Elsewhere, Dr Phil Calabrese asked the question:
[PC]: “If an electron is built from 100 ultimatons, and a proton weighs 1800 times as much, does this mean a proton is built from (1800 x 100) = 180,000 ultimatons?”
To answer this question, we need to connect something revealed by the Urantia Book (the ultimaton) with something we can measure in the lab (inertial mass). If we can do this, we’ve begun to connect the UB’s ultimatonic scheme with the standard model of particle physics.
First thing to note is that the proton now appears to be an extremely stable structure (half-life > 10^30 years) involving three smaller parts… which raises a few more questions: (a) why is this structure so stable, (b) what gives this structure its mass, and (c) what do we mean by mass?
Regarding what we mean by mass, in particle physics mass implies two things: (1) resistance to acceleration (f = ma) and (2) a measure of energy (e = mc^2). So when we say an electron has a mass of 0.5 MeV, that’s a short way of saying that an electron’s properties are associated with 500,000 electron volts of energy (whatever energy is). Dividing 0.5 MeV by c^2 converts this measure of energy into a measure called “inertial mass”. It’s this inertial mass that determines an electron’s resistance to acceleration, and this resistance can be measured precisely.
PS: why this resistance (inertial mass) should be so precisely correlated with another quantity (gravitational mass) remains a mystery.
Regarding (b), what gives this proton structure it’s measured mass of energy (938 MeV), the current consensus is that a small part comes from the (intrinsic) masses of three quarks {u, u, d} = {2, 2, 5} MeV, another part comes from the kinetic energy of the relativistic motion of these quarks, and the rest comes from a local (and highly variable) field of gluons that locks the quarks into the proton structure.
I sketch out this scheme on pages 51 – 54 of this PDF.
Regarding (a) why is this structure so stable, let’s put that down to excellent design, and perfection of technique!
So Phil’s question about a proton’s mass becomes a question about the mass of its component quarks:
“Why does the {u} quark have a mass of 2.3 MeV, four times greater than the electron (0.5 MeV)?”
(continued… 2)


