The resilience of matter's fundamental components

If you guys don't mind I'd like to have a brief go at this so that my thinking can be critiqued. The basis of my knowledge is reading a few Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, and similar books over the last couple of months and becoming enthralled with the subject. I had no idea of any of this. I have no scientific education and I took high school physics back when the Earth was still flat.I gather that the majority of scientists would agree that the particle is the basic building block. By combining what I have read about particles, string theory etc I understand the theory is that particles are all essentially the same except that they behave differently. If string theory is to be believed it is based on the vibration of each individual string or particle. The greater the vibration, the greater the mass. If there is little enough vibration there can be zero mass, and if I recall correctly, it is even possible to have negative mass, whatever that would mean.As I understand part of Tony's question, he is asking if all space between particles is gone in a singularity. I got the impression from Brian Greene's book that wouldn't be the case as you would reach maximum entropy before that would occur, although maybe that is the point of maximum entropy. As I understand it, that means a black hole has maximum mass for a given size and that if you try to increase the entropy by introducing more mass you can't because the size will increase.I got somewhat lost in this because it seemed to me that a Black Hole is pretty much all energy and virtually zero mass, it must mean that it is composed almost exclusively of energy particles. Does this mean that particles of mass such as quarks have their characteristics changed so that instead of being a particle with mass they become a particle of energy such as a photon? What is it that changes in the particles in a black hole that causes mass to become energy?Please be gentle. This is my first time. This message has been edited by GDR, 05-24-2005 10:42 PM

Thanks for the replyDoes mass always have volume?I found this definition of mass on the web: >>The modern definition assigns every object just one mass, an invariant quantity that does not depend on velocity. this is given by m = E0 / c2, where E0 is the total energy of that object at rest.<<Hawking's definition in "The Universe in a Nutshell" is "The quantity of matter in a body; its inertia or resistance to acceleration in free space".It helps to remember that mass is interchangeable with energy, but when Hawking talks about the quantity in matter I'm back to thinking volume. Does mass by definition always have volume so that although the black hole has mass and volume the singularity itself does not?I'd like to describe how I picture a black hole and I'd appreciate it if you could let me know how accurate the picture is.A star burns out and collapses in on itself. After this event and at the center of what was previously the star is the singularity with its properties of infinite energy but zero volume. I assume this would come about because the particles whose properties caused them to have energy but not mass would be drawn into the singluarity.Encasing the singularity would be a spherical volume with maximum entropy and a volume determined by the amount of mass, and bounded by its event horizon.Inside the event horizon nothing including light escapes. (Although it seems to me that they recently determined that some information escapes whatever that means.)Thanks again for the help.

Thanks sidelined

The only way I can think of it is this. Mass and energy are interchangeable. E=MC^2 If within (if you can be within something that has zero volume ) the singularity all mass has been converted to energy I can see it having zero volume.Would it be possible then that because the gravitational forces would be so strong that the entire energy within the black hole would be concentrated in the singularity, with all the mass at max entropy surrounding it as far as the event horizon.Like I said, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

The whole thing just boggles my mind. Absolutely nothing is what it appears in this universe, in fact it seems to me that it is all just an illusion. Everything is nothing or literally no thing.To go back to the 3 choices however, I do have to say that with the little bit I know of QM, I can't see how anyone can maintain that there is no design in all of this. I gotta also add that the designer is certainly anything but unintelligent and actually must be one heck of a scientist.

I apologise for my last post. I got the threads confused and thought I was responding on another thread which is what the 3 choices thing was about. That's pretty much how I see it. Things feel solid to us because of electromagnetic forces.

It sounds like we're in the same leaky boat. We've read a few science books and now we're dangerous. I recently finished Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos". I really enjoyed and think I'll reread it.I agree with your supposition. It appears to me from what I've read that seems to be the direction science is going. String theory has particles as little strings of energy, and others have gone beyond that and postulated that the basis of the energy is information.This is all new to me and it has certainly changed how I look at things. Funny thig is, it still feels so real.

Sorry to hear that about string theory. I'll miss it. Does that do away with Branes as well? The book was written in 2003. Didn't take long to be out of date.