The Higgs Boson, Part II: What is Mass?

What is mass and what does it have to do with the Higgs Boson?
Part I: http://dft.ba/-higgsPart1
Also, explore a map of the big bang! http://www.bigbangregistry.com

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Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Music by Nathaniel Schroeder

Thanks to Nima Doroud for contributions and to Perimeter Institute for support.
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  Science & Technology

[Gordon Freeman]

I was a physics major in college and graduated with a B.S. degree in Physics... and I'm still in awe of how much minutephysics is teaching me. And I'm not only gaining a better understanding of physics, but also starting to renew my love of it. Thanks Hank!

[FlyingscotsmanINC]

Swiss cheese XD

[Ronald de Rooij]

I don't think this video is completely correct. There are more ways to give particles mass than the Higgs field. And even then, it is not directly the Higgs field or Higgs boson giving mass, but the Z-boson, if I understand Leonard Susskind of Stanford University correctly. What the Higgs boson then really does escapes me a bit in his lectures, I must admit.

[Sungbok Lee]

So what I understand from this is that higgs field give the mass to the matters because it stops things from moving at a infinite space. Or is it that some things have mass and higgs field give mass to the particles such as photons and electrones?

[dkkoala1]

But WAIT! you're not asking the most important question here... it's not how can the higgs bosson/field give mass to something, but how can something even be here if it has no mass of its own? and how can this something interact with other things if it has no mass? and even if you can answer that, you're only moving the problem... the problem being, how does anything have mass? well the Higgs field naturally, but how does the higgsfield give mass?

[Slem Q]

Yea , i dont really understand that part, guess ill have to read up more on special relativity.

[eafindme]

Higgs field allow particle to bounce back and forth, so it means that because of the Higgs field, the particles are seemed to be at rest and give particle inertia. Without the Higgs field, all particle will be massless and travel at the speed of light. More specifically, the Higgs field could excite its own particle as Higgs Boson and give itself a mass within the HIggs field and surrounds the other vibrating particles to give other particle "mass". Am I right?

[ganondorfchampin]

So does everything really travel at the speed of light?

[Slem Q]

It doesnt slow down in water. As in the video, light can bounce off other particles. Light travels at its known speed in vacuum, if it travels in a medium like air, it keeps bouncing off the particles of air.. so it would take a bit longer for it to travel a straight line (moves in a slight zig-zag movement, while still maintaining speed of light between each bounce).. In water , the particles are closer to each other, thus more bounces. Which explains why light is slower in water.

[SuperCC112]

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!