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

andy_xor_andrew
267 replies
21h23m

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 protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge? if the proton is this insanely complex thing, by what rule does it end up equaling exactly the opposite charge of an electron? why not a charge of +1.8e, or +3e, or 0.1666e, etc? Certainly it is convenient that a proton and electron complement each other, but what makes that the case? Does this question even make sense?

so, there's a concept of a "positron", which I can understand - of course it has charge +e, it is the "opposite" of an electron. it is an anti-electron. at least that makes some kind of sense. but a proton is made up of this complex soup of other elementary particles following all these crazy rules, and yet it also ends up being exactly +e.

mianos
61 replies
20h57m

Imagine you have a bunch of fulcrums in the air and items droping down. If the things that land on the fulcrums don't balance each other out the fulcrum tips and the items keep dropping. Eventually all the fulcrums are balanced.

A lot of these things coalesce until they are stable enough they don't fall apart. If there is a stable form and you have enough of them, eventually you get a lot of stable forms.

It is not some magical thing that makes all this balance, it is more of a settling thing where things eventually drop to a stable state. There is lots of matter that is still unstable.

gizmo686
57 replies
20h44m

This explains why atoms have 0 charge, but not why protons, which are stable even without electrons, have a charge of 1.

Put in terms of elementary particles, why is it that the ratio of electric charge between a quark and an electron is either 1:3 or 2:3?

rolph
46 replies
19h34m

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,

Balgair
39 replies
19h13m

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?

blueprint
14 replies
18h28m

when you understand quantum theory correctly, you will realize that particles don't exist by themselves. They are a temporary localization. this means that the number of quarks inside a proton is not actually fixed. when a particle becomes disentangled with the system, that localized it, there's no longer a particle

I mentioned this recently, in the context of the laziness in language, leading to the miseducation of those who don't know better, and was heavily downvoted and ridiculed

keep it up, hn, you'll see idiocracy soon enough and then no one will trigger you

CoastalCoder
5 replies
16h51m

HN is a great training ground for learning how to present arguments in a compelling, engaging manner.

blueprint
4 replies
16h45m

that may be true, but I'm already highly trained at that. But hey, what if you just ratchet up the difficulty to infinity. Then it will train people even better. Either that or it'll destroy the community because you dont have any criterion of right and wrong in your claim.

It doesnt matter how correct people are. The more correct people are the worse they're treated. The better we get at presenting true arguments the more you will resent us and the more you have no choice but to react with violence (being unable to admit your lie), as HNers do now with trap counterarguments and gaslighting. No wonder suicide is on the rise.

Dylan16807
1 replies
15h36m

What's the lie that needs to be admitted?

blueprint
0 replies
12h23m

the lie i meant is if people claim to want to know what they dont yet. it usually happens without their realization.

look in the history of the greater philosophers

you see it in the mechanism of narcissistic abuse as well

you might also read up on the girardian scapegoat. the point is people like the comfort of falsehood so it tends to propagate more easily. few who were around masters wanted the actual teaching rather than some life quality improvements and basic answers. One of the merits certain people can get by hanging out around a real teacher is that those people can pretend that they were one of the people who wanted to know in front of those who don't know any better.

AndrewKemendo
1 replies
15h24m

I feel what you’re saying, but it’s incumbent on people who understand stuff to explain it to people who don’t in a way that they can comprehend

The reality is that we’re all ignorant about most things, so having an attitude with someone around something you know - irrespective of how you know it - is a losing strategy and as you said leads to poor interactions

Try to give people more grace and you’ll find people are more capable than you might know

blueprint
0 replies
12h17m

I'll try to keep it in mind. thanks for your kindness.

rvba
3 replies
16h25m

What do you mean by "temporary localization"? That protons move? That they can poof? They dont seem to self destruct.

On a side note: are there any models that assume that there are fields/shapes that are constanly bombarbed by neutrinos and other stuff. Thks bombardment seems to be always ignored

blueprint
0 replies
12h22m

without being localized, they remain a probability wave because the "universe" of information literally doesn't know enough about them anymore

blueprint
0 replies
15h54m

no, we're talking about quarks

or any isolated quantum systen

Avicebron
0 replies
16h8m

by drawing a hypothetical box around your system with and measuring it, you've bounded it locally.

anon84873628
1 replies
14h20m

I was ready to up vote until the third paragraph.

