Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: chris on 03/06/2017 22:36:29

Title: Does the Higgs Boson give matter Gravitational Forces?
Post by: chris on 03/06/2017 22:36:29

David Spence has written to ask:

If the Higgs Boson gives matter Mass, would the Higgs Boson also give matter Gravitational Forces?

What do you think?

Title: Re: Does the Higgs Boson give matter Gravitational Forces?
Post by: evan_au on 04/06/2017 00:13:33

The fact that Inertial and Gravitational mass always seem to be the same must be more than a coincidence - but it isn't one that we can explain today.

The Higgs field+boson is a quantum effect that gives matter Inertial Mass. However, we currently have no established theory of quantum gravity, so we don't have a quantum mechanism that would give matter Gravitational Mass.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass#Inertial_vs._gravitational_mass