Merged Relativity+ / Farsight

[Reality Check]

No, just a few. Then ask yourself how a point particle can exhibit angular momentum. Do not settle for the "intrinsic" cop-out that offers no answer. Think for yourself, don't let your text books do your thinking for you.

Think for yourself:

• Electrons are observed to have a magnetic moment.
• They are very small.
• A macroscopic particle as small as the electron with the observed magnetic moment will have a surface that is moving faster than the speed of light.
• This is a problem because Special Relativity states that this cannot happen.
• Thus electrons cannot be macroscopic particles. This has been known since 1925.

This leaves that electrons (and other fundamental particles) must be point particles.

Dirac equation solves spin

When the idea of electron spin was first introduced in 1925, even Wolfgang Pauli had trouble accepting Ralph Kronig's model. The problem was not that a rotating charged particle would have given rise to a magnetic field, but that the electron was so small that the equatorial speed of the electron would have to be greater than the speed of light for the magnetic moment to be of the observed strength.
In 1930, Paul Dirac developed a new version of the Schrödinger Wave Equation which was relativistically invariant, and predicted the magnetic moment correctly, and at the same time treated the electron as a point particle. In the Dirac equation all four quantum numbers including the additional quantum number s arose naturally during its solution.

 

[Reality Check]

Pay attention to optical spanner, Miles Padgett of tying light in knots, and the reality of twisted electron waves, and therefore of electron orbital angular momentum.

Pay attention to optical spanner, Miles Padgett of tying light in knots in macroscopic holograms, and the reality of wave/particle duality, and therefore of electron orbital angular momentum.

Stop spouting your mystic textbook bible. The scientific evidence says it's a real rotation.
...

Stop spouting your ignorance. The scientific evidence says it's a rotation of a point particle as described in QM. That's why the electron has a magnetic dipole moment. QED is one of the most precisely tested theory in physics.

Pay attention to the Stern-Gerlach experiment and the fact that it shows that electron particle spin is not classical. It cannot be spinning globes as in your post #386.
FYI:
The Stern-Gerlach experiment starts off with particles that classically should have a range of angular momentums. The particle source is not magically prepared to have exactly 2 orintations of spin are you think. The source is just a hunk of heated metal.

 

[Dancing David]

This gets to the heart of it. It's a circular argument and a catch-22 dismissal to defend a status quo. Just like we see in a theocracy.

Crack pot index +1 (The fact that you can't really explain your ideas and blame the 'theocracy' of science is ridiculous.)

No Farsight the problem is you have a speculative idea and you can't describe it.

BTW Here is where Gell-Mann described a particle that had not been found.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eightfold_Way_(physics)

 

[Dancing David]

No, just a few. Then ask yourself how a point particle can exhibit angular momentum. Do not settle for the "intrinsic" cop-out that offers no answer. Think for yourself, don't let your text books do your thinking for you.

So, here you are telling people about an idea but you won't explain it, you won't defend it. My guess is because you do not really know how to answer the question. You are unable to actually defend your own ideas.

The problem is you can't explain what you think.

 

[sol invictus]

The scientific evidence says it's a real rotation.

Among other things, the scientific evidence shows conclusively that when you measure the spin of the electron along some axis, you always get one of two possible answers (+ or -hbar/2). If the spin were due to ordinary rotation, any value would be possible.

That's one of the many pieces of independent evidence that spin is intrinsic.

 

[Tubbythin]

Among other things, the scientific evidence shows conclusively that when you measure the spin of the electron along some axis, you always get one of two possible answers (+ or -hbar/2). If the spin were due to ordinary rotation, any value would be possible.

That's one of the many pieces of independent evidence that spin is intrinsic.

This is one of many pieces of independent evidence that spin is non-classical. I'm not sure I understand how it is evidence that spin is "intrinsic". The projection of electron orbital angular momentum is quantized too, but I wouldn't say it was intrinsic.

 

[Skwinty]

but I wouldn't say it was intrinsic.

