Particles Being Points is in Conflict With Them Being Something! [WRONG AGAIN]

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

Particles being points is in conflict with our common sense notion that they are "something".

Edited February 8, 2023 by Phi for All
Erroneous assertion in the title

[exchemist]

18 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

Particles being points is in conflict with our common sense notion that they are "something".

Common sense is a useless guide, in the world of subatomic entities. 

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

Particles being points is in conflict with our common sense notion that they are "something".

Why ?

Particles are not points.

Strictly when we model them as points we should use the term point particle to indicate that

 

The property of that particle we are interested in can be considered to act at a point for our purposes.

 

For instance in relation to its orbit around the Sun, the Earth can be considered as a point particle because its size is minute compared to the size of the orbit.

 

If the above condition is not met then we usually call a particle a body or a free body.

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

Particles being points is in conflict with our common sense notion that they are "something".

You are starry-eyed by ontology. IMO, that's standing in the way of your getting the point of physics.

Physics is about what Nature does, and how it does it.

In the process of understanding what it does, different apparent levels of 'is' show up.

[Willem F Esterhuyse]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Common sense is a useless guide, in the world of subatomic entities. 

This has become an escape clause - used too lightly.

 

19 minutes ago, studiot said:

Why ?

"Something" is defined as occupying space.

[studiot]

6 minutes ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

"Something" is defined as occupying space.

Exactly.

And the Earth has a definite dimensions, volume etc.

But these are so small compared to the size of the orbit that when we consider the property of position  - "where is the Earth ?" - we ignore these and consider a point in space.

 

[joigus]

2 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

3 hours ago, exchemist said:

Common sense is a useless guide, in the world of subatomic entities. 

This has become an escape clause - used too lightly.

Common sense derives from experience. Subatomic world is far removed from common experience. How lightly is too lightly?

2 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

"Something" is defined as occupying space.

That's your definition. 'Oblivion' Oblivion is something --according to my definition--, yet, it doesn't occupy any space.

The word 'oblivion' is also something --according to my definition--, but it doesn't occupy any space.

The concept of oblivion is also something --according to my definition--, but it doesn't occupy any space.

And so on.

No danger of incurring use-mention fallacy.

Edited February 8, 2023 by joigus
Correction to avoid use-mention fallacy

[studiot]

I think we should all be fair to Willem.

 

Both Hungarian and German have abstract nouns in common with English.

But they also have a common opacity as to whether to consider an abstract noun as 'something' or not.

[Phi for All]

4 hours ago, Willem F Esterhuyse said:

Particles being points is in conflict with our common sense notion that they are "something".

!

Moderator Note

Titles to these threads are important. Some people only read titles, and can get the wrong impressions. If you don't know something for sure, please don't assert it in the title.

 

[swansont]

Common sense says the sun revolves around the earth, so the “common sense” ship sailed long ago.

[TheCosmologist]

I was saying for years the same thing due to the problem that the classical electron radius made to go zero upon limit, doesn't match the experimental evidence of ot being a point charge. In light of this, only recently, scientists have now demonstrated that the electron can spin - in short, it is the charge distribution that is spinning. Think of the electron as a smear in space, so the old theory appears to be wrong. It was because of this electron self energy divergence that renormalization, an ad hoc patchwork was invented.

Edited February 21, 2023 by TheCosmologist

[studiot]

22 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

I was saying for years the same thing due to the problem that the classical electron radius made to go zero upon limit, doesn't match the experimental evidence of ot being a point charge. In light of this, only recently, scientists have now demonstrated that the electron can spin - in short, it is the charge distribution that is spinning. Think of the electron as a smear in space, so the old theory appears to be wrong. It was because of this electron self energy divergence that renormalization, an ad hoc patchwork was invented.

I'm sorry but this glib oversimplification of several important points in Physics gives entirely the wrong impression.

You have made several outrageous statements, with not a shred of support.

Do you understand, for instance the difference between the angular momentum and spin quantum numbers ?

[TheCosmologist]

52 minutes ago, studiot said:

I'm sorry but this glib oversimplification of several important points in Physics gives entirely the wrong impression.

You have made several outrageous statements, with not a shred of support.

Do you understand, for instance the difference between the angular momentum and spin quantum numbers ?

