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How can an electron be dimensionless?

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Chuck Fuller

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Jun 5, 2003, 11:42:09 AM6/5/03
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Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless? I
have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
would like further clarification. I would think that if it is
dimensionless (possesses no internal structure) then if it tried to
move in a direction it would get nowhere. Shouldn't dimensionless
things have to remain stationary? If they tried to move in a
particular direction it seems like they would instantly forfeit their
dimensionlessness. What am I missing here?

Uncle Al

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Jun 5, 2003, 12:18:33 PM6/5/03
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Chuck Fuller wrote:
>
> Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
> propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
> anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless?

All leptons are point particles. High energy scattering experiments
show no structure at at any accessible scale.

I
> have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
> would like further clarification. I would think that if it is
> dimensionless (possesses no internal structure) then if it tried to
> move in a direction it would get nowhere.

Talk less, think more. Why do you maintain thaat a coordinate cannot
translate?

[snip]

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!

Gregory L. Hansen

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Jun 5, 2003, 1:33:07 PM6/5/03
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In article <bb664990.03060...@posting.google.com>,

Chuck Fuller <myron...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
>propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
>anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless? I

Probably not.

>have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
>would like further clarification. I would think that if it is

If it had internal structure, cut it up and ask the same question about
its components.

The sizes and internal structure of particles can be measured in
scattering experiments. Electrons will scatter differently from each
depending on whether the electric field goes as 1/r^2 down to some outer
radius and then flattens or rounds out, or if it's 1/r^2 all the way in.
Relating internal structure to scattering experiments is a pretty
complicated exercise.

>dimensionless (possesses no internal structure) then if it tried to
>move in a direction it would get nowhere. Shouldn't dimensionless
>things have to remain stationary? If they tried to move in a
>particular direction it seems like they would instantly forfeit their
>dimensionlessness. What am I missing here?

Then don't move the particle, move yourself, instead. If you believe in
relativity it doesn't matter which one of you is moving.

--
"Is that plutonium on your gums?"
"Shut up and kiss me!"
-- Marge and Homer Simpson

Rene Tschaggelar

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Jun 5, 2003, 4:43:14 PM6/5/03
to

You're not meaning dimensionless, but sizeless.
Since it acts in 3D, it is a 3D particle, no ?

It is not known how big it is, it just happens
to act as if the size was as close to zero as
the measurement permits.

Rene
--
Ing.Buero R.Tschaggelar - http://www.ibrtses.com
& commercial newsgroups - http://www.talkto.net

Double-A

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Jun 5, 2003, 5:26:41 PM6/5/03
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myron...@comcast.net (Chuck Fuller) wrote in message news:<bb664990.03060...@posting.google.com>...


Is it really a point?

See: http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/970110.Koltick.electron.html

Double-A

Uncle Al

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Jun 5, 2003, 6:46:35 PM6/5/03
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It is well-measured that electrostatic 1/r^2 breaks down (slightly) at
very small distances. It doesn't bear on an electron, or any lepton,
being a point particle or not. The core is clothed in Feynman
diagrams. At sufficiently small distances you see some quantum
jingle-jangle raher than a smooth approximation.

Old Man

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Jun 5, 2003, 8:49:46 PM6/5/03
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Chuck Fuller <myron...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:bb664990.03060...@posting.google.com...

Whatever the word, "dimensionless", means, it doesn't apply to the
electron or to any other type of lepton. Chuck is probably referring
to the spatial extent of the electron's electro-weak charge distribution.
QED treats the electron as a point charge, and so far, experimental
measurements agree with QED predictions. The electron interacts
with other elementary particles in all three spatial dimensions.
[Old Man]


Herman Trivilino

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Jun 5, 2003, 9:33:30 PM6/5/03
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"Chuck Fuller" <myron...@comcast.net> wrote ...

> Shouldn't dimensionless
> things have to remain stationary? If they tried to move in a
> particular direction it seems like they would instantly forfeit their
> dimensionlessness. What am I missing here?

Who told you that electrons are dimensionless? It seems to me that you'd be
better off thinking of them as "sizeless". Bottom line: There is no
evidence that they do have a size. Any presumption on the part of a human
being that they must have a size is just that, a presumption. There is no
experimental evidence to support that presumption.

Think of it this way. You have no such presumption about a particle having
zero charge. Or zero color. Or a zero amount of just about any property
you can imagine. Yet there is something about zero size, and also zero
mass, that bothers the heck out of some people.

History is full of such "bothers". It's often been shown that these
bothersome things are based upon our notion of how things ought to be. But
very often, things are nothing like what we think they ought to be.


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Chuck Fuller

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Jun 5, 2003, 10:18:23 PM6/5/03
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Uncle Al <Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote in message news:<3EDF6D59...@hate.spam.net>...

> Chuck Fuller wrote:
> >
> > Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
> > propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
> > anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless?
>
> All leptons are point particles. High energy scattering experiments
> show no structure at at any accessible scale.
>
> I
> > have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
> > would like further clarification. I would think that if it is
> > dimensionless (possesses no internal structure) then if it tried to
> > move in a direction it would get nowhere.
>
> Talk less, think more. Why do you maintain thaat a coordinate cannot
> translate?
>
> [snip]

A coordinate can translate, but not something that's truly
dimensionless. Big difference between a dimensionless point and a
point that's just so small to us that it seems like a point (but is in
fact still 3D). I think I was thinking they meant that the electron
was the former instead of the latter.

Uncle Al

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Jun 5, 2003, 10:19:54 PM6/5/03
to

An electron is a geometric point. If your little mammal brain cannot
abide moving a zero-dimensional point, leave it where it is and you
move the coordinate frame. Bingo. The point is translated.

Steve Harris

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Jun 6, 2003, 1:33:35 AM6/6/03
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"Uncle Al" <Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote in message
news:3EDFFA4A...@hate.spam.net...

> An electron is a geometric point.


I always assumed electrons where little mobius strips (2-D
branes with a twist), all far less than 10^-20 m in
diameter.

Why mobius? Well, you have to rotate them 720 degrees, not
360, to get back the same thing. Spin 1/2 particles are
mobius strips, and spin 1's are just circles (not circular
stings, but circular 2-D strips). Only non-composite spin 0
particles (maybe the Higgs) are actually geometric points.
As befits something that fills all space and is sort of an
non-nothing etheric background for everything. It's very
Euclidean <>g>.

Extension to 3/2 and spin 2 particles is obvious. Haven't
you ever made Mobius stips with 3 half-twists, or 4?

SBH


FrediFizzx

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Jun 6, 2003, 2:35:31 AM6/6/03
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"Steve Harris" <sbha...@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote in message
news:bbp93g$kuv$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...

|
| "Uncle Al" <Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote in message
| news:3EDFFA4A...@hate.spam.net...
| > An electron is a geometric point.
|
|
| I always assumed electrons where little mobius strips (2-D
| branes with a twist), all far less than 10^-20 m in
| diameter.

What makes you think 10^-20 m? And what would the width of the strips be?
If you try to localize an electron to a volume with a radius smaller than
about the Compton wavelength divided by 2pi (3.86*10^-13 m) you will start
to produce electron positron pairs and then you will not be able to tell
which one is the one you are trying to deal with.

FrediFizzx


keith stein

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Jun 6, 2003, 3:04:39 AM6/6/03
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"Chuck Fuller" <myron...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:bb664990.03060...@posting.google.com...

Well i don't promise that this is going to help you, Chuck, but instead of
thinking of the electron as being infinitely small you could do what i do
(sometimes). Try thinking of an electron as being infinitely BIG! Very
soft and squishy at the edges, and increasingly firm as you approach the
centre.

That way it's just like everything else, in that the centre of everything is
a dimensionless point eh!

keith stein

Charles Cagle

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Jun 6, 2003, 5:43:04 AM6/6/03
to
In article <3EDF6D59...@hate.spam.net>, Uncle Al
<Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote:

> Chuck Fuller wrote:
> >
> > Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
> > propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
> > anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless?
>
> All leptons are point particles. High energy scattering experiments
> show no structure at at any accessible scale.

Mr. Fuller,

Uncle Al is a regurgitator. He has read that leptons are point
particles and as self appointed guard to the hallways of consensus he's
sworn to knee-jerk respond if given the proper stimulus. You can count
on him.

The first thing wrong with ordinary conceptions of quantum particles is
that people like Uncle Al still think of them as having the
characteristics of macro objects like baseballs which have discrete
visual trajectories. The first rule (or axiom) of quantum particles is
that:

1) Quantum particles can have motion only with respect to other quantum
particles and not with respect to any arbitrarily contrived coordinate
system.

This single axiom has more meat on its bone that all of modern particle
physics theories put together.

First, it essentially tells you that a single particle in a universe of
n particles can potentially have motion with respect to n-1 other
quantum particles. It can simultaneously prosecute n-1 trajectories.

But a single dynamic relationship between two quanta is not like
ordinary motion in coordinate space but really is much more primitive.
It consists of a time rate of change of a one dimensional relationship
and one can give it the following notation (as an example) <15 m/s> or
>15 m/s<. The outer brackets <> indicate recession, which means the
particles one dimensional relationship is increasing or in the case of
>< it means that the one dimensional relationship is decreasing.

The arrows endow the rate of change with a primitive noncoordinate
system type of vector-ness which is that the particles are either
headed right toward one another or are going in opposite directions
(except without a coordinate system you don't really have a direction).
So, they are either approaching or receding. In either case the arrows
indicate they are going in opposite directions.

At this point I need to introduce the idea of a 'whole particle'.

But let me recap first.

Recall that in a universe with a finite number, n, of particles that
any one particle would have possible relationships between n-1 other
particles.

Using combinatorics we can see that any one particle is connected in
this relationship fashion to n-1 other particles so we can multiply
n*(n-1) and see that there are (n^2)-n relationships. There are
((n^2)-n)/2 pairwise combinations of particles. Every relationship set
consists of two relationships which is composed of a set of two arrows
pointing in opposite directions. So, now, at this point I can
introduce the idea of a 'whole' particle which consists of the n-1
inward pointers (primitive velocity vectors) and n-1 outward pointers.
I call them 'primitive' because they are not related to a coordinate
system but only to a particle. We can call these primitive velocity
relationships 'velocity potentials'. We can see that velocity
potentials come in sets and we can refer to them as a velocity
potential and its conjugate. Now to complete the idea of a whole
particle we also have a quantum scale loop which consists of a velocity
potential and its conjugate so that the whole particle really consists
of n velocity potentials and their conjugates. (See below for why it
became necessary to develop this idea).

Now, if I could split a 'whole particle' into two 'half particles', one
all inward pointing velocity potentials and one all outward pointing
velocity potentials and the two loop components which are conjugates
one of the other then I would have two 'bundles' of velocity
potentials. Such a 'bundle' would constitute the unit charge and the
'field' of a charged particle, by this model of the unit charge would
consist of n-1 velocity potentials.

Geometrically, a charged particle is a loop with n-1 velocity
potentials pointing outward (for a source) or inward (for a sink).

This 'Whole Particle' is an Archetype and one worth paying attention to.

