The Hierarchical Laws of Energy, Mass, Charge, and Color Charge

By Zhang Suhang, Luoyang, Henan

Energy differs not only in form; it also has hierarchical differences. Different levels correspond to different degrees of order and organization. Changes in level constitute the basic law of energy transformation: either spontaneous downgrade, or upgrade with the aid of a field.

Higher-order energy can spontaneously flow to lower order. This process requires no participation of a field. Higher-order ordered forms naturally disintegrate, and energy tends toward diffusion. This is nature’s default evolutionary tendency.

If lower-order energy is to rise to a higher order, it must rely on the constraints of a field. On the one hand, the field provides constraints and reshapes the organizational form of energy; on the other hand, it supplies the action required for the transition, enabling energy to cross a critical level and form a higher-order form.

The field here can be an external field, or it can be the field of the participating particles themselves. If an external field is used, field energy transfers to the particles, and the field itself may be depleted; if their own field is used, the energy comes from the participating particles themselves. A high-energy photon is itself an excitation of the electromagnetic field. The collision of two photons is the electromagnetic field’s interaction with itself.

This article discusses only the laws of level rise and fall in energy’s transformations involving mass, charge, and color charge. It does not address the global question of energy.

Electron-positron annihilation is a typical case of spontaneous downgrade from a high energy level. When an electron and a positron, carrying mass and charge, meet, the higher-order form disintegrates. Mass and charge no longer manifest, and they transform into diffuse photons. The entire process goes from high to low, a spontaneous fall, requiring no intervention of an external field.

In contrast, a high-energy photon is in a lower-order diffuse state, itself massless and chargeless. When it enters a high-energy electromagnetic field environment, relying on the field’s constraints and obtaining energy support from the field, a transition occurs, generating an electron-positron pair and causing mass and charge to reappear. This is an example of lower-order energy rising to a higher-order form, which must depend on a field.

The role of the Higgs field likewise follows energy-level rules. Originally massless boson fields and lepton fields belong to lower-order diffuse energy forms. When they couple with the Higgs field, with the aid of the field’s constraints, particles acquire effective mass. This is not extracting energy from the field; rather, the field reshapes the structure of the particles, causing them to manifest the mass parameter. Once the coupled higher-order form disintegrates, the property of mass disappears accordingly, and energy returns to a diffuse, massless form. This is spontaneous downgrade.

The emergence of microscopic particles also follows the same law. Diffuse lower-order field energy, with the aid of field constraints and energy support, undergoes a level transition and can form particle forms with mass, charge, and color charge. The emergence of quark-antiquark pairs is precisely a manifestation of energy completing a level upgrade under the action of a field.

From this, two fundamental laws are established:

1. Higher-level energy can spontaneously transform into lower-level energy, without the participation of a field.

2. The upgrade of lower-level energy to a higher level cannot be separated from the constraints of a field.

   If an external field is used, field energy transfers to the particles, and the field itself may be depleted;

   If their own field is used, the energy comes from the participating particles themselves.

The spontaneous dissipation described by traditional thermodynamics is precisely the external manifestation of the first law; the second law supplements the conditions under which ordered forms can come into being.

Energy conservation describes total quantity; energy hierarchy describes grade and degree of organization. The two are not on the same level: conservation governs quantity, while hierarchy governs quality.

Spontaneous downgrade is the natural inertia of the universe; completing an energy-level upgrade by relying on a field is the path by which matter, forces, and various fundamental charges are generated. The evolution of all things in the universe always operates within the dynamic process of the rise and fall of energy levels.

All things in the world—all particles, forces, and forms of matter—are ultimately energy of different levels, different orders, and different degrees of organization.