Are you patronising me? Ask any physicist, the mathematics of classical angular momentum and that with quantum are on the face of it, synonymous in structure. This is well-known in physics. By the way, I'm quite up-to-date with this sort of thing, don't assume I am a layman.

As for my statements on the "new" insights of how electrons spin, you can follow this report

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/this-physicist-says-electrons-spin-in-quantum-physics-after-all-heres-why/am

And the electron has been observed to have a spherical charge distribution. This is at odds with the classical model divergence problem because it simultaneously assumed the charge was pointlike.

https://www.sci.news/physics/spherical-electrons-06518.html

 

I'll even demonstrate the mathematics of this singularity of the electron if anyone wishes. It's quite simple. And yet from simple assumptions  came erroneous ideas that are no longer holding up, like they used to.

Edited February 21, 2023 by TheCosmologist

[studiot]

28 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

I'll even demonstrate the mathematics of this singularity of the electron if anyone wishes. It's quite simple. And yet from simple assumptions  came erroneous ideas that are no longer holding up, like they used to.

I'm willing to be educated, but the rules here are quite clear.

I should not need to go offsite to read the material fundamental to the issue.

So fire away with your mathematics please.

 

[TheCosmologist]

Just now, studiot said:

I'm willing to be educated, but the rules here are quite clear.

I should not need to go offsite to read the material fundamental to the issue.

So fire away with your mathematics please.

 

Fair does... I'm all about rules, are you? All I'm doing is stating facts. So let's ignore this and start again? Let's pretend this didn't happen.

[studiot]

2 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

Fair does... I'm all about rules, are you? All I'm doing is stating facts. So let's ignore this and start again? Let's pretend this didn't happen.

So no mathematics then ?

Just like your hand wavy references.

[TheCosmologist]

15 minutes ago, studiot said:

So no mathematics then ?

Just like your hand wavy references.

"I'm willing to be educated," is not a question.

"How does the mathematics of an electron divergence stand up?" Is however.

I can see you are not fond of me so I will ask directly - do you want to be educated on how the divergence comes about? I'll assume on a preliminary basis, based on your previous reply, it's a yes then?

Edited February 21, 2023 by TheCosmologist

[studiot]

3 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

"I'm willing to be educated," is not a question.

"How does the mathematics of an electron divergence stand up?" Is however.

I can see you are not fond of me so I will ask directly - do you want to be educated on how the divergence comes about? I'll assume on a preliminary basis, based on your previous reply, it's a yes then?

I am neither fond nor not fond of you.

However you specifically offered

Quote

52 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

I'll even demonstrate the mathematics of this singularity of the electron if anyone wishes.

 

So I asked to take you up on your offer.

So far you have expended several posts avoiding doing so.

[swansont]

2 hours ago, TheCosmologist said:

I was saying for years the same thing due to the problem that the classical electron radius made to go zero upon limit, doesn't match the experimental evidence of ot being a point charge. In light of this, only recently, scientists have now demonstrated that the electron can spin - in short, it is the charge distribution that is spinning. Think of the electron as a smear in space, so the old theory appears to be wrong. It was because of this electron self energy divergence that renormalization, an ad hoc patchwork was invented.

Can you cite the reference where scientists have shown electrons to be physically spinning?

Physics has recognized the error of thinking the classical electron radius having any physical meaning for quite some time (it’s denoted as classical, after all, reminding us that it’s not derived from QM)

[TheCosmologist]

14 minutes ago, swansont said:

Can you cite the reference where scientists have shown electrons to be physically spinning?

Physics has recognized the error of thinking the classical electron radius having any physical meaning for quite some time (it’s denoted as classical, after all, reminding us that it’s not derived from QM)

I have done already. ✔️ 

24 minutes ago, studiot said:

I am neither fond nor not fond of you.

However you specifically offered

So I asked to take you up on your offer.

So far you have expended several posts avoiding doing so.

Right okay. Hold on, mathtex takes time.

@studiot

Right, let's do this. It's relatively simple, but again, that's relative. One man's meat and veg is another's nail in a coffin.

