Q&A: A Number of Questions
A Number of Questions
Question
Hello Rabbi,
1) Regarding the force of gravity or other forces of nature (not the law that merely describes them), when people say this, do they mean that God created a system that works on its own, like a computer that processes, functions, or moves things after the programmer has finished, or that He generates them Himself, as if those forces were "His hands acting"?
2. Regarding the description "Master of all powers" in relation to God, as accepted in our tradition—does the Rabbi accept this, and if so, is this a positive description of God or one of His attributes? It belongs to the definition of the perfect God, right?
3. Regarding the conservation law, I didn’t understand: a particle that is created together with an antiparticle and negative mass—I didn’t understand what an antiparticle means. Either something exists or it doesn’t exist, so what does anti mean, or negative mass? Either there is mass or there isn’t mass. I really didn’t understand what this means at all. You said balance—what is its meaning?
Sorry for my ignorance.
Answer
- I don’t know. It could be this way or that way.
- At first glance, this is a description. Maybe it’s not even a description but an external characteristic, like my being the owner of the table. It depends on whether these powers are what we see as forces (in the world), or things that exist in Him (like my muscle power).
- This is talking about negative mass. Its sum together with positive mass is 0. Mass is a kind of charge, like electric charge. There is mass, and its value/quantity is negative.
Discussion on Answer
As I explained, in physics mass is treated like another kind of charge. Just as charge can be positive or negative, so too mass. A particle can exist without mass. A photon is a particle without mass.
The fact that you can’t picture it is irrelevant to the discussion. We are not dealing with imagination.
If you want to delve into it further, you need to study physics.
Thank you for the answer, Rabbi.
1) I didn’t understand what it means that their sum is zero. When the mass becomes zero, then it won’t have any mass charge at all, but does it still have other charges, like energy, or does the particle no longer exist in reality?
2) Regarding a particle that carries negative mass—is there also a third state: either it carries positive mass, or it is at zero, that’s it? I can’t manage to picture it (negative mass).