Mass as information: A definition and its consequences

Aniruddha Joshi

Published Apr 14, 2026• 0 citations

Abstract

Abstract Mass has never been defined. It has been measured, related to other quantities, and given a mechanism through the Higgs field. But what mass physically is has not been stated. This paper proposes a definition: mass is the information encoding that matter acquires from the field — the degree to which a state is distinguishable from the vacuum, measured in Shannon bits. From this single definition, without additional assumptions, three consequences follow. First, the Schrödinger equation becomes nonlinear: mass depends on the wavefunction itself, superposition is approximate for massive particles, and wavefunction collapse has a self-reinforcing mechanism without requiring an external observer. Second, the source of spacetime curvature in Einstein’s field equations is not mass but information content — distinguishability of matter from the vacuum. Third, the quantum-classical transition is not a boundary to be explained but a process driven by mass accumulation: as encoding increases, classicality follows automatically. The Higgs vacuum expectation value v = 246 GeV is identified as the conversion factor between bits of distinguishability and kilograms of mass. The photon and neutrino are natural consistency checks: the photon has zero encoding and zero mass; the neutrino has near-zero encoding and near-zero mass

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19561029

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