"
The term intrinsic denotes a property of some thing or someone or action which is essential and sexual specific to that thing or action, and which is wholly independent of any other object, action or consequence. A characteristic which is not essential or inherent is extrinsic." WP

Why not? This defintion of intrinsic seems to fit the bill.

ETA: This definition sounds good too. "In geometry, an intrinsic equation of a curve is an equation that defines the curve using a relation between the curve's intrinsic properties, that is, properties that do not depend on the location and possibly the orientation of the curve. Therefore an intrinsic equation defines the shape of the curve without specifying its position relative to an arbitrarily defined coordinate system."

 

[sol invictus]

This is one of many pieces of independent evidence that spin is non-classical. I'm not sure I understand how it is evidence that spin is "intrinsic". The projection of electron orbital angular momentum is quantized too, but I wouldn't say it was intrinsic.

Individual, isolated electrons always have spin angular momentum +-hbar/2 when measured along any axis. You never find an electron without spin, or with any other spin. By the same token individual, isolated electrons always have charge -|e|. You never find an electron without charge, or with charge -.5|e| or 2|e|. Orbital angular momentum on the other hand requires the presence of something else, like a proton, and it's a property of the combined system more than it is of the electron alone.

So it's reasonable to call the properties all isolated electrons possess intrinsic to the electron, since they evidently be removed or altered without destroying the electron or combining it with something else. A particle without those properties simply wouldn't be an electron. In fact, as far as we can tell experimentally all electrons are completely identical - so all their properties are intrinsic (not counting position, momentum, and the spin direction).

 

[Tubbythin]

Individual, isolated electrons always have spin angular momentum +-hbar/2 when measured along any axis. You never find an electron without spin, or with any other spin. By the same token individual, isolated electrons always have charge -|e|. You never find an electron without charge, or with charge -.5|e| or 2|e|.

I agree with all of this of course.

Orbital angular momentum on the other hand requires the presence of something else, like a proton, and it's a property of the combined system more than it is of the electron alone.

That's true also.

So it's reasonable to call the properties all isolated electrons possess intrinsic to the electron, since they evidently be removed or altered without destroying the electron or combining it with something else.

Well this doesn't seem to be the way Farsight is using the word intrinsic. Rightly or wrongly he seems to be using it to mean that it's a quantity that isn't measured in the classical sense.

A particle without those properties simply wouldn't be an electron. In fact, as far as we can tell experimentally all electrons are completely identical - so all their properties are intrinsic (not counting position, momentum, and the spin direction).

Agreed again.

 

[RussDill]

Well this doesn't seem to be the way Farsight is using the word intrinsic. Rightly or wrongly he seems to be using it to mean that it's a quantity that isn't measured in the classical sense.

I don't think he understands what spin means in the quantum sense, so I don't think so. He has said that the results of the Stern–Gerlach experiment (and others like it) were "misinterpreted", but has offered no explanation beyond that. His claim instead seems to be that electrons are really much larger than experiments have shown, thus allowing the electron to spin fast enough to provide the required magnetic moment. Its like the quantum nature of spin has flown completely over his head (or he is purposely ignoring it).

No, I think he views intrinsic as a bad word. I think he believes that nothing should be intrinsic and everything should have an underlying explanation/interpretation.

Farsight, is anything in your theory "intrinsic"?

 

[ben m]

I agree with everything Sol and Tubby have said, but I think it's basically a matter of semantics. There's no reason you couldn't say, for example, "The hydrogen-2P(3/2) particle is an unstable neutral fundamental particle with an intrinsic spin of 3/2. It is unstable, and decays into the hydrogen-1s(1/2) particle plus a photon. All hydrogen-2P(3/2) particles are identical and they obey the usual interchangable-fermion statistics for spin-3/2 particles. I can't change the spin, charge, or any other properties of the hydrogen-2P(3/2) particle, except by changing it into some other particle. Therefore the 3/2 spin is intrinsic."