With this model, now you have a means of visualizing the nature of the
unit charge and you can see that the 'field' of a charged particle is
not a continuous structure at all but really consists of a large but
finite number of velocity potentials. A velocity potential which
begins on a source terminates on a sink so that every source is linked
to every sink and vice versa

As I see it there is a continuous symmetry because each velocity
potential has its necessary conjugate. Each half particle is a set of
velocity potentials and there is a one-to-one mapping between sets such
that both the function or relationship between the velocity potential
and its inverse are continuous because they emerge from the continuous
center of momentum frame relationship so the half particles, because
they are continuously related to one another, are a kind of
homeomorphism as I see it. Thus, it doesn't matter if the 'whole'
particle exists at one place or if it split up half existing one place
and half at another place, the point is that each velocity potential
pair remains a correlated pair so that even if a whole particle is
split into a sink and a source they remain completely and continuously
correlated with every other particle in the universe. The idea of a
particle being at a place can be 'replaced' by the correct notion that
it is at all places or at least it is connected to all places.

So, by using this sort of construction, it appears to me that the
esthetic requirement of symmetry is maintained because it is a
continuous function (center of momentum frame, that is). This makes
this model consistent with Emmy Noether's theorem:

"For every continuous symmetry of the laws of physics, there must exist
a conservation law. For every conservation law, there must exist a
continuous symmetry."

But the really nice part about this model is that it tells us that the
continuous symmetry emerges out of motion and that a proper grasp of it
tells us that the origin of charge is motion and hence that the primary
symmetry we should look for in the origin of matter is not matter vs.
antimatter but rather we should recognize that matter comes into
existence as charge conjugate pairs.


So what I have emerging here is a model for a charged particle but it
turns out that there is nothing else to the particle. In other words
the particle is a bundle of these velocity potentials each of which is
really just a pointer to some one other bundle of such velocity
potentials in the universe.

Now, a long time ago, it occurred to me that if this model had anything
at all to do with a reasonable model of charge then it couldn't end
here with the velocity potentials pointing inward and outward from a
point and so I wondered what might be the next minimal structure which
would accommodate other aspects of particles. All that occurred to me
is that the next step would be a line, but not any line, but rather a
closed line. So, if the velocity potentials terminated and originated
at closed lines then we could conceive of equipotential surfaces in
onion layer skins around a closed line and such equipoential surfaces
give us at least the conception of a torus. The torus is composed of
two orthogonal curves. E could lie along the toroidal axis and H could
lie orthogonal to the toroidal axis. Now one has E X H = P and we have
the Poynting vector as a normal to the surface and in fact P then
becomes or already is the normal to the closed line at every point. So
there appears to be a relationship between P and the velocity
potentials at any point. Both of them represent movement which is
normal to the closed line. Integrating the Poynting vector over the
closed surface yields the total power crossing the surface in an
outward sense. This is for a half particle. For a 'whole particle'
if the Poynting vector is the same as the primitive velocity potential
then we have the Poynting vector 'pointing' both inward and outward at
each point. If the Poynting vector represents motion the velocity
potential and its conjugate represent null motion. Now take one more
tiny little step with me and I'll show you how this model also permits
us to unify electromagnetism and gravity. Recall the model of a
'Whole' particle? A quantum loop - a velocity potential and its
conjugate in a small closed loop and with n-1 normals to the loop each
of which is a velocity potential and its conjugate? What we have,
then, is a 'particle' which has a null motion gradient. And that, my
friends, is the unit gravitational charge.

Now it you want lesson number two, let me know.

(Not you Uncle Al, - Your brightness built your ego and your ego makes
you blind) Objectivity = 1/ego

Think more, talk less, Uncle Al.

Charles Cagle

Frodo Morris

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Jun 6, 2003, 8:44:58 AM6/6/03
to
Charles Cagle wrote:
> In article <3EDF6D59...@hate.spam.net>, Uncle Al
> <Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Chuck Fuller wrote:
>>
>>>Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
>>>propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
>>>anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless?
>>
>>All leptons are point particles. High energy scattering experiments
>>show no structure at at any accessible scale.
>
>
> Mr. Fuller,
>
> Uncle Al is a regurgitator. He has read that leptons are point
> particles and as self appointed guard to the hallways of consensus he's
> sworn to knee-jerk respond if given the proper stimulus. You can count
> on him.
>
Did you ever consider the possibility of looking at experimental results
of measurements on electron "size" before you claimed superior knowledge?

The electron does not display any extension at any scale so far probed.
One clue to its having a 'parton' structure would be a non-zero
electric dipole moment. As a quick flick through the PDG review will
tell you, the experimentally determined dipole moment is consistent with
zero to within one sigma.

Some theories guess that the electron may have a finite extension, but
this is on the scale of <<10^-30m, at least fifteen orders of magnitude
smaller than scales current accelerators can probe. The energies
required to examine these scales are orders of magnitude larger than the
GZK cutoff, meaning that even ultra high energy cosmic rays will not
help us explore this regime.

So, a recap: the electron appears to be a point particle. It will
continue to appear to be a point particle until - and if - evidence is
reviewed and published and confirmed showing otherwise.
--
Frodo Morris http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wadh1342
All your bast are belong to us AKA Graham Lee, Wadham College
SpectrumSofts currently on show at URL/speccy/: Speccy@Home SETI Client
Also the home of iloveyou.bas, the first PC virus ported to the ZX82!!!

Steve Harris

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Jun 6, 2003, 1:27:45 PM6/6/03
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"FrediFizzx" <fredi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bbpcnj$c3dr0$1...@ID-185976.news.dfncis.de...

> | I always assumed electrons where little mobius strips
(2-D
> | branes with a twist), all far less than 10^-20 m in
> | diameter.
>
> What makes you think 10^-20 m? And what would the width
of the strips be?
> If you try to localize an electron to a volume with a
radius smaller than
> about the Compton wavelength divided by 2pi (3.86*10^-13
m) you will start
> to produce electron positron pairs and then you will not
be able to tell
> which one is the one you are trying to deal with.
>
> FrediFizzx

Electrons are certainly experimentally point-like to much
much smaller than the Compton wavelength, so your objections
are experimentally disproven. Which means you need to
rethink.

You can localize an electron to any size you like, so long
as the energy and momentum uncertainty are high enough.
Positrons are certainly a part of the picture at
distances/sizes which give high enough E field strengths,
but they are virtual particles and they don't show up as
free positrons. This is all a well-tested part of
point-particle theory, so why are you grousing about it with
my little Mobius strips?


G=EMC^2 Glazier

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Jun 6, 2003, 9:14:58 PM6/6/03
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A million million million electrons can sit on the point of a pin. That
is just about one amp. Bert

Sam Wormley

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Jun 7, 2003, 12:20:54 AM6/7/03
to
G=EMC^2 Glazier wrote:
>
> A million million million electrons can sit on the point of a pin. That
> is just about one amp. Bert


Possible the head of a pin, bit not a single point.

Pauli Exclusion Principle
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/PauliExclusionPrinciple.html

Fermion
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Fermion.html

Y.Porat

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Jun 7, 2003, 1:18:43 AM6/7/03
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Frodo Morris <graha...@wadham.ox.invalid.ac.uk> wrote in message news:<bbq2dg$gqa$1...@news.ox.ac.uk>...

> Charles Cagle wrote:
> > In article <3EDF6D59...@hate.spam.net>, Uncle Al
> > <Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Chuck Fuller wrote:
> >>
> >>>Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
> >>>propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
> >>>anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless?
> >>
> >>All leptons are point particles. High energy scattering experiments
> >>show no structure at at any accessible scale.
> >
> >
> > Mr. Fuller,
> >
> > Uncle Al is a regurgitator. He has read that leptons are point
> > particles and as self appointed guard to the hallways of consensus he's
> > sworn to knee-jerk respond if given the proper stimulus. You can count
> > on him.
> >
> Did you ever consider the possibility of looking at experimental results
> of measurements on electron "size" before you claimed superior knowledge?
>
> The electron does not display any extension at any scale so far probed.
> One clue to its having a 'parton' structure would be a non-zero
> electric dipole moment. As a quick flick through the PDG review will
> tell you, the experimentally determined dipole moment is consistent with
> zero to within one sigma.
> -------------------
you dont have to wait for experimental proves to understand
that the electron *is not a point particle*!
just make some use of your brain.
for instance:
a point 'final' particle, cannot emmit something from itself
2 may be you still dont know:
all crystals and metal latice are built of ....
something tyhat has a constant unit length wich is much more than
that 10 exp ...... so small as is 'quated'
it is about 2 angstrom and always with that *exact unchanged length*
it is 'the expansion of Avogadros law from the Gas state
to the solid state'
such and exact and *constant orbital length* which is narow
and longish
cannot ! be done unless it is composed of a conglomeration
of subparticles connected linearily!!
no other easonable explanation for a very constant length
you dont have to accept it
just keep it in memory that Y.Porat told you something like that.
(and dont forget from whom you first heared it (:-))
i suppose thre are too many indications for the electron
not to be a point particle, we have just to pick them up
and collect one to the other to get at least
what is called in the legal world as *at least*
'circumstantial evidemce'
but not for parrots.
all the best
Y.porat
--------------------

Charles Cagle

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Jun 7, 2003, 5:56:29 AM6/7/03
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In article <10448-3EE...@storefull-2354.public.lawson.webtv.net>,
G=EMC^2 Glazier <herbert...@webtv.net> wrote:

> A million million million electrons can sit on the point of a pin. That
> is just about one amp. Bert

How do you propose to get them to sit there? And if they are sitting
there then how can they be a current?

The charge on an electron is (mks) 1.60219e-19 Coulomb and hence a
negative charge of one coulomb is about 6e18 or six times your million
million million electrons which by the way are hardly ever 'sitting'
since they are moving around at about 115,000 m/s at 20C.

Charles Cagle

Jeff Relf

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Jun 7, 2003, 6:38:51 AM6/7/03
to
With affectation , Frodo Morris enunciates :

" ... the electron appears to be a point particle . "

You're such a snob Frodo ! Do you shit marble ?

You take incomplete information

and then you parade it like it was God's own truth .

Louis Nielsen

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Jun 7, 2003, 7:39:14 AM6/7/03
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myron...@comcast.net (Chuck Fuller) wrote in message news:<bb664990.03060...@posting.google.com>...
> Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
> propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
> anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless? I
> have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
> would like further clarification.

THE 'REAL ELECTRON' IS NOT A POINT-PARTICLE.

By Louis Nielsen http://www.rostra.dk/louis

The established theory of so-called elementary particles is not a
physical theory about the 'real particles' but only an accepted
MATHEMATICHAL MODEL where it is assumed that lepton particles are
point-particles without physical extensions. For example it is assumed
that the electron is a point-particle without an interior structure.
To describe the observed phenomena of electrons, the point-electrons
has been given the 'pseudo-physical' quantities like 'mass', 'electric
charge', 'spin' and 'lepton-number'.
The mathematical model of elementary particles can describe many of
the observed phenomena, but it is not a theory intending to describe
and explain the real and true nature of the so-called elementary
particles.
It is like the mathematical model of an ideal gas, where the
'gas-particles' are 'mathematical point-particles' without geometrical
extensions and without forces between the 'mathematical
point-particles'. But the ideal gas law can give good approximations
about real gasses.

