arXiv:2106.01346v3 [physics.

gen-ph] 20 Jul 2021

Matter without mass:

do we really need the concept of mass?
Luigi Foschini∗
July 20, 2021

Abstract
Einstein’s most famous equation – E = mc2 – generated a short-
circuit between the concepts of mass and energy, which also affects
other concepts like matter, radiation, and vacuum. Physics currently
has a mixture of classical, relativistic, and quantum concepts of mass,
which generates a great deal of confusion and many problems. Clear
definitions need to be established if one wants to avoid ghost hunting.
In particular, by abandoning the idea of mass and focusing on time
and energy, some interesting implications are emerging. It is noted
that the cutoff frequency of the quantum vacuum energy, consistent
with the observations of the cosmological constant, corresponds to
that of the Cosmic Microwave Background. This might be consistent
with the hypothesis of a rotating and expanding universe described
by a Kerr-de Sitter metric with the observed cosmological constant.
To verify this hypothesis is crucial to prove the rotation of the universe.

Keywords: Foundations of Physics; General Relativity; Cosmology;

Dark Energy; Dark Matter.

1 Introduction
Mass is still one of the fundamental concepts of physics. Its definition devel-
oped and changed over the centuries, from Newton (quantity of matter in a
National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) – Brera Astronomical Observatory. Via E.
∗

Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate (LC) – Italy. Email: [email protected].

1
given volume) to Einstein (measure of the energy content of a physical body),
with random outbursts of debates such as the renormalization in quantum
electrodynamics, the relativistic mass, and the genesis of the mass via the
Higgs boson (see [8, 26] for detailed and pleasant reviews). These debates
were never truly solved, but simply bypassed. Yet, it is still possible to see
different mass concepts mixed together in different research fields. Perhaps,
it is time to face with this problem again and to adopt a radical solution:
the definitive removal of the concept of mass, at least from frontier physics1 .
At first glance, particle physicists already did it by adopting natural units,
so that every quantity is in energy units. This choice is justified, as noted
by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard [7], by the fact that a physical
particle is a real Kant’s noumenon, an unaccessible physical reality, but with
hints of it emerging from experiments. The particle of modern physics is not
a microscopic version of a human-sized object, like a ball or a spinning top.
The size of a particle is determined in a dynamical way, as it depends on
its cross section for collision with other particles. It has no geometrical size,
but it has a temporal size determined by its energy. Space derives from the
relationships between these particles, which are nothing more than knots of
energy. These ideas recall somehow the thought by Fotini Markopoulou [30],
with time/energy as fundamental quantities and the space emerging from
relationships between objects.
However, these are only calculations tricks. Each research field has its
own set of natural units, which in turn generates different results. Particle
physicists adopt ~ = c = 1, while astrophysicists and cosmologists use G =
c = 12 . A mass is expressed in terms of energy for the former, but as a length
for the latter. Sometimes, the choice to set some constants – and not others –
equal to one just depends on the personal taste of the individual researcher.
This obviously generates confusion, and, most important, the idea of mass
still lingers around. The very concept of particle is hinged on the concept
of mass. If one thinks about excitations of a quantum field, the concept of
mass is clearly at odds. The removal of the concept of mass requires also
some changes in our way of thinking, particularly to draw more attention on
time and energy.
1
There is no need to abandon it in classical physics, where it still makes sense.
2
As commonly adopted, ~ = h/2π is the Planck constant, c is the speed of light in
vacuum, G is the gravitational constant.

2
2 Relativistic mass
One might think that it is useless to dig up again the old debate on the rel-
ativistic mass (e.g. [1, 11, 13, 19, 22, 29, 32, 34, 38, 41, 47]), but sometimes
rehashing a little bit the basic equations can lead to interesting ideas. That
debate showed that the so-called relativistic mass, composed of the rest (in-
ert) plus the kinetic mass, was a misleading concept. The correct explanation
is that the kinetic term is due to a change of the rhythm of time. If the time
used to measure the velocity is the proper time, the definition of impulse
remains unchanged (in textbooks – e.g. [17, 28, 36] – both explanations are
presented; see also the interesting presentation in [44]).
Focusing on time, and its change of rhythm due to gravitation, should
make it easier to understand the peculiar role of the photon. It is has no rest
mass, but it has impulse and energy. When passing through a gravitational
field, which is nothing else than a significant concentration of energy, it simply
changes its rhythm of time (red-/blue-shift of frequency) depending on the
position in the gravitational field and its direction of motion. The photon,
as a massless particle, can be thought as a universal clock3 , if one is ready to
abandon the assumption of uniformity and constancy of the rhythm of time.
William Unruh wrote that “gravity is the unequable flow of time from place
to place” rather than being the cause of a change of the rhythm of time [43].
However, this implies that time and energy are the same. Energy is what is
needed to translate in time, but it is not time.

