Nuclear Strong Force is a Fiction

[fuelair]

I don't know what is the physical nature of the charges in the neutron. I assume only that that the neutron contains two opposite and equal electron charges. And it works without the mysterious "strong force" see here
"Nuclear binding energy" "schaeffer"

Are you joking??? Thats sounds very like the combination of an electron and a positron. NOT a good thing for neutrons that need to last a while - like more than the tiniest fraction of a second.

 

[ben m]

Are you joking??? Thats sounds very like the combination of an electron and a positron. NOT a good thing for neutrons that need to last a while - like more than the tiniest fraction of a second.

Yep. That prompts me to think of another problem with Schaffer's dumb theory: he claims to know how to calculate binding energies using "electrostatics" and "magnetostatics". You take the electrical attraction, balance it with the magnetic repulsion, and you're done, right? Well, if that were right, you'd think it would work for positronium---the e+/e- bound state---or muonium (e- mu+)---or muonic hydrogen (mu- p+)---or, say, hydrogen (p+ e-). But, oops, it doesn't work. To figure out the bound states of these systems, you use electrostatic attraction, no repulsion whatsoever, and the laws of quantum mechanics. Schaeffer's ignore-quantum-mechanics technique predicts, falsely, that all of these systems have ground states with the same MeV-ish binding energies. Fail.

Another pet crackpot peeve of mine. Test your methodology, people. Real laws of physics are supposed to apply to everything---or at least to a clearly-defined subset of everything. Schrodinger's Equation, for example. The electron doesn't know it's in a hydrogen atom, a true law-describing-electrons needs to describe them equally well in atoms, in metals, in semiconductors, or in empty space.

 

[Puppycow]

And the model is interesting!

discusses how the orbital of Bohr's model is teh highest probability for the electron in the could/shell.


This shows some cools pictures of electron probabilities, down towards the bottom.
http://daugerresearch.com/orbitals/index.shtml

Very interesting! Thanks.

 

[The Man]

Yep. That prompts me to think of another problem with Schaffer's dumb theory: he claims to know how to calculate binding energies using "electrostatics" and "magnetostatics". You take the electrical attraction, balance it with the magnetic repulsion, and you're done, right? Well, if that were right, you'd think it would work for positronium---the e+/e- bound state---or muonium (e- mu+)---or muonic hydrogen (mu- p+)---or, say, hydrogen (p+ e-). But, oops, it doesn't work. To figure out the bound states of these systems, you use electrostatic attraction, no repulsion whatsoever, and the laws of quantum mechanics. Schaeffer's ignore-quantum-mechanics technique predicts, falsely, that all of these systems have ground states with the same MeV-ish binding energies. Fail.

Another pet crackpot peeve of mine. Test your methodology, people. Real laws of physics are supposed to apply to everything---or at least to a clearly-defined subset of everything. Schrodinger's Equation, for example. The electron doesn't know it's in a hydrogen atom, a true law-describing-electrons needs to describe them equally well in atoms, in metals, in semiconductors, or in empty space.

Not only is it figuring out what we do see correctly (in agreement with experimental results), ben m, it is also figuring out why we don’t see what we don’t see. In the case of the standard model this would be why some particle decay modes are suppressed. In the case of Mr Schaffer’s assertions, since the charge of the proton polarizes the neutron, an electron should also polarize the neutron. So why don’t we see bound states of just a neutron and an electron like a proton and a neutron? Could it be that the neutron and proton are bound by some other force the electron does not couple with. Perhaps if bjschaeffer returns we can inquire though I fear spamming that webpage may have been the only intent.

 

[bjschaeffer]

So what binds the protons to the protons in the nucleus?

The protons are not bound together in the nucleus, they repulse themselves because of the electrostatic and magnetic repulsions. They are bound with the neutrons.

 

[bjschaeffer]

Oh, you have a blog:
man if you really believe that electrons orbit the nucleus, then you are very uninformed.

I don't believe that electrons orbite the nucleus, the nucleus is not an atom because it has no nucleus, that is, a central massive body which can act as a force center. I say only that the not so neutral neutron contains opposite electric charges, assumed to be elementary charges +e and -e, not orbiting electrons.

 

[theprestige]

I don't believe that electrons orbite the nucleus, the nucleus is not an atom because it has no nucleus, that is, a central massive body which can act as a force center. I say only that the not so neutral neutron contains opposite electric charges, assumed to be elementary charges +e and -e, not orbiting electrons.