The 'real electron' has an interior quantum-dynamic structure and it
has a physical average extension about 10^(-18) meter.

Read about my quantum cosmological model of the electron, where the
electron is a quantum-dynamical system that consists of a huge number
of the smallest energy-/matter quanta in the Universe. These smallest
energy-/matter quanta I call unitons.

Best regards Louis Nielsen, Denmark http://www.rostra.dk/louis

nightbat

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Jun 7, 2003, 7:51:47 AM6/7/03
to
nightbat wrote

"Y.Porat" wrote:
>
> Frodo Morris <graha...@wadham.ox.invalid.ac.uk> wrote in message news:<bbq2dg$gqa$1...@news.ox.ac.uk>...
> > Charles Cagle wrote:
> > > In article <3EDF6D59...@hate.spam.net>, Uncle Al
> > > <Uncl...@hate.spam.net> wrote:

snip

Porat

nightbat

Hello and sure Porat, very interesting, if the space geometric
background is looked at from a base dominant volume dimension, with c as
the photon wave limit length and all other energy and mass from a
relative or constricted and conserved moving length, that might work.
Because then all mass is conserved length with releasable c squared
compressed pressure counter free length energy contained potential.

It makes perfectly sense that mass constant electron orbital moving
length is free energy under length contraction effect of mass nucleus
composition (strong force). Only when free wave or contracted length
moving particle comes in contact with contracted mass is more outer
shell energy released or captured to position (weak force). The further
length of the mass atom is contracted versus impacting free energy (EM)
or high contracted mass under higher uniform momentum or dominant
directional velocity, then further contraction or length released as sub
mass and free length c energy occurs. Sure, it's all about base volume
dimensional reality and mental understood fixed length understanding and
moving length motion to relative time contraction return to center of
position curved orbits effect (gravity). There is also a point position
fixed upper limit for mass length contracted counter pressure gradient.
Per stellar dynamics of solar masses in normal gravity field uniform
gravitational free fall. (Chandra)

The term length was used 13 times in this reply post to Porat. What does
that infer about the physics term length, oops, 14 times? That it's all
about fixed moving length and counter contracted moving length? That's
it, that's 16 times, enough.

regards,
the nightbat

Gregory L. Hansen

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 8:07:05 AM6/7/03
to
In article <Xns9393251...@130.133.1.4>,

It is God's own truth, the electron does appear to be a point particle!
And we do have complete information on how the electron has appeared so
far in experiment.

Whether the electron really is a point particle is another matter, and
Frodo did mention that.

Robert J. Kolker

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 8:07:32 AM6/7/03
to

Jeff Relf wrote:
> You're such a snob Frodo ! Do you shit marble ?
>
> You take incomplete information
>
> and then you parade it like it was God's own truth .

All of our information is incomplete. We have neither the wits nor the
senses to see into the heart of reality. We perceive what we perceive
and we construct interpretations of what we perceive. Some of these
constructions constitute physics.

Bob Kolker

Ken S. Tucker

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 2:54:58 PM6/7/03
to
Lou...@edu.herlufsholm.dk (Louis Nielsen) wrote in message news:<9bb7234f.03060...@posting.google.com>...

>myron...@comcast.net (Chuck Fuller) wrote in message news:<bb664990.03060...@posting.google.com>...
>> Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
>> propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
>> anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless? I
>> have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
>> would like further clarification.
>
> THE 'REAL ELECTRON' IS NOT A POINT-PARTICLE.
>
>By Louis Nielsen http://www.rostra.dk/louis
>
>The established theory of so-called elementary particles is not a
>physical theory about the 'real particles' but only an accepted
>MATHEMATICHAL MODEL
[snip]

and Uncle Al writes...


>All leptons are point particles. High energy scattering experiments
>show no structure at at any accessible scale.

>Talk less, think more. Why do you maintain thaat a coordinate cannot
>translate?
>[snip]

>Uncle Al

Well Chuck, my post resides between these two quoted geniuses.
When the bright guys disagree we need to make our own decisions.
I have no intention of arguing with either, unless they hit me back first.

1) Experimentally, it has been substantiated that an electron possesses
a magnetic field.
All confirmed theories that create a magnetic field require a moving
charge, (not necessarily a revolving charged particle, but only a charge).
Therefore we must wisely accept a current loop within an electron to
create the observed magnetic moment.

2) Evidentially, and by all know theory, the electron must have a
charge current embodied within it's structure, to account for it's
magnetic moment.

3) Associated with the magnetic moment of the electrons loop
current is an Angular momentum.

These require a structure that is non zero.

I should mention, it is quite impossible to assign to a point an
angular momentum > 0, therefore we should dismiss Uncles Al's
"point particle postulate".

My current view of the interior of the electron structure is this,

(-)
o (+)
(-)

And this balances charge. But I included a "o" that represents
the center of gravity.
The reason for this is approximately....the pairs of (-) and (+)
produce a negative energy in the electron, while the (-) and (-)
charges produce a positive electrical energy.
Since we do need (from empirical evidence) angular momentum,
and a magnetic moment, I found "o" to be the center of the rotation
of the charges within the electron that account for spin and angular
momentum, and it is not by accident that the CG is placed where
it is.
Finally, bare with this part....
(-),a
o (+)
(-),b
are the supposed relation of charges within the structure of the
electron, and following one revolution (or rotation), this results,
(-),b
o (+)
(-),a
Then after another revolution about "o" this is the result...
(-),a
o (+)
(-),b

Which causes a 4 pi spin to create the original structrure.

The first 360 (2pi) spin reversed (-),a and (-).b so that (-),a
and (-),b's was reversed from the original position and (-),b
was in (-),a's original position.and the second spin reversed,
(another 360) applied to (-),a and (-).b , reproduced the
original configuration, as in the diagrams.

In conclusion, IMO, a charge structure exists within an electron,
that exhibits characteristics that account for our measurements
of spin angular momentum, magnetism and rest energy.

Regards
Ken S. Tucker

G=EMC^2 Glazier

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 3:56:45 PM6/7/03
to
Charles I bring all those electrons on the very large area of a pin
point QM brings an electron down to a point.A point relative to
WHAT Bert

Gregory L. Hansen

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 6:38:51 PM6/7/03
to
>Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
>propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
>anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless? I
>have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
>would like further clarification. I would think that if it is
>dimensionless (possesses no internal structure) then if it tried to
>move in a direction it would get nowhere. Shouldn't dimensionless
>things have to remain stationary? If they tried to move in a
>particular direction it seems like they would instantly forfeit their
>dimensionlessness. What am I missing here?


I'm still trying to figure this stuff out, so don't mistake me for someone
that knows what he's talking about. But before you ask how a particle can
have zero size, you should have a clear concept of a particle. Particles
aren't little billiard balls in quantum mechanics, but we still imagine
them to be localizable, countable, and to transfer certain quantities in
entirety. So a wavefunction psi(x) might exist in all of space, but we
don't say part of the particle is at x1, part of the particle is at x2,
etc. Rather, there's a |psi(x1)|^2 dx chance that the whole particle will
be found near point x1, a |psi(x2)|^2 dx chance of being near point x2,
etc. And if the particle is found at point x1 it obviously won't be found
at the same time at point x2, the infamous "collapse of the wave function"
thingy.

That's undergrad QM. It turns out that the very notion of particles is
not universally valid. Quantum field theory is a theory of fields. They
can be given a particle interpretation in flat spacetimes, but not in
general curved spacetimes. Photons are modes of the electromagnetic
field, electrons and positrons are modes of the Dirac field, and so on.
Rather than saying fields are made of virtual particles, it's probably
better to say that virtual particles are your representation of the field;
usually but not necessarily plane waves. The concept of the particle
plays no fundamental role in quantum field theories. But when we couple
quantum fields to a detector we can transfer a quantum from the field to
the detector (the detector "absorbs a particle") or from the detector to
the field (the detector "emits a particle"). It's the quantization of the
field and that collapse of the wave function thingy that gives us the
particle phenomenon.

So then, what does it even mean for a field to act as a particle with zero
size? The Lagrangian density for quantum electrodynamics is

L = L_EM + L_Dirac + L_int

where L_EM describes the free electromagnetic field, L_Dirac the free
Dirac field (electrons and positrons), and L_int is the interaction
between the fields,

L_int = j_u(x) A^u(x)

where j_u(x) is the u'th component of the electrical current and A^u(x) is
the u'th component of the electromagnetic field four-vector, and x is
three space coordinates plus a time coordinate. And j is related to the
Dirac field by

j_u(x) = e psibar(x) gamma_u psi(x)

psi(x) is the Dirac field and psibar(x) its Hermitian conjugate multiplied
by a gamma_0.

The important thing to notice in that math is that the argument x is the
same in both the current and the EM field. In other words, the Dirac
field at point x is affected by the part of the EM field that touches it
at point x, and the EM field at point x is affected by the Dirac field
that touches it at point x. So it looks to me that saying an electron has
zero size means it experiences local interactions, no action at a
distance.

So what the heck would a particle of finite size mean? There's particles
like the proton, made of point-like quarks, the quarks interact with a
color field. Suppose you give an impulse to just one quark, the quark
will strain against the already existing color field and create a
disturbance of its own that is transmitted to the other quarks.

But that's a composite particle made of fields with local interactions.
As far as I can figure, a truly single particle with finite size would
mean an interaction term that looks like

L_int = \integral dx dy e(x-y) psibar(x) gamma_u psi(x) A^u(y)

The integration is carried over some volume, with an interaction strength
e(x-y). So the Dirac field at point x will be affected by parts of the EM
field that are not at x -- action at a distance. And in relativity that
invites information exchange outside of the light cone and consequent
violations of causality.

FrediFizzx

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 7:52:11 PM6/7/03
to
"Steve Harris" <sbha...@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote in message
news:bbqiui$9u2$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...

|
| "FrediFizzx" <fredi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
| news:bbpcnj$c3dr0$1...@ID-185976.news.dfncis.de...
| > | I always assumed electrons where little mobius strips
| (2-D
| > | branes with a twist), all far less than 10^-20 m in
| > | diameter.
| >
| > What makes you think 10^-20 m? And what would the width
| of the strips be?
| > If you try to localize an electron to a volume with a
| radius smaller than
| > about the Compton wavelength divided by 2pi (3.86*10^-13
| m) you will start
| > to produce electron positron pairs and then you will not
| be able to tell
| > which one is the one you are trying to deal with.
| >
| > FrediFizzx
|
|
|
| Electrons are certainly experimentally point-like to much
| much smaller than the Compton wavelength, so your objections
| are experimentally disproven. Which means you need to
| rethink.

Actually I was just wondering how you came up with 10^-20 m and not 10^-19 m
or 10^-21 m? Do you have any mathematical derivations that support 10^-20
m? You mentioned that the strips are 2D so I was just also wondering if you
had any derivations for their width also. Just curious. It is an
interesting concept.

| You can localize an electron to any size you like, so long
| as the energy and momentum uncertainty are high enough.
| Positrons are certainly a part of the picture at
| distances/sizes which give high enough E field strengths,
| but they are virtual particles and they don't show up as
| free positrons. This is all a well-tested part of
| point-particle theory, so why are you grousing about it with
| my little Mobius strips?

