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What Is a Particle? (2020)

quantamagazine.org

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Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#21

Post by gigatexal »

elashri wrote: post #14
gigatexal wrote: post #11

tangentially: is it consensus at this point that the proton decays -- it just does so on a really large timescale?

No it would be very hard to actually have a consensus on proton decay. If it decays then according to the measurements (or the limits on the lack of the measurement) lifetime of such decay will be more than the universe age (Even without all the puzzle about Hubble constant tension and age of universe measurement disagreements). It was predicted first time by SU(5) theory and many other theories since then but the ex…

thank you! -- I meant more that is it consensus that those that know or would need to know think it should/does even if it's not been observed or proven to needfully do so (or disproven, if possible) but I get your point.

Why are magnetic monopoles interesting to you? I've seen some articles on them but I can't still wrap my head around how they'd work.

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#22

Post by danbruc »

AlbertCory wrote: post #2

I'm reading "The Big Picture" (Sean Carroll) right now. I'd love to have a real physicist explain this, but: When we think of what a particle IS, we often think as though it were dirt, or a billiard ball, or something. As though there were some other substance of which it's made. At least I do. But the definition is as low as you can go. It's hard to wrap your head around that. Unless you're trained to do so, I guess…

I mean I can not speak for you, but I do not think that the problem necessarily is that people think of them as made from some stuff, I think what causes the most trouble is the desire to visualize particles.

The trouble is that an electron is an electron and it is nothing like anything you have ever seen in your macroscopic classical world. It shares some aspects with billiard balls and some with water waves but it is not like either. And it does not switch between being a billiard ball and a water wave, it always is the same thing, it always is an electron.

It just happens that in certain situations the billiard ball properties are more apparent and in others the water wave properties and in yet other situations neither of the two analogies will help. I think that is what trips people really up, they want to visualize their electron as one thing they know, as something they have an intuition for, but no such thing exists.

And electrons being electrons also means that they are not excitations in quantum fields. Those fields are mathematical models that describe the behaviour of electrons, they are not the electrons. Certainly not in the very direct sense of nature is just mathematics because I can differentiate, integrate, and square fields at will but I can not do this to electrons. And even the less direct interpretation, there are real entities in the universe that behave exactly like our mathematical fields, does not seem likely, what would the gauge symmetries mean?

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#23

Post by kayo_20211030 »

khazhoux wrote: post #13
prng2021 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not asking questions about human constructs like what is moral or what is the ideal form of government. We're trying to understand what the most fundamental building block of reality is, which is something objective. Something independent of whether of not people ever existed. So no, countless people around the world aren't wasting their lives researching particles when the answer is simply, it's whatever we sa…

I'll go even further and point out that in 2003, it was proven that particles are not , in fact, the friends we made along the way.

Do expand. What happened in 2023?

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#24

Post by ww520 »

That's why calling Higgs Boson the God particle is not quite right. It's the Higgs field that gives mass to the other particles, not the Boson. A Higgs Boson is just an excitation of the Higgs field; it doesn't give mass to other particles. In fact it's the Higgs field modifying the other fields causing their excitations (particles) to slow down when passing each other, thus gaining masses.

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#25

Post by ItCouldBeWorse »

ww520 wrote: post #24

That's why calling Higgs Boson the God particle is not quite right. It's the Higgs field that gives mass to the other particles, not the Boson. A Higgs Boson is just an excitation of the Higgs field; it doesn't give mass to other particles. In fact it's the Higgs field modifying the other fields causing their excitations (particles) to slow down when passing each other, thus gaining masses.

So, its all gravity, if you turn the sock inside out? Just taking different colors and shapes?

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#26

Post by criddell »

danbruc wrote: post #22
AlbertCory wrote: post #2

I'm reading "The Big Picture" (Sean Carroll) right now. I'd love to have a real physicist explain this, but: When we think of what a particle IS, we often think as though it were dirt, or a billiard ball, or something. As though there were some other substance of which it's made. At least I do. But the definition is as low as you can go. It's hard to wrap your head around that. Unless you're trained to do so, I guess…

I mean I can not speak for you, but I do not think that the problem necessarily is that people think of them as made from some stuff, I think what causes the most trouble is the desire to visualize particles. The trouble is that an electron is an electron and it is nothing like anything you have ever seen in your macroscopic classical world. It shares some aspects with billiard balls and some with water waves but it…

> And electrons being electrons also means that they are not excitations in quantum fields

You’re going against the dominant interpretation of QFT here, aren’t you?

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#27

Post by kayo_20211030 »

prng2021 wrote: post #10
kayo_20211030 wrote: post #3

A particle is a thing you can "look" at, and say "that's a particle". It is whatever one says it is. They're not exactly discovered, they're invented. Fundamental in this context is not so much a word as it is an analogy. And, don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean particles don't exist. They do. But, a particle is whatever we say it is.

We're not asking questions about human constructs like what is moral or what is the ideal form of government. We're trying to understand what the most fundamental building block of reality is, which is something objective. Something independent of whether of not people ever existed. So no, countless people around the world aren't wasting their lives researching particles when the answer is simply, it's whatever we sa…

Did you take the time to read the original piece? Even the smart people can't agree.

What gives you the faith that a "particle" is not a human construct? What on earth does "fundamental" even mean except being the bottom turtle we can see on the particular mountain of turtles at which we're looking.

"Countless"(?) people around the world are not researching particles. They're doing particle physics as they understand "particles". That's how it should be and particles are whatever they say they are. In that field, no measure means no reality. *Unless*, of course, you have faith in some platonic reality.

Positive materialists will disagree.

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#28

Post by Jabrov »

ItCouldBeWorse wrote: post #25
ww520 wrote: post #24

That's why calling Higgs Boson the God particle is not quite right. It's the Higgs field that gives mass to the other particles, not the Boson. A Higgs Boson is just an excitation of the Higgs field; it doesn't give mass to other particles. In fact it's the Higgs field modifying the other fields causing their excitations (particles) to slow down when passing each other, thus gaining masses.

So, its all gravity, if you turn the sock inside out? Just taking different colors and shapes?

What do you mean? How do you reach that conclusion? I wasn’t aware there was a connection with gravity

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#29

Post by Biologist123 »

I feel a curious mix of excitement and disconcerted to discover humans don’t really understand what matter is.

Reading the article, I understood so little of it. And I guess it’s because so much of the language is just words chosen through some sort of consensus to represent an abstract idea itself composed of such words-idea-representations which I’ve never encountered before.

Re: What Is a Particle? (2020)

#30

Post by fracus »

khazhoux wrote: post #4

I'm honestly surprised that more people don't go mad in certain fields. If I ponder for 10 minutes the inexplicability of the universe's existence, or the vastness of space, my mind starts to breaks down.

Constantly trying to resolve an incomplete abstraction. They are trying to reverse engineer the Universe. I can usually read half way through these articles before I'm completely lost in the abstractions.
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