Reading your other comments down thread doesn't paint you in a good light. Maybe your argument about laziness in language wasn't as cogent as you thought. Maybe you aren't as good at presenting arguments as you thought.

In other words, maybe you need some humility.

blueprint
0 replies
12h26m

yeah maybe

but if you knew for sure you'd be able to be sure of that and also show the proof

instead what you did is present the impression that you had which is a synthesis of what you encountered and what was in you from the past.

If you study much philosophy, you'll have to admit the fact that a large number of people turn away from what is true. It's not pleasant to you, I know. nor is it pleasant for you to see the product of the system that you want to close your eyes to talking to you in an unpleasant manner.

rolph
0 replies
18h23m

thanks, i want to stress the model of the proton i had posited up thread is very simplified, for the purpose of explanation.

gjm11
0 replies
2h44m

So far as I can tell, the fact that

"particles" are just what we call particular kinds of excitations in quantum fields

doesn't in any way answer, or obviate, or otherwise demystify the question of

why the electric charge associated with one sort of "particle" should be exactly 3x the electric charge associated with another.

So your comment is not only gratuitously rude, it's also either (1) wrong or (2) missing some essential explanation.

nojvek
9 replies
15h51m

It’s essentially asking why is the speed of light 299,798,452 m/s or the gravitational constant 6.67x10-11 Nm2/kg2

I’m sure a universe could work with those constants varied but that’s the one we have in our universe.

There could be hypothetical universes with protons being half of electron and atoms would have twice the protons.

However the fundamental constants are just that. A number that allows us to reason about how the universe works.

As to why the number is that, gotta ask your God why they chose that specific value.

Dylan16807
5 replies
15h39m

It’s essentially asking why is the speed of light 299,798,452 m/s or the gravitational constant 6.67x10-11 Nm2/kg2

No, because those constants are entirely arbitrary.

The curiosity here is that you have multiple numbers lining up, only separated by small integers.

lostemptations5
4 replies
13h28m

They are arbitrary in the sense that we could just change them and the universe wouldn't fl appart -- or are they derived from aonething deeper.

fiddlerwoaroof
3 replies
11h0m

The obvious way in which those constants are arbitrary is that the meter is just a random length we compare other lengths to (and the gram is an arbitrary mass we use). So, the precise numbers are only meaningful as part of a system built on these units

lostemptations5
2 replies
6h6m

"Since 2019 the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second, where the second is defined by a hyperfine transition frequency of caesium."

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre)

I wouldn't call it totally random, no. It's really derived from somethings real in this universe.

So, the precise numbers are only meaningful as part of a system built on these units

That doesn't sound particularly random. And in fact we agree here.

cgriswald
1 replies
2h33m

No.

Some of you are talking past each other. The speed of light being exactly the number c is arbitrary, because the choice to use the ephemeris second as the base unit of time (regardless of the precision we get by now using cesium atom “beats”) is arbitrary even though it’s based on something real. That’s just standardizing our arbitrary choice.

The charge of an electron is also effectively arbitrary for the same reason. We can have our units based on whatever real thing we want.

What isn’t arbitrary is that, whatever units we use and whatever number we arrive at for the charge of the electron, it true that the quark charge units are (1/3)e. Thus, as the poster pointed out there is a fundamental difference in asking why it works out that way compared to asking why the speed of light is a particular derived number.

tldr: The poster above is wrong about his claim that it’s like asking “Why is the speed of light…” because he’s comparing a number to a relationship.

lostemptations5
0 replies
43m

OP: "It’s essentially asking why is the speed of light 299,798,452 m/s or the gravitational constant 6.67x10-11 Nm2/kg2 I’m sure a universe could work with those constants varied but that’s the one we have in our universe.

There could be hypothetical universes with protons being half of electron and atoms would have twice the protons.

However the fundamental constants are just that. A number that allows us to reason about how the universe works.

As to why the number is that, gotta ask your God why they chose that specific value."

And so the post I responded too said these constants are totally RANDOM / ARBITRARY.

But they cannot be otherwise the universe wouldn't work (as far as we know).

The measurements or units we use to express these are arbitrary-- but the constants themselves are DERIVED from the system we call the universe. Without them the system wouldn't work.

