On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 5:29 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > "An electron is not matter." > Interesting idea. Do you have an authority for that statement ? > Sounds a little odd to me.
Well not all things are "matter." Light, for example. But there's a bit of a semantic ambiguity issue with the word "matter," so like with other words, its meaning is not quite precise. But anyway its meaning tends to be synonymous with atoms or else things that have mass. Yes, electrons are known to have a certain rest mass, and so in a certain way electrons can be thought of as being "matter." But this rest mass measurement is only local in the atomic context - so it's incorrect to assume that its mass is actually intrinsic to the particle itself. Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
