantum field theory seriously, it leads to that result. A few years ago, John Baez, then a moderator of sci.physics.research told me that idea may be compatible with General Relativity when formulated in a pressure mode. Unfortunately, I can't find the discussion on the Googlegroup archives.

IMHO, the only way to fundamentally derive the elementary fermion masses is going to be by the geometry of interactions in the quantum vacuum. The Higgs mechanism does work in an ad hoc way but the Higgs is too simple to give all the different necessary couplings required. Plus if the Higgs is 125 GeV, what about the coupling for the top quark mass? So... the way I see it is that the void is not only filled with a Higgs field giving the gauge bosons masses, but it is also filled with a Dirac-Fermi field. Just seems natural with what we know about the Standard Model of particle physics. Michael Goodband has done some very good work on using 3-sphere and 7-sphere geometry to derive elementary fermion properties. I think what is left is to figure out the geometrical packing of the spheres in the quantum vacuum to be able to get the masses; a multi-dimensional version of what I presented in my essay. It is beyond my current capabilities though.

I have your essay queued up to read next. It looks very interesting.

Best,

Fred

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your extensive comments. I just finished studying your "Derivation of a chiral SO(3)..." paper. It is so comprehensive, I will definitely be studying it more thoroughly. I do think you are on a very good track using the geometry of the spheres for the 4 normed division algebras. I am still recovering from this bad cold (bronchitis actually) so will be responding more thoroughly to your comments above soon.

It has been awhile since I have thought about mini-black holes to explain the "confinement" problem for monopoles but you seem to have found a solution to make them stable. I need to study that some more but I think that what you are describing for the transistions between the spheres could also give a stable balance of pressures between the quantum vacuum and the monopoles.

Best,

Fred

Thanks Joy,

Yeah, it is always nasty. Just when I think I am turning the corner and getting better, this illness takes me down again for awhile. I'm a baby boomer and the big thing back when I was a kid was that if you got tonsillitis, they would take your tonsils out. So now most every time I catch a cold, it turns into bronchitis because no tonsils to stop it from going to the lungs. Living in smoggy LA is not very helpful either. I'm slowly getting better. Every day now is a bit better than the previous one.

I guess there is or was something weird going on with the community ratings. Well, I am just glad I finally got something done and submitted so that my ideas are on some kind of formal record. Ya never know what might happen a few years from now in physics. It has been a good experience. Now I have to work on a more rigorous follow-on paper. But got some good ideas from others in the contest here that may help with it.

Best,

Fred