Is this really so controversial?

oldandtired
1 replies
12h24m

The first thing to point out here is that the

the speed of light

is not

299,798,452 m/s

It is quite inaccurate to say this. The correct way to phrase this is that the speed of light is 1/sqrt(permeability * permittivity) of the medium through which the light is traveling.

For a perfect vacuum, these two properties of that vacuum give a result as specified above. For other specified medium, you will get a different value, which could be greater than or less than the above figure.

Little technicalities matter in such cases, as it opens up the discussion. Part of that discussion is that solar space or interstellar space or intergalactic space will have distributions of matter that can alter what the speed of light is away from the assumed perfect vacuum speed of light.

Simple assumptions such as perfect vacuum are quite likely to affect how accurate our models of the universe are. The problem for us is that we are here and not out there making actual on location measurements of the permittivity and permeability of the relevant regions. The assumptions made in our models can come back and bite us in the long term.

Now as for the models we use currently for proton and neutron structure, there are assumptions here that could well be misleading us even though our models appear to work. There are alternate models available (since at least the early 20th century) which have, as far as I know, not been investigated with any detailed effort. Now, of course, it doesn't mean that these alternatives are actually viable, but we don't really know at this time.

pnut
0 replies
5h32m

Another important point is that other things besides light (for instance, gravitational influence) travel at the speed of light.

It's actually the speed of causality / information transfer.

chii
0 replies
14h45m

Or, there's some more fundamental rule that's being followed that we haven't discovered yet that explains these numbers.

Physicists have been searching for the Grand Unified Theory since forever, and so far, no real luck. The closest is something i'm not too familiar with called M-theory (which is a derivative(?) of string theory).

edgyquant
8 replies
18h59m

Because they are mathematical models built to describe a thing and thus their entire purpose as a concept is to add up “neatly”

DiscourseFan
6 replies
18h33m

I'm getting very strong "angels on a pinhead" vibes from this

jacquesm
3 replies
17h41m

With the minute difference that we do not have experimental validation for Angels dancing on a pinhead whereas there is a massive amount of experimental validation for the standard model.

DonHopkins
1 replies
16h27m

I thought he meant "angles on a pinhead".

Now you're talkin' tri-angular!

https://cidu.info/2022/05/06/thats-a-cute-angle/

Right angles are wrong angles! Death to th' T-square!

https://comicskingdom.com/zippy-the-pinhead/2023-07-02

DiscourseFan
0 replies
14h40m

Thank you for your contribution, my fellow Pynchon Enjoyer

DiscourseFan
0 replies
8h45m

So you're saying that all we need to do is experimentally validate the number of angels dancing on a pinhead?

wombatpm
1 replies
14h26m

Measure the area of a pinhead, divide by cross-sectional area of an angel. Easy peasy.

jacquesm
0 replies
8h14m

Division by zero error.

idiotsecant
0 replies
17h20m

No, these are models with simple, testable properties. You can't wave away the fundamental charges as something somebody made up to make the models nice, conspiracy theories don't work when there is a simply observable truth.

yummypaint
0 replies
18h34m

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_formulation_of_...

Mathematically it works out that way because the standard model is build up from symmetry groups. The hand wavy explanation is that the symmetries observed in nature wouldn't be reproduced if the charges differed by random irrational numbers.

The same is also generally true of other conserved quantities in the SM. Noether's theorem unifies symmetries and conservation laws as the same thing.

As far as a more fundamental explanation as to WHY the universe is this way, ask your god i guess.

snarfy
0 replies
17h35m

My layman understanding is that charge is not fundamental. It derives from something called weak hypercharge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_hypercharge

ianburrell
0 replies
18h18m

Because that is the universe we live in. We don't know where the universal constants come from, if they are random, or selected. Science can't really answer the question of "why", it only does "how".

delecti
0 replies
18h54m

Could be a bit of anthropic principle at play. Universes where things don't work out with some stability might not support chemistry, and biology is especially finicky chemistry.

bbor
0 replies
15h4m

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

mulmen
3 replies
19h2m

How does 2/3 - 1/3 not sum to 1/3? 2-1 is 1, right? What am I missing?

eindiran
2 replies
18h50m

2 up quarks, so 2/3 * 2 -> 4/3. And then 4/3 - 1/3 = 3/3 = 1

mulmen
0 replies
18h3m

Ah ha, I thought it was 1/3 per quark. Thanks.

lostemptations5
0 replies
13h10m

Thanks I wondered the same

trenchgun
0 replies
12h16m

the unitary quantity is a conveinience.