I wasn't talking about the positrons specifically. I was talking about the
electrons. What is to prevent the electrons from swapping places at higher
energies? Then how do you know you are still dealing with the original
electron? You simply don't know. At normal energies, the electron has a
local domain of influence about the Compton wavelength divided by 2pi. The
probability of finding two electrons within that local domain approaches
zero. At higher energy, that probability becomes non-zero. Sure, the
electron looks like a point-like particle at higher energies, but it still
seems to have its local domain of influence (spread) due to relativistic and
vacuum effects.

FrediFizzx


The Ghost In The Machine

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 8:03:33 PM6/7/03
to
In sci.physics, G=EMC^2 Glazier
<herbert...@webtv.net>
wrote
on Fri, 6 Jun 2003 21:14:58 -0400 (EDT)
<10448-3EE...@storefull-2354.public.lawson.webtv.net>:

> A million million million electrons can sit on the point of a pin. That
> is just about one amp. Bert
>

ITYM "one Coulomb". You're not far off; e = 1.602 * 10^-19 Coulombs.
You'd actually have to have six million million million of the
little beasties.

There is a problem: I don't think the point of a pin can *hold*
1 Coulomb of charge without the air around it ionizing. There's
not enough capacitance.

--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.

FrediFizzx

unread,
Jun 7, 2003, 9:07:18 PM6/7/03
to
"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:bbtphr$tdv$3...@hood.uits.indiana.edu...

Is this assuming that the interaction happens in zero time? If the
interaction happens over a certain amount of time, why couldn't other parts
of the fields interact eventually at x? This would give us an extended
object that interacts at a single point. Then there is the case to consider
that time does not exist for a single quantum object (source of
probability?). IOW, do we really know if the wavefunction collapses
instantaneously or does it take a certain amount of time?

FrediFizzx


John Anderson

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 12:18:17 AM6/8/03
to

Jeff Relf wrote:

Please cite an experiment that shows that an electron has a
measurablesize.

I'll give you a hint in advance. There isn't one!

John Anderson


Frodo Morris

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 3:39:53 AM6/8/03
to
Care to demonstrate that I'm incorrect? Please cite the relevant papers.

BTW I parade *nothing* like it's "God's own truth", because 'God' and
'truth' have no place together in the same sentence.

Rain

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 5:36:05 AM6/8/03
to
In message <bbu284$d1n7u$1...@ID-185976.news.dfncis.de>, FrediFizzx
<fredi...@hotmail.com> writes

There is no such *physical* thing as a collapsing wave function. Wave
functions are mathematical constructions - they do not have a physical
existence.
--
The Existence
http://www.earthpoetry.demon.co.uk
RC

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 6:19:14 AM6/8/03
to
Gregory L. Hansen :

" Whether the electron really is a point particle

is another matter , and Frodo did mention that .

You're right ! He covered this quite well in fact .

Maybe I was trying to shake Frodo's tree ... Who knows ?

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 6:39:18 AM6/8/03
to
Frodo Morris asks :

" Care to demonstrate that I'm incorrect ? "

No . I was out of line . Sorry .


Frodo Morris :

" BTW I parade * nothing * like it's ' God's own truth ' ,

because ' God ' and ' truth ' have no place together

in the same sentence . "

That's just an expression ... don't take it so literally .

My only point was that , hopefully ,

we're still learning new things about the electron .


And a thousand years from now , hopefully ,

we'll still be learning new things about the electron .


So let's acknowledge our current ignorance .

Rain

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 6:53:21 AM6/8/03
to
In message <bbu284$d1n7u$1...@ID-185976.news.dfncis.de>, FrediFizzx
<fredi...@hotmail.com> writes

There is no such *physical* thing as a collapsing wave function. Wave

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 7:02:04 AM6/8/03
to
Robert J. Kolker :

" All of our information is incomplete .

We have neither the wits nor the senses
to see into the heart of reality .

We perceive what we perceive
and we construct interpretations of what we perceive .

Some of these constructions constitute physics . "

Very well put ... Thanks .

Only I'd add that

We hypothesize in order to fill in the blanks ,

where we lack sufficient perception ,

based on what we believe to be most likely .

Ahmed Ouahi, Architect

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 7:18:07 AM6/8/03
to

........... ...One of the problems facing physicists who sought to apply
general relativity to these newly discovered or hypothetical objects was to
make it compatible with Quantum Mechanics!!!!!!!!!!......... ...

--Stephen Hawking


--
Ahmed Ouahi, Architect
Best Regards!

"Jeff Relf" <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> kirjoitti
viestissä:Xns9394290...@130.133.1.4...

Gregory L. Hansen

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 8:38:00 AM6/8/03
to
In article <bbu284$d1n7u$1...@ID-185976.news.dfncis.de>,

Are you mistaking me for someone that knows what he's talking about?

x above includes time, two field interact at the same spacetime
coordinate. And they're fields, so the interaction happens in
all the space and time that the fields are defined in, but only by
"touching". They'll interact over an extended time, but they also change
over time, and the one field will interact at t1 with the other field at t1.

Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 12:02:08 PM6/8/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message news:<Xns9394252...@130.133.1.4>...

> So let's acknowledge our current ignorance .


Hey, dude, that's exactly what evreyone's been fruitlessly trying
to help you understand. You haven't spilled the beans on some dirty
little secret. That's at the very core of science, that we're
basically ignorant. It goes for you too. You have no basis upon which
to assert... that incomplete knowledge means that we go with your
emotional problems. Fact is that nature as probablistic arose because
of our increasing database of empirical knowledge. That's what we have
to work with. Your line of reasoning is one of the most arbitrarily
authoritarian I've seen in a while. You've no concept of science. I
think you're the antithesis of a scientist. You're a control freak.

-Mark Martin

Jim

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 12:44:03 PM6/8/03
to
qed...@hotmail.com (Mark Martin) wrote:

Jeff has problems.

Jim

FrediFizzx

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 1:59:22 PM6/8/03
to
"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:bbvan8$gs8$1...@hood.uits.indiana.edu...

Well, I thought your description of field interaction was pretty good,
actually. You certainly know more than I do as I only started studying (on
my own) the mathematics of QM a few months ago.

| x above includes time, two field interact at the same spacetime
| coordinate. And they're fields, so the interaction happens in
| all the space and time that the fields are defined in, but only by
| "touching". They'll interact over an extended time, but they also change
| over time, and the one field will interact at t1 with the other field at
t1.

Right. x includes time. I keep making the mistake of only thinking space
coordinates. Now if the wavefunction collapses at speed c, then does it
take no time to do so relative to the interaction?

FrediFizzx


Gregory L. Hansen

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 3:53:53 PM6/8/03
to
In article <bbvthn$dqga6$1...@ID-185976.news.dfncis.de>,

FrediFizzx <fredi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
>news:bbvan8$gs8$1...@hood.uits.indiana.edu...
>| In article <bbu284$d1n7u$1...@ID-185976.news.dfncis.de>,
>| FrediFizzx <fredi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>| >"Gregory L. Hansen" <glha...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
>| >news:bbtphr$tdv$3...@hood.uits.indiana.edu...

[some material omitted]

>| >| But that's a composite particle made of fields with local interactions.
>| >| As far as I can figure, a truly single particle with finite size would
>| >| mean an interaction term that looks like
>| >|
>| >| L_int = \integral dx dy e(x-y) psibar(x) gamma_u psi(x) A^u(y)
>| >|
>| >| The integration is carried over some volume, with an interaction
>strength
>| >| e(x-y). So the Dirac field at point x will be affected by parts of the

Or, I suppose,

L_int = \integral dx e(x) j_u(x) A^u(x)

where the integration is carried over the volume of the electron (or
photon). But that seems redundant, it's probably better to just redefine
the field, then.


>EM
>| >| field that are not at x -- action at a distance. And in relativity
>that
>| >| invites information exchange outside of the light cone and consequent
>| >| violations of causality.
>| >
>| >Is this assuming that the interaction happens in zero time? If the
>| >interaction happens over a certain amount of time, why couldn't other
>parts
>| >of the fields interact eventually at x? This would give us an extended
>| >object that interacts at a single point. Then there is the case to
>consider
>| >that time does not exist for a single quantum object (source of
>| >probability?). IOW, do we really know if the wavefunction collapses
>| >instantaneously or does it take a certain amount of time?
>|
>| Are you mistaking me for someone that knows what he's talking about?
>
>Well, I thought your description of field interaction was pretty good,
>actually. You certainly know more than I do as I only started studying (on
>my own) the mathematics of QM a few months ago.

Oh, good. It's nice when someone reads me and decides I make sense.

The virtual particle thing has been bugging me for a long time, and I've
been trying to figure it out at the tortoise-like pace of a guy that finds
the theory challenging and has no particular deadlines. There are
philosophical issues, but I've been trying to find out what can come
directly from the theory. So, for instance, I thought it was interesting
when I read Wald explaining that there's no natural particle
interpretation in an arbitrary spacetime. It seemed like a mode of
thinking that should be carried over to the special case of a flat
spacetime if you want to speak "in principle" and in all generality. So
when someone asks the size of a particle, first you have to figure out
what "particle" means.

>
>| x above includes time, two field interact at the same spacetime
>| coordinate. And they're fields, so the interaction happens in
>| all the space and time that the fields are defined in, but only by
>| "touching". They'll interact over an extended time, but they also change
>| over time, and the one field will interact at t1 with the other field at
>t1.
>
>Right. x includes time. I keep making the mistake of only thinking space
>coordinates. Now if the wavefunction collapses at speed c, then does it
>take no time to do so relative to the interaction?

"Collapse of the wave function" isn't a physical process. It's not like a
real wave is rippling out with some speed. Otherwise you could imagine
something like a Stern-Gerlach experiment with

|psi> = (|left> + |right>)/sqrt(2)

and then an impenetrable barrier placed between the two halves before a
detection event.

It's a Copenhagenism that says before you had some |psi>=sum a_i |i> and
now you just have an |i>. The transactional interpretation has an
interesting take on it with psi offer waves going into the future and psi*
response waves going into the past, the waves interfere, and the
transaction gives a definite state. I sort of think in terms of the
observer just getting rolled up in the wave function,

|psi'> = (|Greg sees left> + |Greg sees right>)/sqrt(2)

which I suppose has something to do with the horribly named many-worlds
interpretation. But the process of turning theory into concrete
predictions is clear and unambiguous, so usually I just follow the "Shut
up and calculate!" interpretation. I'll let the philosophers worry about
that part of it.

Double-A

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 5:38:19 PM6/8/03
to
myron...@comcast.net (Chuck Fuller) wrote in message news:<bb664990.03060...@posting.google.com>...
> Let me first of all state that I am not heavily endowed with a
> propensity for physics. This being said, I would like to ask if
> anyone can help me understand how an electron can be dimensionless? I
> have recently read about this strange property of the electron and
> would like further clarification. I would think that if it is
> dimensionless (possesses no internal structure) then if it tried to
> move in a direction it would get nowhere. Shouldn't dimensionless
> things have to remain stationary? If they tried to move in a
> particular direction it seems like they would instantly forfeit their
> dimensionlessness. What am I missing here?


