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Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#251

Post by quantified »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article. So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes? Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person). my question is... why? why must pr…

First-principles question from an ignorant thinker: why couldn't it be that the presence of +/-e in one of them is due to the subtraction of +/-e in the other? Do we know anything about the finer details of quarks and electrons beyond what we currently can resolve?

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#252

Post by jodrellblank »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #85
m3kw9 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I’ll ask why can’t you use protons as electricity?

Who says you can't? Who says we don't always use it?

Not sure, but Protons are ~1800x more massive than electrons even though they have the same electric charge, so it seems like they would need 1800x more energy to move them.

Power in an electric circuit is Watts, which is current in Amperes times voltage. Amperes are one Coulomb or 6.241509x10^18 electric charges per second flowing through a conductor. So a fixed amount of power (Watts) moves a known amount of charges. If we were sometimes moving protons instead of electrons, maybe we’d notice three orders of magnitude difference in quantity of charges in different experiments?

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#253

Post by jiggawatts »

daedrdev wrote: post #158
jiggawatts wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantum mechanics is a religion with mathematics instead of just holy texts. Several studies have been done into whether practicing theoretical physicists using QM in their everyday work agree on the most basic tenets of the field. Spoiler: they disagree on every aspect while simultaneously assuming that their opinions are correct and that everyone else agrees with them. That’s how religions work, not how science doe…

I mean semiconductor engineers have to deal with quantum effects when designing chips. Its not like it doesn't effect the real world, we do interact with parts of it when things get really small.

An actual semiconductor engineer that works at ASML has uploaded a whole series of videos that debunk the existence of photons in free space[1]. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/V6G8ZZmeJzc

Quantum Mechanics is a set of mathematical tricks, shortcuts for numerical computation, that is all. People have become so enamored with the results of those computations that they've blithely ignored the limited scope of these shortcuts. You've found a nailgun, it's better than a hammer. That doesn't mean everything is a nail now.

[1] Essentially, "particles" like photons are a short-hand terminology and a matching set of mathematical shortcuts for the behaviour of waves in a potential well (or any cavity). It doesn't make any sense outside of that scenario, such as light traversing empty space. All of that behaviour is perfectly predictable with ordinary wave mechanics. No quantum woodoo is required.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#254

Post by knightoffaith »

clankyclanker wrote: post #208
andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article. So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes? Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person). my question is... why? why must pr…

So, PBS Space Time did a video on this “fine tuned universe” theory and it, like all of their videos, is great. The concept seems to be that in an unbalanced universe, life couldn’t form, and we’d be incapable of having this conversation. So, either there are infinite universes and we exist as a result of being in the right one, or there’s one universe and we exist as a result of the one we’re in being right. Either…

There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that the defining constants of our universe are pulled from some uniform distribution though, which is the underlying assumption here. When you put it that way, that's a pretty strange and specific claim to make.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#255

Post by megmogandog »

timeagain wrote: post #210
clankyclanker wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, PBS Space Time did a video on this “fine tuned universe” theory and it, like all of their videos, is great. The concept seems to be that in an unbalanced universe, life couldn’t form, and we’d be incapable of having this conversation. So, either there are infinite universes and we exist as a result of being in the right one, or there’s one universe and we exist as a result of the one we’re in being right. Either…

I can’t get behind all these fine tuning arguments. Who’s to say what life might form if the proton had a charge of 1.01e or if the fine structure constant was 1/138? Something about the line of reasoning that there is a multiverse and we just happen to live in favorable conditions reminds me of Pascal’s wager. It doesn’t do anything other than unfalsifiably assure the wagerer that they are important

Which fine tuning arguments are you referring to?

As I understand it, 'fine tuning' is simply a fact of the universe: that the fundamental constants have values that allow for the emergence of complexity, and that even slight changes to those values would lead to homogeneous and featureless universe. I don't have the physics background to demonstrate this for myself, but I believe it.

