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What is mass? And how does it differ from charge? Is mass a substance
or is it a property of matter? Of course mass, as we use the term is
a bit more complex that charge, because there are two properties of
matter that we have given the name mass to. One is the Inertial mass
that we put with the acceleration term in NSL, and the other is
gravitational mass, which is the property of matter than responds to
the gravitational interaction (that these two seem to be the same
thing is, as far as I can tell, an accident of nature--others may
have different ideas on this), just as charge is the property of
matter that responds to the electromagnetic interaction. Are either
of them substances?
Maybe we could just define gravitational mass as whatever it is
that causes gravitational fields, and charge as whatever it is
that causes electromagnetic fields, and then we could argue about
what fields are.