Ah right, so basically its just a convenience notation? We could as well say that proton has 3 and electron is -3 charge?

est
0 replies
4h27m

a proton, in the simplist version, is made of 3 quarks. two up quarks one down quark.

OP's article has a full paragraph dedicated saying that "The proton is much more than three quarks"

lazide
6 replies
20h35m

If the universe is old, then how do you expect atoms to exist if this was not the case?

pdabbadabba
5 replies
20h31m

Couldn't there be a different physics where protons had a charge of 0.5 and, therefore, every atomic nucleus would have twice as many protons as electrons? Or pick any other ratio you like.

Or course, I don't mean to hand-wave away the potential implications of this. Maybe there would be no atomic nuclei in such a universe, for all I know. But if not, why not?

yifanl
3 replies
20h19m

How would we ever distinguish what half-a-proton is in a universe where all protons ever are _always_ paired off?

derefr
1 replies
20h14m

Presumably the same way we distinguish individual quarks: by smashing the atoms up.

(The more interesting question would be the opposite: what if it was two electrons per proton? Then you could throw around some photons and end up with a half-proton negatively-ionized molecule. What would that look like?)

selecsosi
0 replies
19h54m

You are going down the path of theoretical particle physics! It is the ultimate question of that to answer what is the fundamental element that makes up matter and what should we "name" that has a useful property that can either be used or helps to explain how other things work.

In reality, "protons" do not "exist" but are semi(very) stable collections of energy that interact in an interesting enough way in a group that it is useful for us to retain the name, rather than refer to it by its constituents.

Electrons don't really glob up into things like atoms due to repulsion (no moderation by the stron/weak nuclear forces) so we don't have a really useful reason to keep going beyond the definition of the electron so we just stop trying to find additional constituent parts.

Dylan16807
0 replies
15h33m

We see naked protons and mismatches between nuclei and electrons all the time, so I don't see why half-charge protons would be "_always_" paired off.

lazide
0 replies
16h58m

Sure. Some interesting thoughts in sibling comments too.

Personally, I find the taste of hot chocolate just as nice regardless of the exact mix of quarks composing its constituent elements.

riwsky
2 replies
14h20m

A proton, electron, and a neutron walk into a bar…

oldandtired
1 replies
12h20m

After about 15 minutes, the neutron has changed into another proton and electron, so bar now has a bigger party on its hands.

amelius
0 replies
6h36m

How do they split the bill?

lavasalesman
2 replies
18h12m

I like your explanation.

There is lots of matter that is still unstable.

What are you referring to with this?

undersuit
1 replies
18h3m

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay

I need to read the article, but yeah protons might not be stable, we just need to wait a long time to find out.

mianos
0 replies
16h9m

And free quarks within stars in conditions where they are not confined. They can exist unconfined for a real short time. At the start of the big bang there were a lot of them.

clankyclanker
46 replies
16h39m

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 way, we’re pretty lucky.

https://youtu.be/YmOVoIpaPrc

foobarbecue
17 replies
16h28m

AKA the "anthropic principle."

jodrellblank
16 replies
16h14m

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.

knightoffaith
8 replies
15h2m

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.

Mauneam
7 replies
14h40m

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

No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation.

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

Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit.

It offers an explanation.

No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation.

No more than any other answer does.

No, not like other answers. Science never closes the book on further questions.

knightoffaith
5 replies
14h19m

I suspect you're reading into my comment more than what I intended to say.

In the context of fine-tuning arguments for God, we really are just arguing that an intelligent designer designed the universe. In isolation, this doesn't necessarily commit us to some mainstream religion, and in this context, God is just the intelligent designer of the universe, nothing more (though proponents of the arguments will go on, through other arguments, to ascribe more properties to this thing).

Goddidit is not an explanation.

I don't know why it wouldn't be. Suppose I kept pulling a card from a deck and showing it to you. Every single time, it was the ace of spades. Why is this? Well, one pretty good explanation is that I know where the ace of spades is in the deck and I'm intentionally picking that card out and showing it to you. That is, there is intelligence/intentionality that explains this event. You would probably consider this as an explanation. The fine-tuning argument's conclusion is just as much of an explanation.

Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit.

I don't know what you mean to say here. Satandidit doesn't predict anything either.

No, not like other answers. Science never closes the book on further questions.

This isn't a scientific question though. This is a question about why the fundamental constants of nature are what they are. This is a question beyond the domain of science. Elsewhere in this thread, someone linked a video of Feynman (an atheist) on "why" questions and how at some point they have to bottom out - and at this point, science cannot provide the answers.

Besides, this doesn't close the book on further questions. We can still ask, "what kind of existence is this intelligent designer?", "why does this intelligent designer exist?", etc. And of course, questions that are normally under the domain of science are still under the domain of science.

Mauneam
3 replies
13h50m

Saying "because God did it" as an answer to any question has the same value as saying "because pixel cooked the music". If you want to consider those two groups of words "explanations" go for it. They are grammatically correct, and if they satisfy the curious mind they are good enough.

namaria
1 replies
11h12m

You keep insisting that 'anthropic principle' = 'god did it' when it's anything but. It's like you don't even read to the replies to your comments.

15457345234
0 replies
9h31m

It's not uncommon now for people to use comment sections to deliver lectures, they already know what they want to say, they break it into multiple parts and they just paste it in assuming that other people will happily provide the right kind of conjugations. Good to point it out.

mistermann
0 replies
4h2m

Saying "because God did it" as an answer to any question has the same value as saying "because pixel cooked the music".

The same ascertainable to humans value perhaps, but if one assumes they are necessarily completely equal (there is no God, in fact) you would typically want evidence. But this is only typically, some things in science don't need proof.

unethical_ban
0 replies
13h43m

I consider the person to whom you are responding a troll, because they are taking a hard line stance, using abrupt terms, shutting down discussion, and putting much less effort into things than you are.

That said, I agree with you roughly. I think suggesting an intelligent design as a possibility is not "shutting down curiosity". A scientific mind can entertain higher forms of power and look into it.

Accepting the possibility of a creator is not equivalent to blind devotion to one of the many existing faiths.

lo_zamoyski
0 replies
4h4m

What caused your comment above to appear on HN?

Because youdidit.

That's not an explanation?

There are different kinds of explanations according to different measures, but all explanation is about identifying the causes of things. "You did it" identifies the agent, the efficient cause. I can, of course, explain how the agent (you) effected the cause, but youdidit is still an explanation, even if it isn't the kind you are interested in hearing.

Razengan
2 replies
14h49m

AKA “God did it”

+ "Just for us" ^^

e.g. Earth is the only place where life could have formed. We have yet to set foot on even 1 another planet but we are pretty sure we are alone in the entire damn Universe.

freetime2
1 replies
11h13m

This is an incredible misunderstanding of the Anthropic principle. It has nothing to do with god, it does not suggest that life could only exist on Earth, and it does not suggest that we are alone in the universe.

If anything it's an argument against Intelligent Design. E.g. life is the statistical result of a vast universe (or multiverse) of permutations - some of which are not conducive to life, and some of which are. And when life looks out and says "wow it's uncanny how perfect this place is, there must be a divine hand at work" - it's only observational bias that makes it appear that way. Because life could only exist to make such observations in regions of the universe which are suitable for life.

But on the other hand it also prevents one from saying "we exist, therefore intelligent life must be commonplace".

XorNot
0 replies
9h42m

i.e. the puddle thinking how fortunate it is that the ditch it is in is the perfect size for it.

lm28469
0 replies
3h54m

An answer which explains nothing, predicts nothing, satisfies no curiosity, and closes the book on any further questions.

Which law of the universe guarantees the satisfaction of your curiosity again ?

jxdxbx
0 replies
9h15m

the anthropic principle is why we find ourselves in such an unlikely place (a habitable planet) instead of somewhere that can’t support life. it’s not an argument for god.

it’s not entirely trivial. if someone says “god did it” because we find ourselves on earth not mars the anthropic principle is a better explanation.

foobarbecue
0 replies
4h19m

My favorite version of the anthropic principle is one where you say that ALL of the universes exist -- with all possible values of arbitrary constants. We just observe this one because we're alive here (and most of the others are not habitable).

cool_beanz
0 replies
14h53m

The Anthropic Principle explains why you are asking the question, not why the proton has that charge. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection

timeagain
13 replies
16h30m

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

megmogandog
10 replies
15h6m

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.

timeagain
7 replies
14h48m

Ok here’s the problem. What hubris does it take to assume the fundamental constants could be changed? Just because they appear in math equations doesn’t mean they can be twiddled and tweaked like programming variables. We have no prior knowledge or justification to believe any constants have been “tuned”, because we have no justification in suggesting other possible values.