"Splitting the electron

New research suggests that scientists can split the electron. Is
nothing sacred, asks Philip Ball?
15 September 2000

..........

Now Humphrey Maris at Brown University in Rhode Island, USA, is
proposing something even more shocking to scientific orthodoxy. He
thinks that electrons can also be split -- into fragments called
'electrinos'.

..........

Electrons in helium behave in a puzzling way, for which there is not,
as yet, a fully satisfactory explanation. They create tiny bubbles,
about 4 millionths of a millimetre (roughly 400 atom widths) in
diameter, that no helium can enter. When light is shone on these
bubbles, new unidentified, negatively charged particles seem to
appear.

Low-temperature physics is full of such oddities. The puzzle was that
the light did not simply kick the electrons back out of the helium. In
fact, it was not clear what had happened to them. Maris suggests that
the electrons had split apart.

He proposes that light causes the bubbles to oscillate, until they
break up like shaken raindrops. Within the initial bubble, he says,
the electron behaves as a kind of wave. When the bubble splits, each
fragment takes a part of the electron wave with them -- an
'electrino'.

Maris says that this behaviour is possible in liquid helium because it
behaves as a 'superfluid', which flows with apparently zero viscosity.
So the bubble oscillations leading to break-up are not muffled as they
would be in a normal liquid."


From "Nature Science Update"

http://www.nature.com/nsu/000921/000921-1.html

Could a point particle be split?

Double-A

nightbat

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 5:53:01 PM6/8/03
to
nightbat wrote

nightbat

Sure there is, just go ocean surfing and you will find out.
Hawaii has the best collapsing ones but most any ocean coastline has
them. Ever hear the nice term, surf's up? Malibu, Costa Rica, Mexico,
Caribbean Islands, and Will & Anna's poetry physics Bahamian rest
Island. Where all the brilliant and mentally overworked Physicists go to
watch the ever attentive naked grad female coed students frolic on the
beach on their off time. They can beach chair watch the in coming
collapsing waves come in and ponder on their open toe sand filled
sandals or really deep mental ones.


the nightbat

Rain

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 6:36:48 PM6/8/03
to
In message <3EE3B03D...@home.ffni.com>, nightbat
<nigh...@home.ffni.com> writes

>Rain wrote:

>> There is no such *physical* thing as a collapsing wave function. Wave
>> functions are mathematical constructions - they do not have a physical
>> existence.

> Sure there is, just go ocean surfing and you will find out.


>Hawaii has the best collapsing ones but most any ocean coastline has
>them. Ever hear the nice term, surf's up? Malibu, Costa Rica, Mexico,
>Caribbean Islands, and Will & Anna's poetry physics Bahamian rest
>Island. Where all the brilliant and mentally overworked Physicists go to
>watch the ever attentive naked grad female coed students frolic on the
>beach on their off time. They can beach chair watch the in coming
>collapsing waves come in and ponder on their open toe sand filled
>sandals or really deep mental ones.

I could pop down to Cornwall I suppose. I could visit the round table on
the way.
--
http://www.earthpoetry.demon.co.uk
RC

Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 7:21:03 PM6/8/03
to
Jim <lose...@workfromhome.com> wrote in message news:<ltp6ev444al8jnvgp...@4ax.com>...

> Jeff has problems.
>
> Jim

I just now clicked on Relf's name, and it returned 65 pages, with
648 of his posts, from several different groups. What's so telling is
that- this is just since May 15. /:|

-Mark Martin

nightbat

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 7:54:14 PM6/8/03
to
nightbat wrote

nightbat

Sure, go where the warm trade winds blow and misty surf rain
cools your overworked brow. Where natural island beauties enjoy showing
off and sharing what nature gave them, the juice of the swaying tall
palms reside. Where time moves slowly and teasing beach waves tickle
your feet. Physics mysteries come clearly when the mind is basked in the
sound of laughter of dark skinned long hair flowing hot damsels running
in the warm sand with collapsing background breaking wave caps. Look how
they drink sweet island fruit nectar, then kiss your warm anticipating
lips. Their mysterious loving dark black eyes entrance better then any
black hole circular logic. Oh how you can get lost in them and never
wish to return to ivy league halls, science labs, or cold reality of
these sci. newsgroups.


the nightbat

Jim

unread,
Jun 8, 2003, 8:30:43 PM6/8/03
to
qed...@hotmail.com (Mark Martin) wrote:

Jeff has problems, but boy can he type! :)

Looks like he types all the content he quotes.
Not to mention hitting the space-bar twice every time.
Must have blisters on his thumbs.

Jim

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 9, 2003, 2:54:59 AM6/9/03
to
Jim bitches and moans ... yet again :

" Jeff has problems , but boy can he type ! :) "

If I have all the problems then

why do you have all the complaints ?


Tell me is any of this helps :

I can control who I want to see ...
While You apparently can not !
I can relax and enjoy myself with light conversation ...
While you can not .
I can rank people from -1 to 9 ,
zero is the default score .
Replies get an extra 10 . My posts always get a 100 .
My XNews comes up sorting on this scoring , showing me
only the unread posts with a score of one or better .


Also :

To control Agent's threading preferences , go to :

options > general preferences > message list

At http://tinyurl.com/cnm5 , Don Kirkman writes :

" Agent ( not Free Agent ) also has sorting capability ,
which can override the threading preferences .

Clicking on the column titles in the header pane sorts
headers by the title criterion .
( also available on the Group menu . )

Subject , Author , and Date are toggles ,
and Thread / Size rotate through the choices .
The sort criterion in use is underlined .

If a newsgroup is not threading when you expect it to ,
in Agent first check which column is controlling sorting ,
changing as necessary , and in both programs
double-check your threading preferences . "

Jim

unread,
Jun 9, 2003, 1:01:32 PM6/9/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote:

>Jim bitches and moans ... yet again :
>
>" Jeff has problems , but boy can he type ! :) "
>
>
>
>If I have all the problems then
>
> why do you have all the complaints ?

Two observations. No complaints. A complement even.
Even included the smiley! ????

Are you feeling a little paranoid?

<snip>

Yet another excellent job of typing.
However, I still miss all the underscores.
Getting lazy in your old age? :)

Jim

G=EMC^2 Glazier

unread,
Jun 9, 2003, 1:28:36 PM6/9/03
to
An Electron can become dimensionless when it collides with its anti-twin
the positron,and both instantly destroyed into their building material
structure gamma photons. Bert

Rain

unread,
Jun 9, 2003, 6:00:53 PM6/9/03
to
In message <3EE3CCA6...@home.ffni.com>, nightbat
<nigh...@home.ffni.com> writes

>nightbat wrote
>
>Rain wrote:
>>
>> In message <3EE3B03D...@home.ffni.com>, nightbat
>> <nigh...@home.ffni.com> writes
>>
>> >Rain wrote:
>>
>> >> There is no such *physical* thing as a collapsing wave function. Wave
>> >> functions are mathematical constructions - they do not have a physical
>> >> existence.
>>
>> > Sure there is, just go ocean surfing and you will find out.
>> >Hawaii has the best collapsing ones but most any ocean coastline has
>> >them. Ever hear the nice term, surf's up? Malibu, Costa Rica, Mexico,
>> >Caribbean Islands, and Will & Anna's poetry physics Bahamian rest
>> >Island. Where all the brilliant and mentally overworked Physicists go to
>> >watch the ever attentive naked grad female coed students frolic on the
>> >beach on their off time. They can beach chair watch the in coming
>> >collapsing waves come in and ponder on their open toe sand filled
>> >sandals or really deep mental ones.
>>
>> I could pop down to Cornwall I suppose. I could visit the round table on
>> the way.

> Sure, go where the warm trade winds blow and misty surf rain


>cools your overworked brow. Where natural island beauties enjoy showing
>off and sharing what nature gave them, the juice of the swaying tall
>palms reside. Where time moves slowly and teasing beach waves tickle
>your feet. Physics mysteries come clearly when the mind is basked in the
>sound of laughter of dark skinned long hair flowing hot damsels running
>in the warm sand with collapsing background breaking wave caps. Look how
>they drink sweet island fruit nectar, then kiss your warm anticipating
>lips. Their mysterious loving dark black eyes entrance better then any
>black hole circular logic. Oh how you can get lost in them and never
>wish to return to ivy league halls, science labs, or cold reality of
>these sci. newsgroups.

Nah, I prefer Reality rather than a TV dinner, any day of the week.

The round table is not, only, a myth, and I know where it is.
--
The Reality
http://www.earthpoetry.demon.co.uk
RC

Frodo Morris

unread,
Jun 9, 2003, 8:19:41 PM6/9/03
to
Jim wrote:
> Getting lazy in your old age? :)
>
> Jim
I believe Jeff has noticed that he gets spanked when trying to stay
on-topic in s.p, and has chosen to do otherwise.

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 1:31:13 AM6/10/03
to
Jim : " I still miss all the underscores . "

That was an artifact of me having to use EasyUseNet.COM .

Now that I have access an NNTP server at home ...

I no longer need the underscores .


As anyone can tell ... I like to toy with the punctuation .

_ How _ I toy with it is not important ...

so long as I toy with it one way or another .

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 1:33:53 AM6/10/03
to
Jim : " Are you feeling a little paranoid ? "

I don't think so ...

It sure sounded to me like you were complaining .

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 1:41:43 AM6/10/03
to
Frodo Morris :

" I believe Jeff has noticed that he gets spanked
when trying to stay on-topic in s.p ,
and has chosen to do otherwise . "

I don't remember ever being " Spanked " for being

what you'd call " On-Topic " .


Determinism is a valid hypothesis ...

Total proof is not required .


It just says that the observed probabilistic nature of

wave-particles is just that ... observed ... not real .


Do you have a problem with that ?

Paul B. Andersen

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 4:12:07 AM6/10/03
to

"Jeff Relf" <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> skrev i melding
news:Xns9395E6...@130.133.1.4...

> It just says that the observed probabilistic nature of
>
> wave-particles is just that ... observed ... not real .
>
>
> Do you have a problem with that ?

If what is observed is not real, what is then real?

Paul


Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 4:37:13 AM6/10/03
to
Confused over terms , Paul B. Andersen asks :

" If what is observed is not real , what is then real ? "

Why can't you distinguish between :

*_1 What is " Observed " Vs. *_2 What is " Real " ?


Are you arguing that our current " Observations "

of wave-particles are the " Real " story ?


As if we'll never discover any new truths about them !?

Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 12:52:51 PM6/10/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message news:<Xns9395E6...@130.133.1.4>...


> Determinism is a valid hypothesis ...
>
> Total proof is not required .
>
>
> It just says that the observed probabilistic nature of
>
> wave-particles is just that ... observed ... not real .

It's already thoroughly understood that nature is, indeed,
deterministic. If it wasn't then we couldn't speak meaningfully of
nature in the first place. So the question to you is, exactly what do
you mean when you assert that nature is deterministic? Quantum
mechanics itself is determinstic. It makes forecasts of the outcomes
of experiments. It makes claims about what will be observed in the
world. But what's determined in QM isn't the trajectories of billiard
balls. In QM it's not the billiard balls which are the essential
elements of the world.