Were you aware that experiments have been devised to test your belief, and that when they are conducted, they prove that your belief is wrong?

ETA: I mean, you write as if you are the first person who has ever actually thought seriously about the atom.

 

[bjschaeffer]

Yep. That prompts me to think of another problem with Schaffer's dumb theory: he claims to know how to calculate binding energies using "electrostatics" and "magnetostatics". You take the electrical attraction, balance it with the magnetic repulsion, and you're done, right? Well, if that were right, you'd think it would work for positronium---the e+/e- bound state---or muonium (e- mu+)---or muonic hydrogen (mu- p+)---or, say, hydrogen (p+ e-). But, oops, it doesn't work. To figure out the bound states of these systems, you use electrostatic attraction, no repulsion whatsoever, and the laws of quantum mechanics. Schaeffer's ignore-quantum-mechanics technique predicts, falsely, that all of these systems have ground states with the same MeV-ish binding energies. Fail.

Another pet crackpot peeve of mine. Test your methodology, people. Real laws of physics are supposed to apply to everything---or at least to a clearly-defined subset of everything. Schrodinger's Equation, for example. The electron doesn't know it's in a hydrogen atom, a true law-describing-electrons needs to describe them equally well in atoms, in metals, in semiconductors, or in empty space.

Quantum mechanics is implicitly taken into account through the magnetic moments, a consequence of the spin.

Positronium is like an atom not like a nucleus where the orbital movement of the shell model is unproved. The shell model is unable to calculate even the simplest nucleus beyond the proton, the deuteron.
My calculation gives the correct value of the deuteron binding energy (1.1 MeV) and recently an approximate value of the more complicated alpha particle (6 MeV for 7 experimental).

Nobody else is able to calculated any binding energy ab initio from the strong force whose fundamental laws and constants are unknown after one century of nuclear physics.

 

[bjschaeffer]

Were you aware that experiments have been devised to test your belief, and that when they are conducted, they prove that your belief is wrong?

ETA: I mean, you write as if you are the first person who has ever actually thought seriously about the atom.

What are these experiments?

 

[bjschaeffer]

This is one of my pet anti-crackpot peeves. The existence and stability of nuclei, the fact that some are stable and some unstable, the fact that nuclear binding energy includes Coulomb, surface, pairing, and shell effects ... none of that is particularly clear evidence for what we now call the Strong Force.

Good evidence for the strong force? Try: the mass spectrum of heavy mesons. Try: jet production in high-energy pp collisions. Try: deep inelastic electron-proton collisions.

To say "I've rewritten strong force theory by looking at nuclear binding energy" is like saying "I've rewritten the laws of aerodynamics by looking at a swimming bacterium."

The problem is about nuclear physics not particle physics which are not simply related to the nuclei.

 

[ben m]

I say only that the not so neutral neutron contains opposite electric charges, assumed to be elementary charges +e and -e, not orbiting electrons.

Unfortunately, although your hypothesis does describe a neutral, possibly compact object, those are the only properties of the neutron that it includes. In every other possible detail, your hypothesis disagrees with the known properties of the neutron.

Are you actually interested in following up on this, or do you prefer to ignore all nuclear data other than the bulk-binding-energy term (which, IMO, you miscalculated---i.e. you haven't even done the E&M right---anyway)?

 

[ben m]

The problem is about nuclear physics not particle physics which are not simply related to the nuclei.

You want the problem to be about nuclear physics. But particle physicists are studying the same neutrons that you are. The neutron cannot be both "a charge +/- pair held by E&M forces" when it's in a nucleus, and also "the lightest member of the baryon octet, with QCD-like scattering behavior and QCD-like excitations" when you smash two nuclei together and a neutron pops out.

 

[bjschaeffer]

Not only is it figuring out what we do see correctly (in agreement with experimental results), ben m, it is also figuring out why we don’t see what we don’t see. In the case of the standard model this would be why some particle decay modes are suppressed. In the case of Mr Schaffer’s assertions, since the charge of the proton polarizes the neutron, an electron should also polarize the neutron. So why don’t we see bound states of just a neutron and an electron like a proton and a neutron? Could it be that the neutron and proton are bound by some other force the electron does not couple with. Perhaps if bjschaeffer returns we can inquire though I fear spamming that webpage may have been the only intent.

Of course an electron may polarize the neutron but it has to be very near to the proton.

