The “Demon” Particle: How do particles with mass become massless?

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I was reading an article today:
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-demon-physicists-year-old-massless-neutral.amp

…and it got me thinking. If electrons have mass and charge, how can they combine together in a metal and become massless and charge-less? Where does the mass go? I’m assuming it becomes energy because of e=mc^2, but what does that energy manifest as?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

My initial read is that they’re using 2 or more energy bands of electrons, which allows the chance of electrons traveling in waves are complete counterparts. It’s not one demon electron, but 2 electrons that are in opposite waves making the total charge zero. As for massless, I’d need about 5 years to study their methodology to determine if they were accurately accounting for mass because of how small the mass of an electron is. Imagine a 200 ton pile of bricks, are you really going to feel anything adding one more brick?

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