So the question again is, what PRECISELY do *you* mean by nature
being deterministic? To be meaningful, your concept must be stated
such that it makes a difference as to what will be really found in the
world. Simply asserting that, "Determinsim is a valid hypothesis...
Total proof is not required", means nothing. What do you mean by
determinism, as opposed to the known deterministic character of
nature, and what can you do to demonstrate it? In what way can we
discriminate between yours and another productive hypothesis?

-Mark Martin

Gordon D. Pusch

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 3:08:02 PM6/10/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> writes:

[...Bunch of blank-verse nonsense sent to /dev/null ...]

I indeed acknowledge that you are suffering from profound ignorance.

(gnus-kill "From" "Jeff Relf")

<*!PLONK!*>

Jim

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 9:03:56 PM6/10/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote:

Priorities noted.

Jim

Jim

unread,
Jun 10, 2003, 9:04:40 PM6/10/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote:

Not unexpected.

Jim

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 5:00:40 AM6/11/03
to
Mark Martin : " Fact is that

[ the idea of ] nature as probabilistic arose because

of our increasing database of empirical knowledge . "

Really ? Unobserved nature is probabilistic ?


Why do you assume that our observations of probabilistic

behaviors of wave-particles describe " Reality " ?


A coin toss seems probabilistic ... that is ...

to the man who doesn't know all of the forces involved .


Does this ignorant man's observations of probabilistic

behaviors describe " Reality " too then ?

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 5:04:13 AM6/11/03
to
Jim composes : " Not unexpected . "

Jim has problems expressing himself ...

I'm not complaining ... I'm just being ultra observant .

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 5:11:55 AM6/11/03
to
After ten hours of mustering his strength ,

Jim only manages to type two words : " Priorities noted . "

Good boy Jim ! Tomorrow we'll shoot for three words !

Dare to dream ! ( Jim is a bot ? ... or a small child ? )

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 5:53:57 AM6/11/03
to
Mark Martin :

" What do you mean by determinism ,
as opposed to the known deterministic character

of nature , and what can you do to demonstrate it ? "

I'm talking about total determinism ...

where nature is devoid of intrinsic randomness ...

where nature is immutable ... static ... time is spatial .


While everything suggests that unobserved nature is not random ,

nothing contradicts it !


If you were ignorant of the various forces ,

you'd " Observe " that a coin toss was " Probabilistic " ...


And if you were like the typical scientist today ...

you'd call that this probabilistic behavior " Reality " .


What you would _ Not _ be like is :

Newton , Maxwell, Darwin , Freud , Einstein , Bell etc. ...

all famous determinists .

Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 3:40:27 PM6/11/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message news:<Xns93971D8...@130.133.1.4>...

> Mark Martin :
>
> " What do you mean by determinism ,
> as opposed to the known deterministic character
> of nature , and what can you do to demonstrate it ? "
>
>
>
> I'm talking about total determinism ...
>
> where nature is devoid of intrinsic randomness ...
>
> where nature is immutable ... static ... time is spatial .

That's not what I asked. Please, go back and read it again.

> While everything suggests that unobserved nature is not random ,
>
> nothing contradicts it !

This is really a foolish statement on your part. The normal
distribution of quantal events is perfectly consistent with a
probablistic mechanics, regardless if it's ultimately found to be
otherwise. That's not what I'd call "everything/nothing".

> If you were ignorant of the various forces ,
>
> you'd " Observe " that a coin toss was " Probabilistic " ...
>
>
> And if you were like the typical scientist today ...
>
> you'd call that this probabilistic behavior " Reality " .

I'd like for you to tell me, exactly what you think the argument is
that QM is indeterministic? I can tell you right off, that it doesn't
amount to "I've never seen such & such, therefore it definitely
doesn't exist." That's a monkey see, monkey do view of how scientists
think, but it's not accurate at all. It's similar to how a lot of
people think they can debunk special realtivity. They say "Scientists
think that nothing travels faster than light, because they've never
seen anything go that fast. How do they know that they won't ever see
something go that fast?" They don't understand the reasoning. Of
course, for all anyone knows, in the future translight phenomena may
be observed. Special relativity is based upon a system of reasons that
lead to c as a limit naturally.

And so it's the same with QM. Physicists don't just say "Well,
I've never seen it happen, so I conclude it never happens." They ask
what the orderliness is in what is seen, and construct a theory that
reproduces the data, and then predicts more than the original data
itself. That's why QM is a good theory, because you can ask it
questions about nature open endedly, and it keeps giving you the right
answers within its domain. There's a system of reasons whereby QM is
said to be probablistic, and it's not what you keep saying it is.
Schrodinger originally constructed his QM wave equation to do exactly
as you describe; to predict the probability of QM events, but not to
portray nature itself as probablistic. But analysis of the whole of
quantum theory produced probability a unexpected result, a result
which Schrodinger himself came to regret. But it doesn't matter that
he regretted it. It's in there just the same.

You also seem to insist that whatever is not known is the
reserved territory of Jeff Relf. Well let's ask if this is legitimate.
Take the case of Area 51. What goes on in there? Most people don't
know what goes on inside, but a number of them know what they *want*
to be going on. They want the government to be hiding UFOs and alien
bodies. Since they have no way of being disproven, they conclude that
it's safe to "know" that, indeed, there are UFOs and aliens in there.
But the objective fact is that they have no knowledge of what's
inside, and they have no justification to insist upon their UFO
supposition any more than they could justify insisting that Snow White
is in there with the seven dwarves. Of course there is something being
done inside, but what's the most reasonable expectation? The only
thing that's justifiable is that there's secret defense research being
done, because we know that this is what can be done, and it's what the
gov' needs such a place for that purpose.

So then, when you say that you can justify micro-determinism only
because observations are discontiuous, it's just Area 51 all over
again. You claim to categorically know what's in between the
observations. The objective fact is that you don't know any better
than anyone else what's in those unmeasured regions of processes. It
could easily be nothing like what you wish it to be. And you have
admitted it yourself, that you adopt micro-determinism as a matter of
faith, rather than any reasoning supported by actual data. That you
have "faith" rather than reasons tells me that you aren't interested
in truth. You have an agenda, an agenda having more to do with how you
fit into society than with being curious about nature. Does it occur
to you that the kind of determinsim you want is already true in QM as
it stands? Of course the orbital path of a planet is deterministic. Of
course humans are psychological machines. Of course, of course, of
course.


> What you would _ Not _ be like is :
>
> Newton , Maxwell, Darwin , Freud , Einstein , Bell etc. ...
>
> all famous determinists .

You're name dropping again. This is pointless. It's utterly
irrelevant. An equally long list of similarly creditable
indeterminists can be provided. You actually defame these peoples'
legacies as scientists by merely speaking their names as some sort of
argument in your favor. And really- Newton, Maxwell and Darwin had no
choice but to be micro-determinists. They were dead before QM was ever
discovered. I doubt that Freud knew anough about QM to even care what
he thought of it. As for Einstein & Bell, well they did a lot more
than you do to support their concepts of nature. They actually knew
enough about QM to meaningfully address both its strengths and its
weaknesses.

-Mark Martin

Jim

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 5:00:53 PM6/11/03
to
On 11 Jun 2003 09:11:55 GMT, Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET>
wrote:

Clever. :)

Jim

Jim

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 5:03:19 PM6/11/03
to
On 11 Jun 2003 09:04:13 GMT, Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET>
wrote:

>Jim composes : " Not unexpected . "


>
>
>
>Jim has problems expressing himself ...
>
> I'm not complaining ... I'm just being ultra observant .

Failed.

Jim

Gordon D. Pusch

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 8:38:15 PM6/11/03
to
(gnus-kill "Subject" "Do you have a problem with that")

<*!PLONK!*>

Bilge

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 8:57:44 PM6/11/03
to
Jeff Relf:

>Really ? Unobserved nature is probabilistic ?

In all likelyhood, nature at the fundamental level is probabilistic.

>Why do you assume that our observations of probabilistic
>behaviors of wave-particles describe " Reality " ?

>A coin toss seems probabilistic ... that is ...
>to the man who doesn't know all of the forces involved .

You are attempting to address a rather deep question with a superficial
example that presupposes anyone with some intelligence could be confused
by mere appearance.

>Does this ignorant man's observations of probabilistic
>behaviors describe " Reality " too then ?

No, it describes his ignorance. One can perform objective tests to
determine that something is _not_ random. Here is a simple method.
Consider your "experiment" to be a black box which accepts some input and
produces some output. In the case of a coin toss, the input would be all
of the information related to the initial conditions of the toss, like the
mass of the coin, the momentum with which the coin is tossed, the forces
involved, etc. All of the input parameters may be chosen arbitrarily and
varied at will. The output would be either heads or tails. A random
process is then one in which the output is independent of the input.

If it is impossible to know from the input, what the output will be with
better precision than just guessing (i.e., a 50-50 chance in this case),
then the process is random. There is no restriction on what one specifies
for the input, so one is free to specify _anything_ than might influence
the output.

You also cannot assume that there is some aspect which only makes the
output appear random, becaause it isn't necessary to know anything about
how the black box uses the input to produce the output. All that is
necessary is to change the input (like the forces involved), such that
it alters the probability of of getting heads or tails. If it does,
the coin toss isn't random. Obviously, it's possible to specify forces
which _do_ alter the probability of getting heads or tails, so a coin
toss _cannot_ be a true random process. Coin tosses are are only used
as examples of random processes because it's a picturesque way of getting
the point across and most examples qualify that by saying "fair coin
toss". No one believes any real coin toss is actually random.


Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 11, 2003, 11:01:36 PM6/11/03
to
Mark Martin :

" As for Einstein & Bell , well they did a lot more

than you do to support their concepts of nature .

They actually knew enough about QM to meaningfully address

both its strengths and its weaknesses . "

They did the EPR experiment ...

And they are the hardest of the hard determinists .

( This means they Always believed in the theory that

nature has no _ Intrinsic _ randomness . )


You show a Vulgar Arrogance when you claim to know

something these two guys somehow missed .

Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 1:17:05 AM6/12/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message news:<Xns9397CBB...@130.133.1.4>...

On the contrary, I never claimed to KNOW anything they missed. I
said they did one hell of a lot more than you do, which is to say that
you do nothing but assert, rather than produce an actual, testable
argument. Do you get it yet? You do NOTHING. You really are one
arrogant control freak.

-Mark Martin

Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 1:35:57 AM6/12/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message news:<Xns9397151...@130.133.1.4>...

> Jim composes : " Not unexpected . "
>
>
>
> Jim has problems expressing himself ...
>
> I'm not complaining ... I'm just being ultra observant .

It's a tad hard to believe that you actually observe anything.

-Mark Martin

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 1:58:04 AM6/12/03
to
Mark Martin accuses : " Do you get it yet ? You do NOTHING . "

Which is a _ Lot _ more than what you do .

Hayek

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 9:55:13 AM6/12/03
to

Bilge wrote:

> Jeff Relf:
>
>> Really ? Unobserved nature is probabilistic ?
>
> In all likelyhood, nature at the fundamental level
> is probabilistic.


Good, one, "in all likelyhood" :-).

But I am in a rut here.

Suppose the Quantum world really is without inertia.
That means also : no c speed limit.