We begin with the classical electron self energy equation. Let me simplify by setting all constants to zero, in an electrostatic limit, the energy is simply

[math]E = \frac{e^2}{R}[/math]

BTW, I rarely use natural units as it lacks visualisation but in this case it doesn't matter too much. Anything inverse must imply the inverse of another variable, for instance [math]\frac{1}{T} \propto a[/math] where (a) is some dummy variable, when T decreases, (a) increases and vice versa. So if say in the limit of [math]a \rightarrow N[/math] where now N is some infinitesimal number, then T would increase. Let's apply the same idea to the electrostatic self energy. If [math]R \rightarrow 0[/math] then by law of calculus, we would see an infinite increase in the inverse variable, which is the energy.

 

Again, if R goes to zero then E becomes infinitely large in

[math]E = \frac{e^2}{R}[/math]

This led to two assumptions. The first being that the charge distribution had to be pointlike. We know now this is wrong..it led further to the assumption because of this erroneous picture, that the electron had to have a divergent energy, in which renormalization was invented to prevent something that wasn't measurable.

I'm the advent of the first assumption being wrong, we must abandon that the following must hold true - that any singular solutions even exist. Infinities have little place in real theoretical physics. They really only apply to pure mathematics - in physics, we are careful not to be too consumed by mathematics as the job is to apply equations to what is observable. The electron could be pointlike - but the problem standing is the charge distribution, the electron is never actually localised to a point, its a smear campaign by the wave function

I hope, even in brevity, this explains the origin of the misconceptions surrounding the mantra of pointlike particles.

 

 

And no I didn't avoid, you where just unclear to me. Let's call it a misunderstanding.

[exchemist]

14 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

Are you patronising me? Ask any physicist, the mathematics of classical angular momentum and that with quantum are on the face of it, synonymous in structure. This is well-known in physics. By the way, I'm quite up-to-date with this sort of thing, don't assume I am a layman.

As for my statements on the "new" insights of how electrons spin, you can follow this report

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/this-physicist-says-e

37 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

I have done already. ✔️ 

Right okay. Hold on, mathtex takes time.

@studiot

Right, let's do this. It's relatively simple, but again, that's relative. One man's meat and veg is another's nail in a coffin.

We begin with the classical electron self energy equation. Let me simplify by setting all constants to zero, in an electrostatic limit, the energy is simply

E=e2R

BTW, I rarely use natural units as it lacks visualisation but in this case it doesn't matter too much. Anything inverse must imply the inverse of another variable, for instance 1T∝a where (a) is some dummy variable, when T decreases, (a) increases and vice versa. So if say in the limit of a→N where now N is some infinitesimal number, then T would increase. Let's apply the same idea to the electrostatic self energy. If R→0 then by law of calculus, we would see an infinite increase in the inverse variable, which is the energy.

 

Again, if R goes to zero then E becomes infinitely large in

E=e2R

This led to two assumptions. The first being that the charge distribution had to be pointlike. We know now this is wrong..it led further to the assumption because of this erroneous picture, that the electron had to have a divergent energy, in which renormalization was invented to prevent something that wasn't measurable.

I'm the advent of the first assumption being wrong, we must abandon that the following must hold true - that any singular solutions even exist. Infinities have little place in real theoretical physics. They really only apply to pure mathematics - in physics, we are careful not to be too consumed by mathematics as the job is to apply equations to what is observable. The electron could be pointlike - but the problem standing is the charge distribution, the electron is never actually localised to a point, its a smear campaign by the wave function

I hope, even in brevity, this explains the origin of the misconceptions surrounding the mantra of pointlike particles.

 

 

And no I didn't avoid, you where just unclear to me. Let's call it a misunderstanding.

lectrons-spin-in-quantum-physics-after-all-heres-why/am

And the electron has been observed to have a spherical charge distribution. This is at odds with the classical model divergence problem because it simultaneously assumed the charge was pointlike.

https://www.sci.news/physics/spherical-electrons-06518.html

 

I'll even demonstrate the mathematics of this singularity of the electron if anyone wishes. It's quite simple. And yet from simple assumptions  came erroneous ideas that are no longer holding up, like they used to.

If you set all constants to zero your expression also becomes zero. 

[studiot]

34 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

We begin with the classical electron self energy equation. Let me simplify by setting all constants to zero, in an electrostatic limit, the energy is simply

This is not maths or physics.

The constants can't be zero.

E = e²/r

is not dimensionally consistent.

 

36 minutes ago, TheCosmologist said:

Right okay. Hold on, mathtex takes time.

It may be of interest to you as a new member to discuss ways of presenting mathematics to best suit yourself.

