Energy becoming mass? Wilczek question

1. Jan 10, 2009

Quantum_Grid

In F. Wilczeks book, The Lightness of Being he describes his theory on the origin of mass. He explains, in much more detail, about how color charge carried by quarks disturbs gluon fields which increase with the distance from the quark. Then he explains that this energy cost is nullified by an antiquark of the opposite charge nearby. This doesn't cancel it completely because of some [pesky!] rules of quantum mechanics. He says, basically, that there is some residual energy left over after this "canceling-out" and using the equation m=E/c2, we find the mass of a proton.

I'm sure I missed something; all I see he did was explain where some excess energy has come from, when/where does that energy become mass?

I hope I explained everything clearly enough to make sense!

2. Jan 10, 2009

daschaich

According to special relativity, mass and energy are pretty much the "same thing". You may have seen $$E=mc^2$$; $$c^2$$ is just a unit conversion factor that can be set to 1 to give $$E=m$$.

3. Jan 10, 2009

malawi_glenn

we had a discussion about mass <-> energy in a thread earlier this week, in this sub.forum I think... please have a look around =)

I dont think popular science books is good for learning physics btw, but as dashaich said, it is the same things, but in SI units we have this conversion factor of c^2