3 Newtonian mass
What can we say about the Newtonian, rest, inert mass? This an important
question, because it sets also a boundary between matter and radiation.
Newton’s definition was clearly based on macroscopic objects. In classical
physics, the mass is the quantity of matter (solid, liquid, or gaseous) in a
given volume, while the radiation is the electromagnetic field. All is easy.
Quantum mechanics showed us that solid, liquid or gaseous physical bod-
ies are composed of molecules and atoms, which in turn are made of quarks
and leptons. Electromagnetic and strong nuclear interactions bind these par-
ticles. However, both particles and bounds are energy. Once again, if one
3
Since the photon has no rest energy, there is no rest frame, and then no proper or
comoving time. Really, no one can stop the flowing of time.

3
does not think about particles, but about quantum excitations of fields, it is
immediately clear the role of energy.
The difference of matter with respect to radiation is the rest energy.
Matter has energy even if it is at rest in some reference frame. A tiny part
of this energy is necessary just to translate in time, just to exist at rest
(existence energy4 , see [23]). Most of energy is divided into bounds between
particles, either molecular or subatomic bounds, and can be partially released
by radioactive decay, or by breaking molecular or nuclear bounds. It is just a
problem of different types of energy, condensed in different ways. Therefore,
again, the concept of mass is no more necessary.
To summarize, matter is an aggregate of different types of energy, and
one part is spent to exist at rest. Radiation is pure temporal energy, it is a
universal clock, it cannot exist at rest, because it would be in contradiction
with the concept of time. It is interesting to note that in the Standard Model,
only two bosons are massless, the photon and the gluon. Both are responsible
for generating bounds between particles, but the photon is more important
because it can be used as a clock, while the very short range of the strong
force makes the gluon useless for such a purpose (also the self-interaction of
this boson hampers the possibility to serve as clock).
Before concluding this section, it is worth spending some words on the
dark matter. In 1930s, Fritz Zwicky first speculated the existence of a non-
luminous, non-baryonic matter by observing the radial velocities of galaxies
in clusters. Later, Vera Rubin reported anomalous rotation curves of galax-
ies. Again, the mainstream explanation was searched in some exotic and
unknown particle (see [39] for a recent review), but despite decades of ex-
periments, no detection was ever reported (e.g. see [6] for one of the latest
experimental reports). On the opposite, the searching for other explana-
tions scored important discoveries. By using the superior astrometry of the
Gaia satellite, Crosta et al. [18] showed that the rotation curve of the Milky
Way can be explained by the contribution to the gravitational field of an
off-diagonal term in the metric (due to rotation), without any need to in-
voke some exotic matter. MOND theory was instead successfully adopted to
4
Curiosity: the word atom derived from Greek a-tomos, where the prefix a- stands for
not, while tomè (cut) derived from tèmnein, to cut. An atom would be something that
cannot be cut. The word time has the same root, tem-nô, and means to cut (see [23] for an
extended etymological analysis.). Therefore, the atom, the basic constituent of the matter,
is not something that cannot be broken – as commonly thought – but it is something not
subject to the cut of time.

4
explain the rotation curves of a sample of galaxies [16].
Particularly intriguing is the Crosta’s result [18], because one might think
to search for a similar effect on cosmological scales. To test this hypothesis
is necessary to prove the rotation of the Universe. Gödel [25] showed that a
rotating universe would have an anisotropic distribution of galaxies, with an
excess in one hemisphere5 . An attempt in this direction has been done by
using the quasar catalog of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE )
satellite. A significant anisotropy, different from that of the CMB both in
amplitude and direction (∼ 28◦ difference), was found [40]. However, the
main problem in this survey is that the extragalactic nature of the sources
was inferred from magnitudes (photometric redshifts, color diagrams), not
from spectroscopic observations. These methods are known to be not reliable,
particularly for rapidly variable active galactic nuclei. Presently, no all-sky
optical spectroscopic survey was ever done. The most recent one, the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey DR14 Quasar Catalog [33], contains 526356 quasars with
0.9 < z < 2.2 distributed over 9376 square degrees (∼ 23% of the sky), almost
all on the Northern equatorial hemisphere (declination greater than −17◦ ).
This is clearly not enough. A satellite with optical spectroscopic instruments
is necessary to perform an all-sky spectroscopic survey (and, surely, the data
of such a satellite will not be useful only for this test!). However, if most
people keep looking for exotic particles, they will build nuclear detectors
instead of telescopes and satellites.