To then reason from that fact to the existence of a multiverse or the existence of God is an extra step that one need not take, but not taking either of those steps doesn't invalidate the appearance that the fundamental constants of the universe were fine tuned for the production of complexity/life.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#256

Post by bbor »

Balgair wrote: post #126
rolph wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a proton, in the simplist version, is made of 3 quarks. two up quarks one down quark. down qwark is -1/3 e ; up quark is +2/3 e. they sum up to +1 e. neutrons are the opposite made of 3 quarks. two down quarks one up quark. and sum to 0e the unitary quantity is a conveinience. 1 e = 1.602176634×10−19 coulombs,

Yes, yes, I also understand this. But why are they in units of 1/3(e). Why are down quarks not -0.398390847895...(e) and up quarks not +0.6234098129034809234...(e). Why do they add up so damn neatly?

Ok probably a dumb take but: doesn’t that “stable forms become more common over time” principle also apply to protons purely by principle of them being in opposition to electrons? Ie the field that coalesces into the quarks we see today because those quarks can ultimately form atoms.

EDIT: after reading the great Wikipedia article above, and a connected one [1], I think I can restate: the only place we can look for these particles is in atoms, so it shouldn’t surprise us that they come in convenient forms to support atom formation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_symmetry

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#257

Post by instagib »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article. So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes? Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person). my question is... why? why must pr…

There’s a few good “particle zoo” videos out there for the building blocks.

I took some advanced courses and from my understanding it comes down to the pieces that make up protons and electrons. In the quantum realm it adds some fuzziness to the answer by introducing quarks. The net charge may be one thing but I would defer to a physics paper for a deeper understanding.

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/21753/why-do-ele...

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#258

Post by knightoffaith »

jodrellblank wrote: post #220
foobarbecue wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AKA the "anthropic principle."

AKA “God did it” with a sciencey sounding name. An answer which explains nothing, predicts nothing, satisfies no curiosity, and closes the book on any further questions.

The anthropic principle is actually the opposite - it's an objection to the fine-tuning argument that says something roughly like "well, of course the universe is configured in a way that allows us to be around. if it wasn't, we wouldn't be around to discuss it. thus, there is no need to appeal to an intelligent designer of the universe to explain its fine-tuned nature."

That aside, with respect to saying an intelligent designer designed the universe ("God did it"):

>explains nothing

Well, it explains why the universe is fine-tuned, if you buy the argument.

>predicts nothing

Yep, just like any other answer to the question, since it's a metaphysical question rather than a scientific one.

>satisfies no curiosity

It offers an explanation.

>closes the book on any further questions

No more than any other answer does.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#259

Post by mcmoor »

neuromanser wrote: post #121
mcmoor wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that semiconductor engineers have to directly wrestle with the magic that's quantum tunneling. This theory is really not just a theory.

You mean it's not just a hypothesis. I would really, really expect users of this site to know the difference.

The (scientific) theory is really not just a (colloquial) theory

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#260

Post by andrewflnr »

infamouscow wrote: post #244
andrewflnr wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users of this site who pay attention to how science is actually practiced, and not the oversimplified cartoon version they teach us in school, know that the boundary between a "theory" and a "hypothesis" is rather blurry. For instance, have you ever noticed how it's called "string theory" despite having no real evidence for it? Have you ever heard anyone, let alone a real scientist, complain about this nomenclature?…

I think it's important to draw a distinction between the formal and natural sciences. HN is overrepresented by folks with backgrounds in mathematics and computer science where using "theory" is correct, e.g., set theory. Bret Weinstein explained the distinction between a hypothesis and theory a few weeks ago on YOUR WELCOME. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac4MnNrs6g4

I specifically cited an example in the natural sciences, specifically physics. IIRC chemistry and biology do similar shenanigans at times. Again, consider how you could possibly draw a sharp distinction when accumulation of evidence is so often a gradual process.

I'll consider responding to the video if you give me a reasonable timeslice, but I'm not going to watch the whole hour.

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