Merged Relativity+ / Farsight

[Reality Check]

I'm not ignoring any of the above. Pair production is where we make an electron and a positron from a photon. We create charge, and mass, magnetic moment, and spin 1/2. Why do you cling to the conviction that it's something mystical that cannot be explained classically? It can.

"We" do not create charge, magnetic moment, and mass and spin 1/2.
These obey physical and conservation laws.

1. Charge is conserved: The electron has a measured charge. A photon does not.
2. Mass is conserved: The electron has a measured mass. A photon has no mass.
3. The electron has a measured magnetic moment. A photon has no magnetic moment.
4. Spin obeys QM rules: The electron has a measured quantum mechanical spin of 1/2. A photon has a quantum mechanical spin of 1. There is no way that a spin of 1 can be made into a spin of 1/2.
   You could be ignorant enough to treat the spin classically, put the photon into a path that includes a twist and think that the average spin is 1/2. You would be wrong:
   The opposite spin to +1 is -1. An average would be 0.
   Classical spins need a force to change their orientation.

I have no issue with The electromagnetic field has electric and magnetic components. But there is no sense in which relative motion creates a magnetic field. A reference frame isn't something that exists. It's just a formalism for describing motion and measurement. When you move, you measure it differently. That electromagnetic field didn't change just because you moved through it. Do you get this yet?

Are you stating that there is no magnetic field due to a moving charge, i.e. that all of electromagnetism is wrong?
Or that there is always a magnetic field but it magically does nothing in some circumstances?

And what is your position on relativistic mass which is also "created" by relative velocities?

A reference frame is a formalism that has no reality in itself. It has real physicsl effects. Read any textbook on relativity.

 

[ben m]

I'd like to highlight the fact that Farsight is so far talking as though the only property of charge is that it's a conserved quantity which shows up in e+e- pair production. If I gave you a blank slate and said, "Look, design a system in which aa --> bc and bc-->aa are both valid reactions", you might invent a scheme in which a,b, and c are the same thing in three different configurations. That'd look OK for ab -> ab and ac -> ac as well. You'd have to make up some conservation law to prevent aa->bb and ab -> ac and so on, but you might find this satisfying and call it a success.

But that's not the situation we're in, Farsight. Charge isn't a mysterious conserved quantity we invented to explain the lack of electron-electron pair production. Charge is the quantity which appears as a source in electrostatics, the quantity for which like-repels-like and opposites-attract, etc. Your random guess at "abc are the same thing" can work to uncover a conserved quantity that you have no other handle on---the early bookkeeping of "strangeness" in hadrons worked this way---but charge is not such a property. We know enough about charge to know specifically that it is not made up of photons going in any sort of loop whatsoever.

 

[sol invictus]

I'd like to highlight the fact that Farsight is so far talking as though the only property of charge is that it's a conserved quantity which shows up in e+e- pair production. If I gave you a blank slate and said, "Look, design a system in which aa --> bc and bc-->aa are both valid reactions", you might invent a scheme in which a,b, and c are the same thing in three different configurations. That'd look OK for ab -> ab and ac -> ac as well. You'd have to make up some conservation law to prevent aa->bb and ab -> ac and so on, but you might find this satisfying and call it a success.

Which he actually hasn't done. According to Farsight's "model", there's nothing wrong with electron+electron --> photons, or just electron-->photon(s) for that matter. After all each electron is just made of photons, so what stops them from decaying to them? Similarly electron+photon --> positron+photon is fine too. Of course none of those processes ever happen.

All of those unphysical possibilities are manifestations of the same basic problem with the "model" - electrons cannot be made of photons, because photons aren't charged.

 

[Reality Check]

Which he actually hasn't done. According to Farsight's "model", there's nothing wrong with electron+electron --> photons, or just electron-->photon(s) for that matter. After all each electron is just made of photons, so what stops them from decaying to them? Similarly electron+photon --> positron+photon is fine too. Of course none of those processes ever happen.

All of those unphysical possibilities are manifestations of the same basic problem with the "model" - electrons cannot be made of photons, because photons aren't charged.

That does pose a yet another nasty problem for Farsight's idea:
Farsight:

• What does your idea predict for the decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
• What is the measured decay rate of an electron into a single photon?
• What does this say about the conservation of charge?

FYI: Particle physics experiments have observed trillions of interactions. The results are extensively studied. Physicists are especially interested when particles "vanish", i.e. a charged particle is tracked to a point and then is no longer visible. This is a signature of a decay process, e.g. muon decay. Of course what they always see is that there are one or more charged particles resulting from the decay.

