A fifty-pound sack of horse feed contains specific percentages of oats, corn, and molasses in a combination that provides the horse’s nutritional dietary needs. The percentages are constrained to obtain the dietary requirements at the minimum production cost. So percentages may change from year to year and month to month, but the feed value does not change. The actual cost will vary depending on production costs and profit margin of the production company. If apples and oranges contained cost effective contributions to the dietary requirement, then they too would be in the mix.
Five apples, two oranges, and three bananas add up to ten items of fruit – nothing more nor less. However if you process them into the tasty blend of a fruit cocktail, a slightly different ratio of the percentages of each might be tastier and you might throw in some grapes. The taste is what you’re after.
The point is, you can add anything to anything else, but if what you get is to have the value you intend, each item must contain some of what you want as a result. And the percentages of each must be in the right proportion. You can add North to East to get any location you want but the percentages of each make the difference. And if you want the crow-fly distance to that location you will have to change your rules of addition and accept irrational numbers as your results.
The subatomic particles of up and down quarks contain distributions of plus and minus electric charge and an associated energy in the form of mass and heat. That they exist, the percentages of each, and their internal distribution are the most basic reasons for why things are the way they are. It could be no other way and have our universe at all. The internal characteristics determine the properties of matter, including gravitation.
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