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<blockquote data-quote="freyar" data-source="post: 6679350" data-attributes="member: 40227">Well, I don't think you'd enjoy it very much.But let's first deal with a misconception I see lurking under your question, since it's been popularized by the media who are either mis-quoting particle physicists or have been the victim of physicists who've gone for a sound bite without bothering to get things right.&nbsp; I imagine you've heard that the Higgs field is responsible for creating mass or some such thing.&nbsp; In a sense, that's true: all the fundamental Standard Model particles that have mass do have their mass because of their interaction with the Higgs*.&nbsp; So electrons, for example, gain mass due to the Higgs field.However, matter is made of protons and neutrons as well as electrons, and protons and neutrons are about 2000x heavier than electrons.&nbsp; Protons and neutrons are not fundamental but are made up of quarks.&nbsp; While the quarks get their mass due to the Higgs, nearly all the mass of a proton or neutron is due to the energy of the quarks whizzing around relativistically inside (E=mc^2!).&nbsp; What this means is that you wouldn't actually lose much mass if you &quot;unHiggsed&quot; (this is not a good diet plan!) since only your electrons would become massless, and they make up only about 0.05% of your mass (actually less; that's the maximum amount, which would be the case if you were pure hydrogen).&nbsp; The mass of your protons and neutrons wouldn't change much.&nbsp; What would happen, however, would be rather nasty to you.&nbsp; If your electrons became massless, the electromagnetic force would no longer be able to bind them to protons.&nbsp; In other words, all your atoms would fly apart.&nbsp; Your electons would suddenly leave your body at the speed of light, leaving behind a cold plasma of atomic nuclei.&nbsp; In other words, chemistry would cease to exist for you.&nbsp; Fortunately, it would take a ridiculous amount of energy to reset the Higgs field to zero (&quot;unHiggs&quot;) a person-sized part of space, so you don't have to be worried about your electrons flying off.&nbsp; You'd probably be vaporized by the necessary high-energy particle beams first. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue&nbsp; &nbsp; :p"&nbsp; data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />*except for neutrinos. In the Standard Model, they are massless, but we know that they must (in reality) have very small masses.&nbsp; We don't know what mechanism gives them mass yet.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="freyar, post: 6679350, member: 40227"] Well, I don't think you'd enjoy it very much. But let's first deal with a misconception I see lurking under your question, since it's been popularized by the media who are either mis-quoting particle physicists or have been the victim of physicists who've gone for a sound bite without bothering to get things right. I imagine you've heard that the Higgs field is responsible for creating mass or some such thing. In a sense, that's true: all the [B]fundamental[/B] Standard Model particles that have mass do have their mass because of their interaction with the Higgs*. So electrons, for example, gain mass due to the Higgs field. However, matter is made of protons and neutrons as well as electrons, and protons and neutrons are about 2000x heavier than electrons. Protons and neutrons are [B]not[/B] fundamental but are made up of quarks. While the quarks get their mass due to the Higgs, nearly all the mass of a proton or neutron is due to the energy of the quarks whizzing around relativistically inside (E=mc^2!). What this means is that you wouldn't actually lose much mass if you "unHiggsed" (this is not a good diet plan!) since only your electrons would become massless, and they make up only about 0.05% of your mass (actually less; that's the maximum amount, which would be the case if you were pure hydrogen). The mass of your protons and neutrons wouldn't change much. What would happen, however, would be rather nasty to you. If your electrons became massless, the electromagnetic force would no longer be able to bind them to protons. In other words, all your atoms would fly apart. Your electons would suddenly leave your body at the speed of light, leaving behind a cold plasma of atomic nuclei. In other words, chemistry would cease to exist for you. Fortunately, it would take a ridiculous amount of energy to reset the Higgs field to zero ("unHiggs") a person-sized part of space, so you don't have to be worried about your electrons flying off. You'd probably be vaporized by the necessary high-energy particle beams first. :p *except for neutrinos. In the Standard Model, they are massless, but we know that they must (in reality) have very small masses. We don't know what mechanism gives them mass yet. [/QUOTE]

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