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What I mean is, could a chunk of matter be "whittled down" or broken off from a larger chunk of matter to the point where it has the mass either exactly of an electron or close to that and in the former case, would it have to be an electron and if somehow the charge of the original piece of matter was neutral or positive would the electron-sized piece suddenly become a negatively charged electron or I guess a positron perhaps.

And in the latter case, would the chunk somehow "degenerate" into an electron, shedding the extra mass?

I know particles can be created from like laser beams experimentally but it seems like nothing other than know particles are ever created -- never is there just a tiny piece of matter with no characteristics like charge and whatever else electrons/positrons have.

releseabe
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Matter can very accurately be described as a collection of electrons, protons and neutrons, gathering into heavier stuff like atoms. Whittling down matter will just end up in a bunch of disconnected electrons, protons and neutrons. A "chunk of matter" at that point would indeed just be some combination of a few of these particles. Thus, if it had the mass of an electron, it would be an electron, since it is lighter than protons and neutrons, and there are no other types of matter available.

I suppose you could gather a bunch of electrons together to form the approximate mass of a proton but with a very negative charge instead of a positive charge. But then again, the proton is not fundamental. So yes, if you have a fundamental particle and you know its mass, you can identify it completely from the standard model.

One interesting point is that a photon could have the same relativistic mass as an electron (not rest mass), but without charge. It would not become an electron. If it had the same relativistic mass as two electrons, it could turn into a electron-positron pair.

Codename 47
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    Minor clarification: stable matter contains only protons, neutrons, and electrons. There are other matter particles, some of which (e.g. the antielectron) are even stable in isolation, but only the big three last very long in a typical matter environment. – rob Nov 28 '20 at 14:21
  • is an electron/positron pair all that has been ever made? or has a proton been made or would that exceed the energy we are able to give a photon? I marvel at the idea that with enough energy and time you could create a volume of hydrogen gas which could be combined with oxygen to form water and then you could drink the water which started out partially as pure energy. – releseabe Nov 28 '20 at 14:23
  • Any particle-antiparticle pair can be made, given enough energy. This is what they do at the LHC: smash protons together hard enough, and see what particles are created. – Codename 47 Nov 28 '20 at 14:25