 

[bjschaeffer]

You want the problem to be about nuclear physics. But particle physicists are studying the same neutrons that you are. The neutron cannot be both "a charge +/- pair held by E&M forces" when it's in a nucleus, and also "the lightest member of the baryon octet" when you smash two nuclei together and a neutron pops out.

Particle physics has never given the fundamental laws between nucleons. The precision of the particle experiments are at best of 10% but usually it is qualitative. The precision of the nuclear masses is up to 6 digits for the proton…The strong and weak forces are pure imagination, nobody nows their fundamental laws

 

[bjschaeffer]

You want the problem to be about nuclear physics. But particle physicists are studying the same neutrons that you are. The neutron cannot be both "a charge +/- pair held by E&M forces" when it's in a nucleus, and also "the lightest member of the baryon octet, with QCD-like scattering behavior and QCD-like excitations" when you smash two nuclei together and a neutron pops out.

What formula gives QCD for the binding energy of the deuteron?

 

[Tubbythin]

The protons are not bound together in the nucleus, they repulse themselves because of the electrostatic and magnetic repulsions. They are bound with the neutrons.

And yet the excited states of nuclei with one more proton than neutron are almost identical to the excited states of the mirror nucleus with one more neutron than proton. And the difference in absolute energy can almost entirely be explained by Coulomb energy differences. Ditto nuclei with the same sum of protons and neutrons but with: two more protons than neutrons, the same number of protons as neutrons (taking in to account the Pauli principle) and two more neutrons than protons. In other words, the nuclear force doesn't know the difference between a pair or protons, a pair of neutrons and it barely knows the difference between a neutron and a proton.

 

[Tubbythin]

The strong and weak forces are pure imagination, nobody nows their fundamental laws

Erm. So gluons, W's and Z's don't exist?
I wonder how many Nobel prizes need to be handed back now.

 

[Dancing David]

I don't believe that electrons orbite the nucleus, the nucleus is not an atom because it has no nucleus, that is, a central massive body which can act as a force center. I say only that the not so neutral neutron contains opposite electric charges, assumed to be elementary charges +e and -e, not orbiting electrons.

And your assumption is just that, neutron scattering experiments confirm the quark theory of three units comprising the neutron.

three not two. -1/3, -1/3 and +2/3

 

[Dancing David]

The problem is about nuclear physics not particle physics which are not simply related to the nuclei.

Huh?

Nuclei are comprised of particles?

 

[ben m]

What formula gives QCD for the binding energy of the deuteron?

Particle physics has never given the fundamental laws between nucleons. The precision of the particle experiments are at best of 10% but usually it is qualitative. The precision of the nuclear masses is up to 6 digits for the proton…The strong and weak forces are pure imagination, nobody nows their fundamental laws

a) Yes, QCD gives the nucleon-nucleon force law. Solving it has been a multi-decadal effort which is hard to summarize for a nonexpert; there's a top-down approach, (google for "Argonne V18"), which takes as inputs the particle-physics observables (i.e., nn and np scattering experiments) and gives as an output the effective two-body potential seen by nn, np, and pp pairs inside a nucleus; the bottom-up approach of chiral effective field theory (http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.2919 for a review) which solves a series of increasingly-accurate approximations to QCD. And nuclei are multi body systems, so all two-body knowledge has to be patched into many-body physics.

I remind you: it's incumbent on you to know this sort of thing before you guess (or infer, or presume) that no such approach works.

b) No, QCD calculations cannot be carried out to high precision to give this force. If you think that is a problem: the laws of E&M and quantum physics cannot (or could not until the 1970s) predict the color of metallic gold---are quantum mechanics and E&M therefore wrong? No, rather, it's just that d-orbitals are computationally messy. The law of gravity cannot predict (or could not until the past five years or so) the infall path of colliding, spinning black holes. Does that mean GR is wrong? No, it means that it's hard.

"The calculations are too hard" is different than "the theory has a problem". There is no law of Nature saying "The Universe will only contain simple 1/r^2 force laws." QCD is computationally very hard in some domains and easy in others. It has passed all experimental tests in the "computationally easy" domains. As the theorists get better, it's also increasingly being tested (at the 1% level) in difficult domains, like meson spectra.

c) Nobody understands the weak interaction? What? Maybe you don't understand it, but don't project that onto us; the weak interaction is on par with QED in being both computationally-tractable and experimentally-tested. I invite you to name one weak-interaction-theory prediction that disagrees with experiment; I invite you to name one weak-interaction experiment for which the underlying theory is intractable.