ABSTRACT
Isaac Newton understanding of mass was closely linked with the concept of inertia, which can be understood as the resistance of matter to changes in its state of motion. A clear understanding of the concepts of space and time is thus required to make sense of mass measurements. Experimental evidence of the annihilation of massive subatomic particles into radiative energy has led to an interpretation among physicists that this well-known expression should be understood as describing the equivalence of mass and energy. A major achievement of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries was to define and measure the masses of atoms. The ability to reconstruct the masses of the various particles within this bubble chamber experiment also demonstrates the affection physicists have for a realist understanding of the property of matter. In comparison to the identification of the W and Z boson masses, the top quark measurement has additional challenges.
