Understanding Matter as Energy: Quarks, Protons, and the Structure of Atoms
particles: all the atoms we know are composed of a shell made of electrons, and a nucleus of protons and neutrons. The effective mass of the atom is condensed almost entirely in its nucleus, which is about 10,000 times smaller than the atom itself. To make a comparison, if the atom were as large as the entire Earth, its nucleus would be about 500 meters and would contain >99.9% of all the mass present. Therefore, if we could penetrate inside an atom, to physical observation it would appear completely empty, entirely concentrated in its tiny nucleus formed by protons and neutrons where we could find everything we are accustomed to thinking of as mass.
If we could shrink even further until we penetrate inside protons and neutrons, we would discover that they too are almost entirely empty. Protons and neutrons are not elementary particles, but are structures consisting of three subprotonic particles called quarks that act as three centers of force.
A single quark is thousands of times smaller than a proton: if the latter were as large as the Earth, a quark would be no larger than a few kilometers. Inside the proton, the three quarks that constitute it rotate in an irrepressible vortical motion, acting and interacting with each other, mutually bound together by extremely powerful force fields, so as to carve out a delimited portion of space that identifies the radius of the proton. Thus the proton, this particle that we are accustomed to thinking of as a unitary and solid particle, is nothing more than the result of a whirlwind of energy generated by three infinitesimal centers of force called quarks.
The mass of the proton itself is nothing but the energy released by these vortical centers of force. Indeed, a proton is the result of two up-type quarks having a mass equal to $2.2 \text{ MeV}/c^2$ and one down-type quark having mass $4.7 \text{ MeV}/c^2$. The sum of the masses of the three quarks constituting a proton is therefore $9 \text{ MeV}/c^2$, or less than one hundredth of the proton mass equal to about $938 \text{ MeV}/c^2$. 99% of the mass of protons does not come from the mass of quarks but from their dynamics, from their kinetic or motion energy and from their gluonic field energy that binds them. According to Einstein's well-known formula $E = mc^2$, mass is energy and energy is mass. The forces that interact between one quark and another, between one center of force and another, and their dynamic energy are responsible for what we conceive as the mass of the proton.
Energy, Mass and Light
Summarizing the investigation of natural philosophy on the structure of matter, we can say that all the mass and weight of objects that constitute our daily experience is enclosed in atoms, infinitesimal structures, physically empty whose mass is almost entirely concentrated in protons and neutrons, particles thousands of times smaller than the atoms themselves. And this mass concentrated in protons and neutrons is actually nothing but energy released by small vortical centers bound together by very strong fields originating from their mutual interaction.
Ultimately, what we perceive as matter consists of radiating vortices of energy. Mass is radiant energy circumscribed in a region of space-time, i.e., $m = E/c^2$.
Far from being a hyperbole or a simple hypothesis, this statement has been experimentally confirmed by producing pairs of electrons $e^-$ and positrons $e^+$ from highly energetic light rays. Matter is radiant energy with its wave nature. Every time a material particle possesses...