Here is an old post of mine about the subject of Minimum Coulomb Interactions, which is one of the biggest mistakes Halliday & Resnick made in their excellent physics textbooks.
Subject: re-examining old post about Coulomb force Re: Minimum Coulomb
Interactions for plutonium?
From: Archimedes Plutonium <
plutonium....@gmail.com>
Injection-Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 05:48:45 +0000
re-examining old post about Coulomb force Re: Minimum Coulomb Interactions for plutonium?
This is now March 2018 and the below is an old post of mine of May 1994 discussing the number of Coulomb Interactions in an instant of time in order for an atom to exist of its internal subatomic particles. I need to review that idea in light of the fact Real-Electron = muon and the .5MeV particle is Dirac's magnetic monopole and the proton is really 840MeV.
On Tuesday, May 10, 1994 at 7:33:12 PM UTC-5, Ludwig Plutonium wrote:
> Sorry to break me self-imposed limit of no more than 3 posts per 24
> hours. But this is important I feel because it is in Halliday & Resnick
> text which I feel was the best physics text ever made for University
> and College. I think H&R's 1986 was the best but their latest edition
> of PHYSICS, 1992, are going to hell in a handbasket, other than being
> on acid free paper 1992 is of lower quality than their 1986 edition
> because it has speculative physics in it-- it treats the big bang as a
> forgone conclusion and also it talks of neutron stars as if they are
> true science when it will turn out that pulsars are strange quark
> matter stars. I think it is essential that the authors of such widely
> used physics texts throw in cautionary words such as "speculative"
> whenever possible.
> I have shown the below passage of H&R to Dartmouth physics
> professors, math professors, all came back to me with somewhat the same
> reply as what Scott gives.
> I am of the opinion that H&R is so widely used and so heavily picked
> over that H&R are correct in their text. That neon has as a minimum
> number of Coulomb Interactions derived by (2^20x2x2x2), where the
> exponent 20 comes from the 10 protons and 10 electrons of neon.
> Continuing in the same line of reasoning for plutonium. The total
> number of minimum Coulomb interactions of the 94 protons and 94
> electrons of a plutonium atom is (2^188x2x2x2) or about 6.3 x10^57.
> The number (2^188x2x2x2) comes from 4 possible quantum numbers of
> (n,L,mL,ms) and each having at least a minimum of 2 choices with the
> first quantum number having 2^188 minimum possible quantum energy
> states based on the potential energy function substituted into the
> Schroedinger equation, in order for the Schroedinger equation to be
> solved rigorously.
> I strongly believe H&R were correct commonsensewise. If we see the
> Coulomb interaction as the means of holding protons and electrons
> together in an atom. Think of the protons and electrons as balls
> exchanging photons. That to keep 94 protons to 94 electrons would
> require at minimum 6.3 x 10^57 photons exchanged at any one instant. To
> imagine 10 protons and 10 electrons held together by only 210 photons
> shot between them to keep them as an atom strains credulity.
>
> In article <
10MAY199...@csa5.lbl.gov>
>
sic...@csa5.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
>
> > In article <2qmrk9$
n...@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>,
Ludwig.P...@dartmouth.edu (Ludwig Plutonium) writes...
> > >pages 1190-1191 of PHYSICS Part 2 extended version Halliday & Resnick
> > >1986
> > >
> > > "For atoms with substantially more than one electron the potential
> > >energy function that we must substitute into the Schroedinger equation
> > >involves the Coulomb interaction between many pairs of particles and
> > >can rapidly become hopelessly complicated. In neon, for example, it can
> > >be shown that, including the nucleus and the ten electrons, there are
> > >no fewer than about 2 X 10^7 independent pairs of charges whose Coulomb
> > >interactions must be taken into account if the Schroedinger equation is
> > >to be solved rigorously. At this level of complexity rigorous solutions
> > >are not possible, and we must rely on methods that are both approximate
> > >and numerical."
> > >
> > >What are the minimum Coulomb Interactions for plutonium?
> >
> > I don't know how Halliday and/or Resnick arrived at this number, but I
> > believe it to be wrong. Neon has a total of 20 charges, 60 if you foolishly
> > treat it at the quark level. The number of distinct pairs of objects which
> > you can form from a set of 20 is 20*21/2 = 210. Believe me, that's more
> > than enough to make your Schroedinger equation unsolvable.
Well, back then, in May 1994, my name was still Ludwig Plutonium, not yet changed legally to Archimedes Plutonium.
And what was disturbing for me was the Coulomb Interactions for the EM force. Of course we all know it to be inverse square. But, we like a number for it to keep all the subatomic particles to stay and reside inside an atom.
The Coulomb force is often viewed metaphorically, or by analogy to tennis players. They hit a tennis ball (photon) back and forth-- so to speak-- keeping them together, like a proton shots a photon to the muon and the muon shots it back to the proton-- binding the two together in an atom.
I like that analogy, that picture, and it provides a number value to the Coulomb Force. As to how many interactions occur in an instant of time.
So yes of course, I would be askance if I thought what keeps 10 protons to 10 muons in a neon atom together is a mere 190, or 210, or even 2x10^7.
So, back in 1994-- my best guess of the number of interactions per instant of time was (2^20x2x2x2) where the exponent 20 comes from 10 protons in neon and 10 muons (back then I did not know real electron = muon).
AP writes in 2026:: what struck me as horribly mistaken was to think that Halliday & Resnick and the entire rest of the physics community believed that the Coulomb Interactions going on inside Neon were a paltry meager few 2*10^7 Coulomb Interactions. When, for me, it was more on the lines of 20! =2.433×10¹⁸ Coulomb Interactions due to the 10 protons and 10 muons inside of Neon.