4 Vacuum
The vacuum is the stone guest6 : what can we say about the vacuum? Does it
need of existence energy? If yes, then it would fall into the matter category.
If it is pure temporal energy, then it would be radiation. If the space-time is
quantized, then the vacuum could be the bound state of these quanta. But,
again, it would fall into the matter category (in addition, one should also ask
what might be the corresponding boson for this bound state). In addition,
also matter contains vacuum: a solid body is made of atoms forming a crystal
lattice, but most of space of the macroscopic physical body is vacuum. If
5
This must not be confused with the dipole anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Back-
ground (CMB) due to the motion of the Solar System, the Milky Way, and the Local
Group [42, 21]
6
From the Molière’s play, Don Juan or the Feast of Stone (1665).

5
the vacuum is the bound state of quantized space-time, then would it be a
compact aggregate or is there anything else?
If these considerations might seems specious and sophistic, I would like
to remind the importance to understand what the stress-energy tensor in the
Einstein’s field equations is representing. As Einstein himself wrote [20]:

We make the distinction hereafter between gravitational field and

matter in this way, that we denote everything but the gravita-
tional field as matter. Our use of the word therefore includes not
only matter in the ordinary sense, but the electromagnetic field
as well.

Therefore, Einstein collected both matter and radiation under the word
matter. If one thinks in terms of energy, this is a clear and justified choice, at
least at a first order, having not included the energy of the gravitational field.
If one thinks in terms of mass, then why putting together matter (mass) and
radiation (massless)?
Einstein then added – and later deleted – the cosmological constant Λ,
which in turn is today confirmed by the observed tension in the Hubble
constant [35]. However, calculations do not make sense and many hypotheses
have been suggested (e.g. [46, 37, 9, 10, 14, 15, 12]). According to some
authors Λ might be a zero-point curvature, an intrinsic property of space-
time [9, 10], others suggested the existence of an exotic fluid, which generates
negative pressure when interacting with baryonic matter [14, 15], but most
researchers explain the constant as the effect of a dark energy, identified as the
quantum vacuum energy. However, the observed value is different from the
expected one by more than one hundred orders of magnitude [46, 37, 5, 12].
Also in this case, some notes are worth writing. Current quantum grav-
ity theories are linked to the Planck units, which are physical quantities as
functions of universal constants only (see [27] for a detailed review). Cur-
rent theories should break down at the Planck energy EP , where space-time
should be quantized:
r
~c5
EP = ∼ 1.9 × 109 J = 1.2 × 1019 GeV (1)
G
which is equivalent to a mass of ∼ 2.2 × 10−8 kg. When calculating
the quantum vacuum energy, one takes into account the zero-point energies
of the electromagnetic field (fermions fields have opposite fields and would

6
result in a vacuum with positive pressure) with a cut-off at Planck scale (e.g.
[5]). Just to write down some order-of-magnitude calculation, the zero-point
energy density ρvac in the frequency range [ω1 , ω2 ] is [31]:

~ω 3
Z ω2
~ 4 4 hπ 4
ρvac = 2 c3
dω = 2 c3
(ω 2 − ω 1 ) = 3
(ν2 − ν14 ) (2)
ω1 2π 8π c
where ω = 2πν. The Planck frequency is:
r
EP c5
νP = = t−1
P = ∼ 1.8 × 1043 Hz (3)
~ ~G
Therefore, by taking ν1 = 0 and ν2 = νP , it results ρvac ∼ 8×10115 erg/cm3 .
This value must be compared with that observed on cosmological scale:
ρΛ ∼ 4 × 10−9 erg/cm3 [3]. The difference is crystal clear.
If one forgets about the quantization of space-time and simply adopts the
observed value ρΛ to set a constraint on the cut-off frequency, then rearrang-
ing Eq. (2) and setting ρvac = ρΛ , one obtains:
r
3
4 ρΛ c
νcut = ∼ 1.5 × 1012 Hz (4)
hπ
Interestingly, the peak frequency of the spectral radiance of the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) is (1.6 − 2.8) × 1011 Hz, so the two values
are consistent within one order of magnitude. Given all the approximations
adopted, this is a really intriguing result. If these frequencies are really
correlated, and not by a chance coincidence, what might be the implications?
The first one is that the vacuum is not related to the quanta of space-time
identified with the Planck scale7 . If the generation of the vacuum as zero-
point energy of the electromagnetic field is related to the epoch of CMB,
it might imply the need of the photon decoupling and the availability of
photons free to fill in all the Universe. The CMB would not only be the
last scattering surface, but also be the dark energy horizon. The vacuum is
therefore not the absence of matter and radiation, but it is the zero-point
energy of the radiation permeating the universe. Being photons the universal
clocks, their zero-point energy might be a sort of calibration energy, a further
proof of the direction of time: no photons with negative energy are available,
7
It should be noted that the Planck scale has no physical reason. It is just a play with
some fundamental constants. Therefore, if a quantization of space-time will be realized,
it might also be completely detached from the Planck scale.

