Physics Has Demoted Mass
It&#x27;s very helpful to use natural units (or QCD units) when working with particle physics. Set the speed of light, the reduced Planck&#x27;s constant, and Boltzmann&#x27;s constant equal to 1. For QCD units also set the mass of the proton equal to 1. Then compute all the other units based on this. (There are several other systems of &quot;natural&quot; units also in use. All of them set the speed of light to 1, but differ in what other units are included.)<p>A particular advantage to intuition comes with the famous e=mc^2. Since c is 1, and 1^2 is 1, e=m. Energy and mass are completely equivalent. Strong force binding energy in a proton is mass. The only bit that&#x27;s not straight from binding energy is from the Higgs mechanism, which is where the mass of the electron (and the quarks themselves) comes from. Matt Strassler has an excellent explanation of that: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;profmattstrassler.com&#x2F;articles-and-posts&#x2F;particle-physics-basics&#x2F;how-the-higgs-field-works-with-math&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;profmattstrassler.com&#x2F;articles-and-posts&#x2F;particle-ph...</a>