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I understand the statement "The Higgs Boson gives particles their mass" is not entirely true, but at least captures the spirit of the idea. What I find curious about it is that mass is an almost universally shared aspect between particles, just like spin and charge.

I understand it is somewhat pointless to ask a question like "Why do fundamental particles have charge?" because there is a certain point where all we can say is "It just does." However, I would have thought asking why fundamental particles have mass would be an equally pointless question, yet there seems to be a reasonable explanation with the Higgs boson. So it seems inductive (and I'm guessing falsely so) that a fundamental attribute such as charge might also be explained in terms of undiscovered bosons.

If there is a disconnect here, could someone please explain why?

user2092608
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  • Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/33990/charge-analog-of-the-higgs-boson, http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/31247/why-do-we-need-higgs-field-to-re-explain-mass-but-not-charge. – HDE 226868 Nov 21 '14 at 23:33
  • There would still need to be some type of fundamental coupling so, if such a scheme could be made to work, it would likely only replace one fundamental property with another. – Alfred Centauri Nov 22 '14 at 01:15

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