7
no backward clocks can be found in nature. The vacuum energy must be
the same everywhere, otherwise there could be local domains in the universe
where it might be possible to have negative energies, and hence backward
clocks.
To search for similar horizon effects on local nearby scales, one might
think at astrophysical black holes. The generally adopted Kerr metric can
be transformed into a Kerr-deSitter space-time by adding a dark energy
constant Λ [2] (the two metrics are coincident for Λ = 0). The presence of
dark energy in the latter metric implies one more horizon in addition to the
gravitational radius. The problem is that with the current observed value of
Λ ∼ 2 × 10−56 cm−2 is too small to generate the additional horizon on local
scale. By using the example proposed by [2] and one of the most massive
black hole known (S5 0014 + 813, z = 3.366, M ∼ 4 × 1010 M⊙ [24]), it
results that to obtain an observable dark energy horizon of rdeh ∼ 4 × rg ∼
2.4 × 1016 cm, it would be necessary Λ ∼ 3 × 10−33 cm−2 , about 23 orders
of magnitude greater than the known cosmological Λ. In addition, decades
of observations never shown significant and anomalous deviations from the
Kerr metric.
However, if this does not work on local scales, it is interesting to apply
the above cited Kerr-deSitter metric to the early universe. As stated above,
the CMB might also be the dark energy horizon and one might think it could
be the additional horizon of the initial space-time singularity, generated by
the presence of dark energy. At the epoch of CMB (z ∼ 1100), the comoving
radial distance was ∼ 4.3×1028 cm (by adopting the cosmological parameters
measured by the Planck Collaboration [3]). By assuming rdeh equal to this
value, with the example proposed by [2], it results that Λ ∼ 10−57 cm−2
and the energy of the singularity is estimated to be 8 × 1079 GeV. The
implications are twofold: on one side, it confirms that the CMB epoch might
be the horizon for dark energy, but on the other side, it suggests an almost
maximally rotating universe. The observational proof of a rotating universe,
suggested in the previous section, has now one more reason to be done.

5 Energy
Focusing on time, and hence on energy, opens interesting research directions.
As noted in my previous work [23], matter does need of an existence energy,
the minimum to exist at rest, just to travel in time. The key experiment is

8
to measure the lifetime of protons and electrons, which is currently just a
lower bound (e.g. [4]). A measured value will also allow us to set a constraint
on the lifetime of the universe, if any. Further questions might be how and
where this energy is dissipated: is it simply lost? Or is it converted? In the
first case, this clearly violates the principle of energy conservation, which was
already challenged on cosmological scales, given the arrow of the expansion
of the universe (see [45] for a recent review; see also the interesting thread on
Twitter by William H. Kinney8 ). If the existence energy is converted, then
the energy conservation might be saved, but what other form of energy is
the result of this conversion?

6 Conclusions
I wanted to show how new research directions are emerging just by abandon-
ing the mass-particle paradigm. Instead of searching for new exotic particles
or unnecessary quantizations, one might explore new space-time metrics, new
types of energy, changes in the rhythm of time. The current mixture of clas-
sical and frontier concepts, that is keeping us bound to the concept of mass,
might be lethal for physics in the long term, while focusing on time and
energy opens new, and intriguing research lines.

Acknowledgements: I would like to warmly thank Roberto Casadio and

Alberto Vecchiato for their comments and advices. Thanks also to Michelle
Galloway for pointing out an error in the citation of the XENON experiment
results, and to Marcel-Marie LeBel for recommending the important Unruh’s
essay.

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