Now take an example of a goalkeeper in soccer.
The ball with inertia, he can see it coming, quickly
predict its trajectory and catch it.

It already gets problematic if the ball comes at him at
higher speeds.

But now the ball comes at infinite speeds and any
molecule of air can deflect its trajectory, it has no
inertia. (this is an analogy, so do not go nitpicking)

After so many tries the goalkeeper says "I do not see a
ball, but I know that the chance of it hitting my body
versus the chance it hitting the net is exactly
proportional to the surfaces of my body versus the
surface of the goal.

So, the probability nicely follows from the 'speed
difference' between inertial an non inertial (or less
inertial) sytems. But, having established this, can we
call it deterministic, or not ?


Hayek.


--
The small particles wave at
the big stars and get noticed.
:-)

Gordon D. Pusch

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 10:29:49 AM6/12/03
to
(gnus-kill "Subject" "Unobserved Nature is Probabilistic")

<*!PLONK!*>

Gordon D. Pusch

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 10:32:06 AM6/12/03
to
(gnus-kill "Subject" "A Vulgar Arrogance")

<*!PLONK!*>

Edward Green

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 3:35:30 PM6/12/03
to
gdp...@NO.xnet.SPAM.com (Gordon D. Pusch) wrote in message news:<giof13x...@pusch.xnet.com>...

> (gnus-kill "Subject" "A Vulgar Arrogance")
>
> <*!PLONK!*>

This subject was a creation of Relf the Subject Hydra. Other means
must be found to deal with him -- cut off one subject, he spawns five
more.

Paul B. Andersen

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 5:21:48 PM6/12/03
to

"Jeff Relf" <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> skrev i melding news:Xns9396107...@130.133.1.4...

> Confused over terms , Paul B. Andersen asks :
>
> " If what is observed is not real , what is then real ? "

As a response to Jeff Relf's statement:


| It just says that the observed probabilistic nature of
| wave-particles is just that ... observed ... not real .

"observed ... not real"

> Why can't you distinguish between :
>
> *_1 What is " Observed " Vs. *_2 What is " Real " ?

Because my only connection to "reality" is through observation.

> Are you arguing that our current " Observations "
>
> of wave-particles are the " Real " story ?
>
>
> As if we'll never discover any new truths about them !?

No. I am asking a question.
It was:


If what is observed is not real , what is then real ?

Or in other words:
Do you know of any other way to find out about "reality"
than through observations?
Can you name something which is "real .. not observed"?

Paul


Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 5:43:56 PM6/12/03
to
gdp...@NO.xnet.SPAM.com (Gordon D. Pusch) wrote in message news:<giof13x...@pusch.xnet.com>...
> (gnus-kill "Subject" "A Vulgar Arrogance")
>
> <*!PLONK!*>

An example of the use of Plonk's constant. :)

-Mark Martin

dolores

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 7:57:39 PM6/12/03
to

"Paul B. Andersen" <paul.b....@hia.no> wrote in message
news:bcaqvb$50h$1...@dolly.uninett.no...

>
> "Jeff Relf" <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> skrev i melding
news:Xns9396107...@130.133.1.4...

> Can you name something which is "real .. not observed"?
>
> Paul

1. Dustbin men.

2. Buses.

3. Socks thief.

4. Burglars.

Dolores
>
>


John Anderson

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 8:50:58 PM6/12/03
to

Mark Martin wrote:

> Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message news:<Xns9395E6...@130.133.1.4>...
>
> > Determinism is a valid hypothesis ...
> >
> > Total proof is not required .
> >
> >
> > It just says that the observed probabilistic nature of
> >
> > wave-particles is just that ... observed ... not real .
>
> It's already thoroughly understood that nature is, indeed,
> deterministic. If it wasn't then we couldn't speak meaningfully of
> nature in the first place. So the question to you is, exactly what do
> you mean when you assert that nature is deterministic? Quantum
> mechanics itself is determinstic. It makes forecasts of the outcomes
> of experiments. It makes claims about what will be observed in the
> world. But what's determined in QM isn't the trajectories of billiard
> balls. In QM it's not the billiard balls which are the essential
> elements of the world.
>
> So the question again is, what PRECISELY do *you* mean by nature
> being deterministic?

That is the point. I don't think that most physicists would say thatQM is deterministic. QM does
predict the results of experiments
when the experiments measure the probalistic results of ensembles
of sub-experiments.

I don't think that you want to claim that QM can predict the result
of a single experiment that involves a single object.

If that is what you were trying to say, then I don't think that
you expressed it very well. But I probably didn't do that either.

QM is pretty hard to explain to people who don't understand
physics or math.

John Anderson

>

Edward Green

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 9:45:06 PM6/12/03
to
qed...@hotmail.com (Mark Martin) wrote in message news:<7d087978.03061...@posting.google.com>...

:-))))

(Sorry -- that was a plagerized laugh ;-).

Mitchell

unread,
Jun 12, 2003, 11:56:13 PM6/12/03
to
Jeff Relf <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message news:<Xns9397CBB...@130.133.1.4>...

If someone found something new Jeff you would be offended as you
are bloated with the authority of knowing what these men have said.
It is precisely what they have missed that will pave a pathway
to the future. If you have found what they have missed you are
a messiah.

The future of physics is from those having the insight of finding the
problems left by what has been missed.

Mark Martin

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 12:49:50 AM6/13/03
to
John Anderson <and...@attglobal.net> wrote in message news:<3EE91FF2...@attglobal.net>...

> > So the question again is, what PRECISELY do *you* mean by nature
> > being deterministic?
>
> That is the point. I don't think that most physicists would say thatQM is deterministic. QM does
> predict the results of experiments
> when the experiments measure the probalistic results of ensembles
> of sub-experiments.
>
> I don't think that you want to claim that QM can predict the result
> of a single experiment that involves a single object.
>
> If that is what you were trying to say, then I don't think that
> you expressed it very well. But I probably didn't do that either.
>
> QM is pretty hard to explain to people who don't understand
> physics or math.
>
> John Anderson

Yes of course. I didn't mean that QM will predict an individual
detection event, which not only would be technically wrong, but would
pretty much make the whole issue moot if it were true. QM will
forecast the distribution of many detection events, and that's what I
was trying to get across to him, that the theory is deterministic on
its own terms. Nature is necessarily deterministic in one way or
another in order for dynamic systems to meaningfully undergo changes
of state.

-Mark Martin

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 1:45:42 AM6/13/03
to
Edward Green :

" Other means must be found to deal with [ Jeff Relf ] . "

This should be a good test of his Gnus skills !

Gnus Vs. XNews .

I rank people from -1 to 9 , zero is the default score .
Replies get an extra 10 . My posts always get a 100 .
My XNews comes up sorting on this scoring , showing me
only the unread posts with a score of one or better .

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 2:07:10 AM6/13/03
to
Paul B. Andersen asks :

" Do you know of any other way to find out

about ' reality ' than through observations ? "

Yes , theories . Theories are a kind of vision .


Paul :

" Can you name something which

is ' real [ yet ] not observed ' ? "

Yes ... everything that science has yet to discover ...

and infinitely more .

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 2:32:41 AM6/13/03
to
Mark Martin admits :

" Nature is necessarily deterministic in one way or another

in order for dynamic systems

to meaningfully undergo changes of state . "

Right ... so you're a soft determinist ...

while I'm a Hard Strong determinist .


The only difference between us is our level of conviction .

The Order-Randomness pair is a duality ...

and just like all dualities ...

it's fabricated by some mind somewhere ...

it's not reality .


Unobserved nature is immutable ...

Unobserved time is spatial .

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 2:37:56 AM6/13/03
to
Dolores suggests that " Buses " are real but not observed ?

Dolores : Open your eyes ... Please !

... You might get squished .

Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 2:52:35 AM6/13/03
to
Mitchell :

" The future of physics is from those having the

insight of finding the problems

left by what has been missed . "

Right , but you must start with the same assumption that

all the great scientists started with , namely :

Total Determinism , i.e. :

The order-randomness duality is local to a mind ...

and a mind is mostly blind .

Unobserved nature doesn't have randomness ... or order .

Haines Brown

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 12:15:58 PM6/13/03
to
Hayek <hay...@nospam.xs4all.nl> writes:
> Bilge wrote:
> > Jeff Relf:
> >
> >> Really ? Unobserved nature is probabilistic ?
> >
> > In all likelyhood, nature at the fundamental level
> > is probabilistic.

My contribution to this discussion does not seem to have made it to
the group, and so let me try again. The issue, if I may phrase it a
little differently, is whether a probabilistic causality is de re
natura, that is, is it universal? For reasons I'll not explore here,
this seems one of the most important questions we could possibly
address.

There are particular contexts in which a probabilistic causality might
arise: a) The many-body problem in physics, where the solutions for
equations of motion are non-linear; b) in quantum mechanics, where
causality is inherently probababilistic because the objects concerned
are themselves probabilistic distributions of qualities; c) arising
from this is the Heisenberg indeterminancy principle that an
observation necessarily reduces the object observed, changing it
radically; d) the subjectivity problem that any observation entails
observational hypotheses, so there are no "raw facts"; e) in
thermodynamics, where our concern is to define an aggregate behavior
of motions that cannot be individiually observed.

While each of these domains might point to a probabilistic causality,
none of them are universal. Some involve an observer and so are
special cases; some refer to a specific scale of objects. So I'd like
to propose an argument that suggests that a probabilistic causality
can in fact be considered universal, so that the absence of a
probabilistic causality is limited to marginal or special situations.

My argument presumes the theory of the Big Bang. While I understand
that this theory has its problems, I believe it still represents the
consensus view in lieu of any other generally satisfactory
theory. Therefore it suffices as an axiom. Further, if nature is
fundamentally probabilistic, then that must be a feature of the Big
Bang, when the entire cosmos was in thermodynamic communication.

Roughly and in non-technical terms, the Big Bang started when a highly
improbable virtual state (quantum fluctuation in the perfect vacuum)
became a real state when for some reason it got "hung up"--it became
accidentally constrained by a virtual structure such as a Higgs Field.

While this rough scenario may be shakey, there's some agreement over
its outcome: the universe started out as a highly improbable state
that _by definition_ must hurry back to a more probable
state. Normally this would have been an almost instantaneous return to
the perfect vacuum, but once constrained, virtual matter became real
matter stretched out in time. The universe had come into being and
there could be no instantaneous recovery.

The universe therefore inherits a drive to return to the most probable
state possible--ultimately "heat death." Once real structures exist,
this cosmic dissipation is constrained by them in that they experience
reduced degree of freedom. This reduction means the necessary
emergence of new improbable structures, which in turn further
constrain cosmic dissipation. New structures emerge in the universe
almost as much as old structures dissipate, and the net entropy change
is positive. The universe manifests almost as much a creative
emergence as it does a dying process.

This is the Second Law of Thermodyamics, where adiabatic systems must
move toward a more probable state, but, if constrained also
necessarily give rise to new improbable states and represent what we
call a thermodynamic engine. This tells us three things of great
importance: a) all things by their nature are processes, not bundles
of static qualities, b) causality is by its nature probabilistic, c)
creative emergence is de re natura.

