Announcing: The Fermion Mass Project

From: Jay R. Yablon (jyablon_at_nycap.rr.com)
Date: 02/18/05 

Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:41:24 +0000 (UTC)

Those of you who have followed this newsgroup and checked out my web
site at http://home.nycap.rr.com/jry/FermionMass.htm will know that I
have undertaken a serious research effort to understand why the Fermions
have the masses they have, and perhaps made some modest progress in that
regard.

I believe that gaining such an understanding of why the Fermions have
the masses they have is one of the most important research questions in
physics today, and that we do not yet have very good answers to this.

I have made a modest effort to understand the electron masses in the
context of electroweak theory, and perhaps been successful in
characterizing the weak mixing angle in terms of the electron mass sum
within experimental uncertainty. People can of course form their own
opinions whether I have succeeded in this or not. The model I have
developed, carefully within the confines of electroweak theory and the
lepton masses, if you give it any credence, can provide some important
insights into the quark masses as well, as some of the participants in
this newsgroup have recognized.

In the interest of promoting the type of open collaboration and exchange
of views that is vital to real scientific progress, and in the interest
of making use of the wonderful opportunity for open worldwide exchange
that is provided by the internet, and in the interest of putting
together the best thinking we can muster from around the world to
understand why the Fermions have the masses they have, and in the
interest of breaking down the institutional barriers which impede real
progress on fundamental research, I am announcing the "Fermion mass
project" which I will try to coordinate through the web site presently
housed at http://home.nycap.rr.com/jry/FermionMass.htm. This will be a
serious, cyberspace-based, research endeavor to fully understand why the
Fermions have the masses they have.

Over the coming days, I will try to lay out what I believe are the key
questions which need to be addressed if the Fermion mass riddle is to be
solved in its entirety. (Finally understanding WHY the nature gives us
(at least) three mass-distinguished generations is at the top of the
list.) I of course welcome serious input from others as to what they
see as these key questions. I will try to organize this as a research
project, where various folks may develop ideas in any areas that they
are knowledgeable and comfortable in, and I will attempt throughout to
keep all the pieces coordinated to develop a full and complete solution
to this problem. I will not rest until every one of the Fermion masses
-- including both constituent and effective quarks masses -- can be
understood in the most exact terms possible, on the basis of fundamental
physical principles, and are no longer just experimental inputs. We
have this wealth of mass data from nature; the time has come to
understand fully what this mass data is trying to teach us.

There is one and only one goal in this project: it is to better
understand nature, and to use the Fermion masses which nature has dealt
us as the vehicle for coming to better understand nature in a very
exacting way. This will be a "coalition of the willing" -- er --
scratch that -- "collaboration of the interested," divorced from
institutional constraint and pecking order, without regard to
professional title, and uncompromised by interests of livelihood. The
sole prerequisite is wanting to better understand nature, and the
ability to do so by helping read the tea leaves in the mass data.

As I said, I will coordinate this through the web site, and, if the
moderators of sci.physics.research are so kind as to not feel imposed
upon, I shall make use of this forum for people to publicly post their
ideas as we move forward. I suggest this precisely because this forum
IS moderated.

While private communications will certainly be appropriate at times, I
will suggest that we maintain a good public thread. This way, people
will putting their idea out into the open, we will support and critique
one another's ideas with due personal respect out in the open, and when
we succeed, the contributions that people have made to this project will
be out in the open. And, if this project really succeeds, besides
demonstrating what a wonderful tool the internet is when used in a
positive way, it might demonstrate to those in our scientific community
who have long forgotten or never known in the first place, what it means
to conduct open, honest, unfettered, and uncensored scientific research.

I hope I am not biting off more than I can chew with this, and I hope I
am not off the deep end, but we'll see how this all goes.

I welcome and look forward to your input.

Best to all,

Jay R. Yablon
_____________________________
Jay R. Yablon
Email: jyablon@nycap.rr.com

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