Electromagnetic, Electrostatic, Bare, Measured, and Insulator Masses

Abstract

As a means of discussing the various masses, let us summarize the basic results that have been derived so far in our re-examination of the Lorentz model of the electron. We begin with a specific model that we can, in principle, realize in our classical laboratory, namely, a charge e uniformly distributed on the surface of an insulator which remains spherical with constant radius a in its proper inertial frame of reference. Whether or not the model actually approximates the internal structure of the electron is irrelevant to its analysis which is based on Maxwell's equations with retarded (causal) solutions only, the Lorentz force law, the relativistic generalization of Newton's second law of motion, the Einstein mass-energy relation, and the short-range molecular forces binding the charge to the insulator surface.