How do we then represent things as processes in our thinking? It seems
to me that what is needed is to define things not only in terms of
their qualities, but also as having a causal connection. It is not
important to specify what is at the other end of that causal
connection or its specific effect other than to ensure the "object" is
a process. What is crucial is to make the causal relation essential,
not accidental.

For example, our explanations often start with a definition of a
static state of things, as a bundles of both essential and accidental
qualities. We then bring these things into a causal relation to see or
predict the uniquivocal effect, treating empirical qualities as
themselves having causal efficacy rather than as merely constraints on
cosmic dissipation, the ultimate engine of change. However, if the
causal relation is taken to be a priori, so that the objects are by
definition processes, then there are principle no static qualities,
and the outcome of interactions must be probabilistic.

My own interest in this issue lies in the area of human behavior: a)
development of a theory of social action that reconciles free will and
determinism thanks to a probabilistic causality, b) an XML
historiographic markup language that represents all facts as
processes, c) a definition of social class as an emergent process
having a causal relation with the means of production, and c) an
explanation of how social processes in the world's past that had no
direct causal relation nevertheless represent a unity. However, these
things are OT for the group, and probably of little interest to
anyone.

--
Haines Brown
bro...@hartford-hwp.com
kb1...@arrl.net
www.hartford-hwp.com

Bilge

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 2:56:30 PM6/13/03
to
Haines Brown:
>Hayek <hay...@nospam.xs4all.nl> writes:
>> Bilge wrote:
>> > Jeff Relf:
>> >
>> >> Really ? Unobserved nature is probabilistic ?
>> >
>> > In all likelyhood, nature at the fundamental level
>> > is probabilistic.
>
>My contribution to this discussion does not seem to have made it to
>the group, and so let me try again. The issue, if I may phrase it a
>little differently, is whether a probabilistic causality is de re
>natura, that is, is it universal? For reasons I'll not explore here,
>this seems one of the most important questions we could possibly
>address.

It happens to be a question that is being addressed.

>There are particular contexts in which a probabilistic causality might
>arise: a) The many-body problem in physics, where the solutions for
>equations of motion are non-linear; b) in quantum mechanics, where
>causality is inherently probababilistic because the objects concerned
>are themselves probabilistic distributions of qualities; c) arising
>from this is the Heisenberg indeterminancy principle that an
>observation necessarily reduces the object observed, changing it
>radically; d) the subjectivity problem that any observation entails
>observational hypotheses, so there are no "raw facts"; e) in
>thermodynamics, where our concern is to define an aggregate behavior
>of motions that cannot be individiually observed.

You need to differentiate "chaotic", which arises from non-linearity
(as in the many-body problem) and "probabilistic". Chaotic does not
imply probabilistic, nor vice-versa.

>While each of these domains might point to a probabilistic causality,
>none of them are universal. Some involve an observer and so are
>special cases; some refer to a specific scale of objects. So I'd like
>to propose an argument that suggests that a probabilistic causality
>can in fact be considered universal, so that the absence of a
>probabilistic causality is limited to marginal or special situations.

I think the entropy of black hole pretty much points to probability
as a fundamental feature of the universe. More about this may be
found by searching for bekenstein and entropy.

>My argument presumes the theory of the Big Bang. While I understand
>that this theory has its problems, I believe it still represents the
>consensus view in lieu of any other generally satisfactory
>theory. Therefore it suffices as an axiom. Further, if nature is
>fundamentally probabilistic, then that must be a feature of the Big
>Bang, when the entire cosmos was in thermodynamic communication.
>
>Roughly and in non-technical terms, the Big Bang started when a highly
>improbable virtual state (quantum fluctuation in the perfect vacuum)
>became a real state when for some reason it got "hung up"--it became
>accidentally constrained by a virtual structure such as a Higgs Field.

In the words of alan guth, the universe is the ultimate free lunch.

[...]

>My own interest in this issue lies in the area of human behavior: a)
>development of a theory of social action that reconciles free will and
>determinism thanks to a probabilistic causality, b) an XML
>historiographic markup language that represents all facts as
>processes, c) a definition of social class as an emergent process
>having a causal relation with the means of production, and c) an
>explanation of how social processes in the world's past that had no
>direct causal relation nevertheless represent a unity. However, these
>things are OT for the group, and probably of little interest to
>anyone.

They are of interest to lots of people, but at the moment are beyond
the ability of physics to address.


Bilge

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 4:10:24 PM6/13/03
to
Hayek:
>Bilge wrote:
>
> > Jeff Relf:
> >
> >> Really ? Unobserved nature is probabilistic ?
> >
> > In all likelyhood, nature at the fundamental level
> > is probabilistic.
>
>
>Good, one, "in all likelyhood" :-).

I leave open the possibility that quantum mechanics is wrong.

>But I am in a rut here.

Then stop rutting.

>Now take an example of a goalkeeper in soccer.
>The ball with inertia, he can see it coming, quickly
>predict its trajectory and catch it.
>
>It already gets problematic if the ball comes at him at
>higher speeds.
>
>But now the ball comes at infinite speeds and any
>molecule of air can deflect its trajectory, it has no
>inertia. (this is an analogy, so do not go nitpicking)
>
>After so many tries the goalkeeper says "I do not see a
>ball, but I know that the chance of it hitting my body
>versus the chance it hitting the net is exactly
>proportional to the surfaces of my body versus the
>surface of the goal.

There is a grave mistake in your analogy. What if the "goal"
is a charge, the "goalkeeper" is a neutrino and the "ball" is a
photon? In that case, the "goalkeeper" will never see the "ball",
under any circumstances, since neutrinos do not interact with
photons. The "ball" will go "through" the "goalkeeper" as if
it didn't exist, every time. (why do you think a photon gets
stopped at the earth's surface while a neutrino hardly even
notices the earth exists?)

dolores

unread,
Jun 13, 2003, 8:06:08 PM6/13/03
to

"Jeff Relf" <____Je...@NCPlus.NET> wrote in message
news:Xns9398F0...@130.133.1.4...

> Dolores suggests that " Buses " are real but not observed ?

I havent seen one single bus all day......all week......all year!!


>
>
>
> Dolores : Open your eyes ... Please !
>
> ... You might get squished .

What!....By a bus....not likely!


Jeff Relf

unread,
Jun 14, 2003, 12:33:25 AM6/14/03
to
Hi Dolores ,

In answer to my request that you watch the buses ,
you say : " What ! ... By a bus ... not likely ! "

You must not do much walking in the city .

As dusty , noisy , and generally obnoxious as they are ,
you must pay close attention to the bus' proximity ...

If you're walking ,
and you don't identify what
cars are hidden behind it ... Splat !

nightbat

unread,
Jun 14, 2003, 8:52:51 AM6/14/03
to
nightbat wrote

Bilge wrote:
>
> Haines Brown:
> >Hayek <hay...@nospam.xs4all.nl> writes:
> >> Bilge wrote:
> >> > Jeff Relf:
> >> >
> >> >> Really ? Unobserved nature is probabilistic ?
> >> >
> >> > In all likelyhood, nature at the fundamental level
> >> > is probabilistic.
> >
> >My contribution to this discussion does not seem to have made it to
> >the group, and so let me try again. The issue, if I may phrase it a
> >little differently, is whether a probabilistic causality is de re
> >natura, that is, is it universal? For reasons I'll not explore here,
> >this seems one of the most important questions we could possibly
> >address.
>

> Bilge

> It happens to be a question that is being addressed.

nightbat

Sure, that's what all those sci.physics TOE theories are about.
And one of the most important questions we could possibly address, I
don't know, I rate World peace pretty high up on the list. But since you
asked,


>
> >There are particular contexts in which a probabilistic causality might
> >arise: a) The many-body problem in physics, where the solutions for
> >equations of motion are non-linear; b) in quantum mechanics, where
> >causality is inherently probababilistic because the objects concerned
> >are themselves probabilistic distributions of qualities; c) arising
> >from this is the Heisenberg indeterminancy principle that an
> >observation necessarily reduces the object observed, changing it
> >radically; d) the subjectivity problem that any observation entails
> >observational hypotheses, so there are no "raw facts"; e) in
> >thermodynamics, where our concern is to define an aggregate behavior
> >of motions that cannot be individiually observed.
>

> Bilge


> You need to differentiate "chaotic", which arises from non-linearity
> (as in the many-body problem) and "probabilistic". Chaotic does not
> imply probabilistic, nor vice-versa.

nightbat

Well the quantum can appear to be probabilistic especially when
trying to quantify or deduce to lowest base invisible energy state. Like
when you lose your set of car keys, you know they are around but just
can't seem to find them.

>
> >While each of these domains might point to a probabilistic causality,
> >none of them are universal. Some involve an observer and so are
> >special cases; some refer to a specific scale of objects. So I'd like
> >to propose an argument that suggests that a probabilistic causality
> >can in fact be considered universal, so that the absence of a
> >probabilistic causality is limited to marginal or special situations.
>

> Bilge

> I think the entropy of black hole pretty much points to probability
> as a fundamental feature of the universe. More about this may be
> found by searching for bekenstein and entropy.

nightbat

Sure, like death and taxes, the black hole where a lot of your
money goes until you're let off the hook at the definite outcome but
indeterminate time.


>
> >My argument presumes the theory of the Big Bang. While I understand
> >that this theory has its problems, I believe it still represents the
> >consensus view in lieu of any other generally satisfactory
> >theory. Therefore it suffices as an axiom. Further, if nature is
> >fundamentally probabilistic, then that must be a feature of the Big
> >Bang, when the entire cosmos was in thermodynamic communication.
> >
> >Roughly and in non-technical terms, the Big Bang started when a highly
> >improbable virtual state (quantum fluctuation in the perfect vacuum)
> >became a real state when for some reason it got "hung up"--it became
> >accidentally constrained by a virtual structure such as a Higgs Field.
>

> Bilge


> In the words of alan guth, the universe is the ultimate free lunch.

nightbat

Si Fi theorists are fun, if they can't figure out the real
universe they have, they just make up new ones. And the free lunch they
are after is usually at your gullible expense.


>
> [...]
>
> >My own interest in this issue lies in the area of human behavior: a)
> >development of a theory of social action that reconciles free will and
> >determinism thanks to a probabilistic causality, b) an XML
> >historiographic markup language that represents all facts as
> >processes, c) a definition of social class as an emergent process
> >having a causal relation with the means of production, and c) an
> >explanation of how social processes in the world's past that had no
> >direct causal relation nevertheless represent a unity. However, these
> >things are OT for the group, and probably of little interest to
> >anyone.
>

> Bilge

> They are of interest to lots of people, but at the moment are beyond
> the ability of physics to address.

nightbat

Don't be so quick Bilge to underestimate your brilliance and of
your good fellows, and in the interest of Mr. Brown's most important
felt asked question, the nightbat " Continuing Universe Rule " humbly
addresses same and uses only one universe to do it. For a Psychology
guy, Mr. Brown, you have a very elegant way of presenting your inquiries
into the most noble World class sci.physics fellow Aluminati group.


the nightbat

Hayek

unread,
Jun 14, 2003, 11:45:58 AM6/14/03
to

Bilge wrote:


The purpose of an analogy is to explain something. The
purpose of an analogy is not to find the seven errors in it.

Hayek

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