 

[Mashuna]

Now come on Sol, you'll have to do better than that for "proves that the electron cannot be made of photons." LOL, you make me feel like a cage fighter up against a Sunday school kid.

In a bible verse competition, maybe.

 

[Farsight]

...We understand spin down to about the most profound level we understand anything in the world.

No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic". That's a non-explanation. And you believe it with such conviction you dismiss two-dimensional real rotation. Think about that glass clock. From the front you say the hands are moving clockwise. From the back you say they're moving anticlockwise. Now I spin the clock like a coin. Which way are the hands going? You can't say any more. But you can tell the difference if the rotations are reversed. That's why a positron is a "time reversed" electron. It isn't going back in time. The rotations are backwards.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Can you demonstrate any of this with the proper mathematics?

 

[Farsight]

Just show us how the mathematics in the Minkowski paper that you cited match up with your claims about the appearance of the electromagnetic field. This is something that should be straightforward.

No it isn't. He talks about motive force vectors and four dimensions, but he didn't understand that t is an emergent property of motion.

Why is it that you refuse to answer any of my questions? Do they cut so deep that you can't face yourself when you consider them?

No, it's because your questions aren't genuine, because you're only interested in stifling this discussion. I've already said I can't explain what lies beneath the mathematics with more mathematics.

Regardless, this does nothing to answer any questions about the physics, which seems to be exactly why you were banned from the baut forums.

I was banned from baut because a moderator there was a guy like you.

 

[ben m]

No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic". That's a non-explanation.

What makes it a non-explanation? Only your opinion that all angular momenta need to be the same as the L = v x r angular momenta in classical physics. Sorry, Farsight, your faith in classical physics is a blind faith and is misplaced.

We have a large amount of evidence that classical physics is wrong (quantum mechanics generally) and furthermore a lot of evidence that the electron spin is really truly intrinsic. Saying it's intrinsic is NOT brushing it under the rug---there's a lot of quantum mechanics telling us that it's intrinsic.

 

[Farsight]

On this silliness about the EM field:

"That electromagnetic field didn't change just because you moved through it."

Let's see about that. Lorentz transformations include rotations and boosts (changes in velocity). Mathematically, those are very very similar. When acting on the EM field-strength tensor, rotations change the components of the electric and magnetic fields as if they were ordinary vectors but do not mix the electric and magnetic components, while boosts mix the electric and magnetic fields. So the situation you're getting so worked up about is very analogous to the effect of a rotation on a vector, and so let's consider that instead (since it's easier to visualize).

OK.

So here, I'll translate your statement into one about vectors: "The direction that spaceship is moving didn't change just because you turned around." Is that true?

Yes.

Let's say originally the spaceship (I'm floating in outer space, with only this single ship in view and no other points of reference) was moving from my left to my right. After I turn around it's moving from my right to my left. So it did change direction relative to me (or more accurately relative to a vector that's fixed to my body, for example the one pointing in the direction I can see). Obviously the ship didn't change direction with respect to something else just because I turned around (unless that thing also rotated), but it did change direction relative to me. Since "relative to me" is just as good as any other frame, I'm perfectly justified in saying that it did change direction just because I turned around.

Your motion does not affect the spaceship. Just as when you increase your speed a star doesn't flatten. The way you see it changes, not the thing itself.

The analogy to the EM field under boosts is much exact, so if you agree with the above, you agree that the EM field did change "just because" you moved through it. If you don't, it's just a matter of semantics - the math is totally unambiguous (for those that understand it, at least).

It's not just a matter of semantics. It's a matter of getting to grips with reality. The EM field is the EM field. When you move through it, it doesn't change. The way you see it changes. That's all.

 

[ben m]

I've already said I can't explain what lies beneath the mathematics with more mathematics.

So far, Farsight, you haven't been able to explain anything using any technique whatsoever. All we have learned from you is that you want electrons to be made of photons.

Without math, how are you planning to tell whether "what lies beneath the math" is right or wrong?

 

[Farsight]

You can't offer "in my hypothesis, e and nu are different because the e has two rotations" as a response to "what are the observed differences between e and nu".

Accepted.

The only observed difference is the charge.

Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron. It isn't merely a lightweight electron without charge.