If you lived in a world where you couldn't break hydrogen up, you didn't know about protons and electrons, etc., this logic has exactly the same logic as your statement about the electron. Heck, that's more or less what the Hadron Zoo was doing prior to Gell-Mann, Kendall, Friedman, and Taylor.

So it's just semantics. It is possible to relabel orbital angular momentum as "intrinsic" if you relabel (or misidentify) composite particles as fundamental.

That said, Farsight thinks that his raw intuition is correctly telling him that intrinsic spin always represents unseen substructure. This is nonsense. Moreover, he thinks that the particular substructure he's invented is stable and has spin-1/2. This is also nonsense. Moreover, and worst of all, he thinks that this substructure actually has the properties of the electron (charge, mass, spin, magnetic moment, and a pointlike scattering cross section down to 10^-20m) which is also nonsense. Under the circumstances, I think Farsight's claim to understand spin better than Dirac/Fermi/Feynman/etc. is fairly low on his list of crackpotteries.

 

[Farsight]

Ok, then why does a photon have anything to do with electromagnetism, and don't settle for the "intrinsic" cop-out that offers no answer.

It's an electromagnetic field variation propagating through space. I've talked about the electromagnetic field as a frame-dragged three-dimensional geometrical "twist" distortion of the space around an electron. For a photon, imagine space as a lattice of steel rods under compression. These lattice lines are all straight, so there's no discernible electromagnetic field. When a plane-polarized photon passes through there's a spatial distortion that causes lattice lines to twist. It's like you put a car jack in the middle and extended some of the steel rods to make a distortion like the outline of a wavepacket. The archtypal sinusoidal EM waveform tells you the degree of twist. It starts off gradually, goes to a positive maximum halfway up the slope of the lemon-like wavepacket outline, goes to zero at the top, then goes to a negative maximum half way down the back slope, then back to zero again.

Or how about why a traveling photon has momentum, again, don't settle for the "intrinsic" cop-out.

The car-jack analogy gives you the freeze-frame picture, the photon is a ripple of action where E=hf and p=hf/c. It's a wave, it has a kick to it like any other wave.

Or why in your theory only photons of a specific energy can perform your little dance (giving the value for the electron mass), I'd say don't do an "intrinsic" cop out here, but you claim time and again why only photons of a certain energy can do the dance, but when pressed for details, your answers always get more vague and off topic.

See the geometry and look at the h in E=hf. It's Planck's constant of action. The dimensionality of action is momentum multiplied by distance. The distance is the same for all photons. It's a displacement, a spacewarp like a gravitational wave is a spacewarp, and regardless of photon wavelength it's always 3.86 x 10^-13 m. An electron is a configuration where the spacewarp is travelling entirely through itself in a double loop, changing its own path constantly, and for this the wavelength has to be 2pi times that common amplitude, or 2.426 x 10^-12 m. Hence electrons are always 511keV.

Your imaginary pair production is the only method by which photons can be split into more than one photon (AFAIK). Your argument is thus circular and offers nothing.

Pair production isn't imaginary. It's real physics. If the energy isn't adequate to separate the electron and the positron they annihilate and the result is two 511keV gamma photons.

 

[Farsight]

No, I haven't. Nor will I.

Groan. You won't read the original Maxwell?

Nor does what he wrote in some specific book have any relevance to my post - "Maxwell's equations" means something very specific and definite to everyone that's studied physics any time in at least the last 50 years. Apparently, that doesn't include you.

Here my head thunks to my desk. They aren't Maxwell's equations. They're Heaviside's equations. If you read the original Maxwell you would know this.

Even if there's anything like that in Maxwell - which I doubt - I couldn't care less. Maxwell was working nearly 150 years ago. I probably know more than he did about electrodynamics...

No, you don't.

 

[Farsight]

So: you say it's a force, but you don't have a force law for it. You say it's a vortex but you don't know what, if anything, any of the angles mean. You say it's an EM field but you've never done one sliver of an EM calculation with it, nor related it mathematically to any other EM field. All this depicts, Farsight, is the vague mental picture that floats around in your head when you daydream about whirlpools in water and imagine that electrons are doing the same thing. You're the one who keeps bringing up whirlpools in water. Those are fluid dynamics. If you don't want to talk about fluid dynamics, stop bringing them up.

