Further thought on atom construction.

In examining a chart of known elementary particles (one is available here), I noticed that the lower the electrical charge of an element, the higher the mass. In referring to my earlier thoughts, could this mean that mass can be synonymous to... gravitational pull, and that electrical charge can cancel that pull? Or does it mean that, in order for a certain particle to remain stable, it must contain a 'balanced' charge/base energy ratio?

It seems to fit. An 'up' quark is half as heavy as a 'down' quark, and there is a 'one part' charge difference between the two (an 'up' quark has a 2/3 charge, a 'down' quark has -1/3 - thoughts on this scale later). There are other 'heavier' types of quarks (following the same 2/3 -1/3 pattern), but we'll stick to the base elementary particles for now for simplicity's sake. Anyhow, in the next stage of atomic construction, that is to say the formation of hadrons, we see that quarks whose masses are similar are more prone to group into a stable hadron (proton or neutron). If we then consider electrons, elementary particles having a -1 charge and having approximately 1/5 the mass of an 'up' quark (thus 1/10 of a 'down' quark)... there's something going on here.

I'm imagining something like this:

Of course, the quarks are not to scale (it is possible that the 'G' base energy is consistent, and only the 'E' (charge) element varies), but you get the picture. If we were to bump the electron's -1 charge indicated in the chart above to '0', and apply the same change throughout, it would fit this schema exactly: electrons would have no charge, 'down' quarks would have some charge, but 'up' quarks would have more. In fact, I would in fact like to do away with the notion of 'negative charge' altogether - either something has charge, or it doesn't. Gravitational energy ('base energy') attracts charge energy (they almost seem to be trying to cancel each other out). If it were really that simple...

If we move up to the next stage of atom formation (the grouping of 'like' quarks into hadrons, or neutrons and protons), it makes even more sense: quarks will group according to their charge (two ups and one down, or vice versa - I suppose any additional quark will cause 'imbalance' and be rejected), then neutrons and protons will group in turn (in a stable atom, at least to the lower end of the periodic table, there is an equal amount of neutrons and protons) - in any atom nucleus, it would seem that the energetic charge of protons cancels out those of neutrons, leaving only the gravitational force to hold sway over neighbouring elements (apart from their own attraction, depending on their charge, to the stabalised core).

But let us not forget that the first atoms of our universe were hydrogen atoms - and these have no neutron - yet we can see why a non-charged element (electron) would be attracted to a charged element (proton) only. Let us also remember that an electron penetrating a proton will transform it into a neutron - or, in another way of looking at it, it will transform one of the proton's 'up' quarks into a 'down' one. Yet both of these tendencies still fit into the model - atoms heavier than hydrogen are created through fusion, thus neutrons as well. I doubt that, in its very very atomic beginning, our universe contained anything but hydrogen atoms, energy, and free electrons.

I'd almost like to imagine that the very beginnings of our universe was lumps of 'G matter' and the pure energy ('E') that resulted in/resulted from its release (from its 'perfect state') - I think that every atom that could ever form (through 'quark binding') in our universe already has, and everything else (photons, free electrons), is the 'leftovers' from this initial mix.

On Atom Construction

I wouldn't be surprised if quarks and leptons (electrons) contained the same base element. If, at the beginning of our universe, a soup of base elements separated from their stabilising energy charge tried to return to their original 'perfect' state, it would make sense that these elements would 'bind' according to their energy level. Already-charged (positive) elements would bind with lesser-charged (negative) others, creating hadrons, and these in turn would group according to their own respective 'polarisation' (charge). Already stable hadrons would reject any further binding (each contain three quarks, two 'up' and one 'down', or vice versa) - I wouldn't at all be surprised that electrons (leptons) were unbound but charged quarks ('base elements') 'left over' from the initial 'soup construction' stage, once it was completed. Electrons still attempt to bind with an atom's nucleus (and its protons and neutrons), but the 'rejecting force' ('binding energy') of an atom's nucleus (and its individual hadrons) and its opposing charge, prevent them from doing so.

This fits in with the thought that gravity is the 'base element' minus its initial energy, or the effect caused by the 'base element' trying to capture energy enough to return to its initial 'perfect' state. A base element trying to recuperate its initial energy either succeeds or fails depending on its energy level in relation with its neighbours - once no further hadron binding was possible, everything else that followed (atom construction) was but consequential.

Addendum: I can't help but observe that the 'binding force' between stable elements decreases as we advance further along the atomic construction scale. Binding between quarks (creating hadrons) seems to be the strongest, but it is lower between charged hadrons (neutrons and protons).

I also can't help but notice that protons (containing two charged, or 'up' quarks) alone, unbound, are the only element that can retain stability; neutrons are overcome, or are 'evaporated', by their own forces. Does this mean that a stabilised hadron has to 'feed on' (or be 'fed upon') by its neighbour in order to maintain stability? Neutrons contain one 'charged' quark (or 'up' quark) and two 'down' quarks; although a neutron has greater mass (?), the single 'up' quark (that seems to be the instigator of the binding energy) alone doesn't seem to contain energy enough to keep the quark formation together. It would seem logical that a neutron needs to 'feed' on a proton's two 'up' quarks; together, a proton and a neutron together contain three 'up' quarks and three 'down', thus balance each other perfectly. Furthermore, consider that when a 'negatively charged' electron, when introduced into a proton, creates a neutron: it would seem that a 'negative' (no energy?) electron 'saps' a proton's positive energy (transforming one of its quarks into a higher mass 'down' quark. This seems to fit into the theory that even a quark has a 'stable state' of its own: either it is a 'base energy' (gravitational force) containing no 'electrical' charge, or it is an (equal?) balance of base energy and charged energy. 'Base energy' seems to be the most stable of the two, if a hadron's charged energy is released with the introduction of additional uncharged 'base energy'. This is all beginning to make sense.