Scienceforums offers particularly wide ranging possibilities  -   better than any other I know of.

Although the Tex / markup is not as good as some.

 

There is the sandbox

https://www.scienceforums.net/forum/99-the-sandbox/

for testing and also there are several tutorials specific to this site .

Don't hesisitate to ask how to do some of this when you need it.

[TheCosmologist]

27 minutes ago, studiot said:

This is not maths or physics.

The constants can't be zero.

E = e²/r

is not dimensionally consistent.

 

It may be of interest to you as a new member to discuss ways of presenting mathematics to best suit yourself.

Scienceforums offers particularly wide ranging possibilities  -   better than any other I know of.

Although the Tex / markup is not as good as some.

 

There is the sandbox

https://www.scienceforums.net/forum/99-the-sandbox/

for testing and also there are several tutorials specific to this site .

Don't hesisitate to ask how to do some of this when you need it.

It's not that constants are zero. We set them to natural units, however for all intents and purposes, it's like setting them to zero, so why do I say this? Simply because we can write an expression without the constants as if they were not effective to the overall argument. We are not multiplying something by zero, this is the difference, it's more accurate to say, and I'll give you this, to say that the constants are 1, but any number multiplied by 1, just results in the variables with no change.

Em yes, btw, I am a dimension expert. 

 

[math]ER = \hbar c= Gm^2 = FR^2 = e^2[/math]

 

So yes, rearrange the equivalences and you get what I gave. Conclusion is the dimensions are consistent.

I say I'm an expert, because I've proof read papers a few of my colleagues to expose any inconsistencies. Thankfully my group is good enough that I've only ever exposed one dimensional inconsistency. 

And I was just out of a good discussion between Bruce Greetham and Denis Olivier, the former being a pure mathematician, the other a pure physicist. In my discussions, I explained that all equations in physics can be achieved simply by two tools- an understanding of calculus/algebra coupled with a deep understanding in dimensional analysis. The latter is a very powerful tool - a tool often overlooked by some physicists. You can construct for instance, the Friendmann equation from dimensional analysis without the need to invoke the Einstein field equations. In fact Newton stumbled across a very similar solution to Friedmann's own solution, and this was without knowledge of general relativity. 

 

Yes, dimensional analysis is a very powerful tool and a close friend of mine. I specialise in this area of research. It's been a tool for instance in constructing the equations that I have produced so far on this ... not-too- bad-forum. You can see how I employ my understanding of this area if you chase any of my three posts.

Edited February 21, 2023 by TheCosmologist

[swansont]

1 hour ago, TheCosmologist said:

I have done already. ✔️ 

You posted a link that refers to a theory paper. Lots of theory explorations go nowhere. Has the been shown to be valid?  Has there been experimental confirmation?

 

 

 

 

[TheCosmologist]

29 minutes ago, swansont said:

You posted a link that refers to a theory paper. Lots of theory explorations go nowhere. Has the been shown to be valid?  Has there been experimental confirmation?

Yes. 

The second link was earlier than the first. They discovered that there was no pointlike charges in the second link. Then the first link which again is the most recent discovery, that the field was indeed allowed to rotate. Even say, that the first link is theoretical, the first link is an observed fact. What we still do not know for sure, is that the charge distribution rotates, but it's highly likely since spin is part of the full Poincare group of space translations.

Neglecting the theoretical part, the spherical charge distribution found shows empirically that the electron is not a point like charge. This was a hand in hand argument for the pointlike argument for electrons which led us astray concerning the physics of pointlike dynamics. Further, classical mechanics also predicted pointlike behaviour. Given a small enough balm bearing in the classical limits, the particles would always behave experimentally as if they were fundamentally pointlike - so really, we have a mixture of discrepancies based on theoretical assumptions. In this latter case, because particles behaved pointlike, we assumed they were. 

I was asked by my physicist friend, Tejinder Singh, a rising physicist in the academic world who found a non-free parameter solution to the fine structure, 'what causes the genius of Einstein to assume that particles are singularities of spacetime?' 

The answer I explained was simple enough. It's because he too was misled by thinking of fundamental particles as pointlike - anything pointlike is synonymous with singular solutions. At the same time, the electron infinite self-energy was so well-accepted that it was hardly challenged only until recent times.

 

Good question!

Edited February 21, 2023 by TheCosmologist