You're in denial. Try out the Falaco soliton. What's the problem?

 

[Farsight]

Well its clearly not classical angular momentum. Given the maximum size of the electron and the magnitude of the spin, the electron would have to be spinning at many times the speed of light. That's all the experimental evidence you need to know that spin does not correspond to classical angular momentum.

I've covered this already in post #386. Read it and understand the non-sequitur.

That is the EXACT opposite of what the scientific evidence says.

No it isn't. The electron has a magnetic dipole moment. It's a real rotation.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Pair production isn't imaginary. It's real physics. If the energy isn't adequate to separate the electron and the positron they annihilate and the result is two 511keV gamma photons.

It's not pair production that's imaginary, it is Farsight pair production that is imaginary. We cannot build any machine with the idea of Farsight pair production. We cannot do any experiment to find Farsight pair production. All we have is your word that Farsight pair production has anything to do with pair production. You have never given us a full and adequate description of how Farsight pair production works, despite years of people asking for such a description. You cannot even find the correct equation in your own citation to another author, so we know that Farsight pair production is not Williamson pair production.

It may be that you have a full description, but that you know it's inadequate. In any case, we know that there is no adequate Farsight pair production theory on the table. We have no scientific evidence for Farsight pair production, because you have given us no way to test for Farsight pair production.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Here my head thunks to my desk. They aren't Maxwell's equations. They're Heaviside's equations. If you read the original Maxwell you would know this.

I doubt that you have read any Maxwell either, but that is beside the point. If you had read any actual physics, you would know what people refer to as "Maxwell's equations". It is a proper name, not an attribution of ownership. What matters to physics is the physics, not your (poor) literary analysis.

I've covered this already in post #386. Read it and understand the non-sequitur.

OK, so show us your equations that get around the speed of light limit for electron rotation and that account for quantized spin.

 

[ben m]

You're in denial. Try out the Falaco soliton. What's the problem?

I've done it; I've spent plenty of time in canoes. The laws of fluid mechanics allow semi-stable whirlpools to exist, and allow them to interact. So what?

Electrons aren't obeying the laws of fluid mechanics---certainly not in the standard model, and again not in your hypothesis. I don't learn anything about electrons from looking at vortices in a completely unrelated system. I mean, why not have me look at interacting tops, or dervishes, or pinned flux lines in a superconductor, or lattice defects, or some other unrelated system which contains interacting objects?

 

[Farsight]

Think for yourself:

• Electrons are observed to have a magnetic moment.
• They are very small.
• A macroscopic particle as small as the electron with the observed magnetic moment will have a surface that is moving faster than the speed of light.
• This is a problem because Special Relativity states that this cannot happen.
• Thus electrons cannot be macroscopic particles. This has been known since 1925.

This leaves that electrons (and other fundamental particles) must be point particles.

No it doesn't, not at all. A classical spherical spinning particle would have a surface spinning faster than light. I was talking earlier to a guy called lpetrich who knows his stuff, and he accused me of being too literal minded, like I was promoting some straw-man myth that particles are points. He said "The particles are not little billiard balls or whatever, but quantum fields that follow field equations". The Dirac equation is a wavefunction equation. See http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/qm2/modules/m9/dirac.htm for a better article. Itdoesn't talk about point particles at all. ψ₁ is a two-component spinor. Follow the spinor link. This is non-relativistic, but pay attention to "We must also specify its spin variables in spin space Es..." and lower down "For the electron Es is two-dimensional."[/url] There are no point particles. Point particles cannot exhibit angular momentum.

 

[Farsight]

...The Stern-Gerlach experiment starts off with particles that classically should have a range of angular momentums. The particle source is not magically prepared to have exactly 2 orientations of spin...

Of course it isn't. The particles have two orientations of spin.