I would assume that the mass of the hydrogen atom is less than that of individual proton and electron once energy is radiated at 13.6 eV. This is a very tiny amount of mass difference, but it must occur.
You have asked an interesting question about where the energy is stored. I suspect that it is in the form of reduced external electric fields. Once I was attempting to define this behavior by realizing that energy is stored within electric and magnetic fields throughout the nearby space. Then I mentally added a second active particle such as another proton or electron nearby and looked at the resulting field due to the superposition. Same charge addition always increased the field vectors which added to the field in a quadratic form. While, adding an electron to the nearby region surrounding the field induced by a proton resulted in less net field vector energy. This convinced me that the energy in the case of hydrogen was stored in the reduced overall electric field. Of course, similar things should occur with the magnetic fields due to spins. I am still attempting to understand how and where the mass is distributed around a charged particle since my thoughts suggest that a portion of the mass must exist as energy in the surrounding fields. Dave -----Original Message----- From: mixent <mix...@bigpond.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sun, Apr 28, 2013 7:06 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Latest Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science In reply to Jones Beene's message of Sun, 28 Apr 2013 07:17:13 -0700: Hi, [snip] There are two assumptions that most papers purporting to show the impossibility of f/H states share. 1) They assume that spin is an intrinsic property of the electron. 2) I get the impression they also assume that the mass of the both electron and proton remain constant during transitions to f/H states. In particular, I suspect #2 as the primary reason for obtaining imaginary (as in complex numbers) values. Where #2 is concerned, consider the following questions:- 1) Does a Hydrogen atom in the ground state weigh (13.6 eV / c^2) less than the combined mass of a free proton and a free electron? (IOW, when a Hydrogen atom in an excited state emits a photon while transitioning to a less energetic state, does the atom's weight change by the mass equivalent of the energy emitted?) 2) If the answer to the first question is yes, then do the particles individually weigh less, or does their field energy have mass? 3) If the latter, then how can we say that the mass of a Hydrogen atom is the sum of the mass of a free proton and a free electron? These questions go to the heart of mass/energy equivalence. [snip] Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