We dropped this point a while back, but let's get back to it. There is nothing corkscrew-like about the electromagnetic field of an electron. Nothing whatsoever.

No? Then explain why Minkowski referred to a wrench analogy, and Maxwell referred to a screw mechanism. One field exerts a radial force, and a rotational force when you move through it. I've provided the scientific evidence with the right hand rule, downward motion past a vertical stack of electrons, and that reamer in your fist. Where's yours?

 

[Tubbythin]

So explain how it works.

Define "explain". Because we have some astonishingly precise theories which explain exactly how things like pair production works. But apparently that isn't good enough. Apparently the only thing good enough is vague ramblings illustrated with pictures and no quantitative support whatsoever.

Shrug. Pair production happens.

I know. But it is not the dominant process at threshold energies. That was all I said. And yet you just keep on posting the same pretty picture for no reason at all.

[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Pairproduction.png[/qimg]

Yes. That one.

You don't understand that either. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation#History and note "Despite these successes, Dirac's theory is flawed by its neglect of the possibility of creating and destroying particles, one of the basic consequences of relativity."

I never said it explained everything.

LOL. A carefully crafted argument.

An accurate one.

 

[Tubbythin]

Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron. It isn't merely a lightweight electron without charge.

Err what? Electrons move to you know.

 

[Tubbythin]

Look at my second post and the right hand rule: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5700835&postcount=2
Look at my other posts.

What about it?

There's evidence galore, but you refuse to admit it as evidence because you've got Morton's Demon sitting on your shoulder.

Nope. Physics is a quantitative science. If its not quantitative it aint physics. You've completely failed to quantify anything. You've completely failed to do physics.

Read this:

http://www.answersincreation.org/mortond.htm

Make sure you read it. Then think about it. The difference between you and me Tubby, is that three years back I realised that there were things that I thought I understood, but I didn't.

That happens virtually every day with me.

And then I really understood the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Those YECs aren't so special. Other people believe in things for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Things like time travel. And parallel worlds,

So.

and tiny vibrating strings and unseen dimensions. And supersymmetry.

A case can be made for investigating these things. Quite how strong the case is another question.

Even though they don't understand the electron.

We have a theory describing the electron that just happens to be one of the greatest, more precisely tested theories of physics in human history. And you want to reject it because you don't understand it and word rather explain things in terms of nice flowery words.

 

[Tubbythin]

Compton scattering doesn't destroy photons, it robs them of energy. An inverse Compton gives it back. Electron properties tell us about the structure of the electron. Mass, charge, spin, magnetic dipole moment, zitterbewegung. There's something moving in there, and it's going round. How anybody can dismiss pair production and accept the mysticism that parcels all this up as "instrinsic" and "elementary" and still consider themselves a rational scientist beats me.

Farsight, have you ever looked up the experimental limit on the maximum size of the electron? Have you ever then tried to calculate the speed at which the electron must be spinning in order for it to have in the classical sense, the angular momentum we call spin?

 

[ben m]

Your motion does not affect the spaceship. Just as when you increase your speed a star doesn't flatten. The way you see it changes, not the thing itself.

You're making the (very common) assumption that the star's rest frame is somehow the "real" one---containing the star's real shape---and everyone else is just "seeing it differently". No, in special relativity the quantity you want to call the star's "shape" is simply not an invariant. It's an observer dependent quantity.

If you want to figure out what the actual invariant quantity is---and there is one---and therefore make true statements instead of false ones, you'll need to do it more carefully. The ability to do this correctly, and avoid doing it incorrectly, is highly correlated with the ability to DO THE MATH.

 

[Tubbythin]

I can't see that

You said:

Until then, look at the evidence of electron/positron pair production and annihilation. You typically achieve the former by splitting a +1022keV photon over a nucleus.

You were wrong. That is it.

 

[ben m]

Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron.

What?

 

[sol invictus]

No you don't sol. You don't understand electron spin. You say it's "intrinsic".

No, I didn't. I explained it in terms of representations of the Poincare group. You have no idea what that means. That's your problem, not mine.

Your motion does not affect the spaceship.

Sure it does. When I rotate, there's a "fictitious force" that grabs the ship and swings it violently around. That's a completely consistent description, one that's exactly equivalent to any other valid description (and by the way, it's the one we tend to use on earth - ever heard of Coriolis force?).

Not so. The neutrino moves. Don't forget that. This makes it very very different to the electron.

?????

It isn't merely a lightweight electron without charge.

That's exactly what it is.