We could just as easily say that life on earth was “tuned” to make ”intelligent life” evolve, but we don’t have any other 4 billion year test runs of earth to see what else might have evolved. In the same way we have no data at all about the phase space of other possible universes, their constants, or how their physics would play out on cosmological timescales.

It’s not that it isn’t fun to think about. It’s just that it is unscientific.

megmogandog
2 replies
13h8m

I think I could've phrased my comment better.

I'm not assuming the constants can be changed; axiomatically, they cannot, because they're fundamental constants of the universe. I'm also not assuming that some agent was around to do the tuning. In its basic form 'fine tuning' just means that if one of the values were even slightly different we wouldn't have anything like the universe we see today, including life. The values of the constants appear as if they were tuned.

It's interesting you bring up evolution, because before that theory came about intelligent design was a reasonable assumption in trying to explain how well-adapted organisms seemed to be to their environments. It was as if someone had designed them for their roles! As it turns out the theory of evolution satisfactorily explains why organisms exhibit the appearance of design.

In a similar way the fundamental constants exhibit the appearance of having been precisely set. It's hard to imagine a scientific theory getting 'behind' the constants the way evolution was able to get 'behind' the appearance of organisms...

radarsat1
0 replies
12h3m

if one of the values were even slightly different we wouldn't have anything like the universe we see today

This is a hallmark of a chaotic system. It's not impossible but the chances of sitting exactly on such an unstable point seems very low. It seems more likely that the constants are some optimum in a basin of attraction, a stable point in some higher order dynamic system.

DebtDeflation
0 replies
5h44m

because they're fundamental constants of the universe

They're constants but are they fundamental? There are a lot (19?) of free parameters in the Standard Model. We determine them experimentally. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some deeper explanation that results in those values. We just don't know what it is yet.

ryandamm
1 replies
13h15m

You're not entirely wrong that it's unscientific, I think we're answering metaphysical questions. (It seems like questions of "why" ends up unerringly in either metaphysics or religion at some point.)

That said, I believe the chain of logic (haven't watched the PBS video yet) is simply that were these fine-tuned constants to take any other value, there wouldn't be intelligent life to observe them. If the values were to be anything outside a narrow range, they would remain unobservable by entities within that hypothetical universe, and because we are making an observation we are implicitly sampling from the distribution of observable values. It's a Bayesian metaphysical argument?

That sounds like it presumes a multiverse, but I don't think you need an infinite number of universes or a god for that to be true... that said, it does purport to explain how fine-tuning doesn't violate certain (metaphysical?) principles of science that call for "naturalness" (which a friend once told me boils down to "all unitless constants should be either 1 or 0 otherwise it's inelegant" or something): the fine structure constant is what it is because otherwise nothing would exist to observe that it was 1/139 or 42 or whatever.

I hope this is even slightly more satisfying to read than it was to write.

cdogl
0 replies
9h56m

Your comment was an excellent synthesis of the discussion that preceded it - thank you.

kadoban
0 replies
14h33m

Ok here’s the problem. What hubris does it take to assume the fundamental constants could be changed? Just because they appear in math equations doesn’t mean they can be twiddled and tweaked like programming variables. We have no prior knowledge or justification to believe any constants have been “tuned”, because we have no justification in suggesting other possible values.

Nothing says that they couldn't be changed, but then there's the question of _why_ they can't be changed. What forced them to be the values they are? Some of them appear to be free, so are they?

felipeerias
0 replies
13h0m

Those constants are a feature of our models. We don’t actually know whether the constants themselves are part of reality, or whether they are just there so our models can approximate our observations.

The point is, there might be a mismatch between our model and the underlying reality. There could be an unknown deeper structure to reality which explained why those values appear to us as “fine tuned”.

lo_zamoyski
0 replies
4h25m

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.

I will add that, from a classical theological point of view, watchmaker type arguments are considered quite weak [0].

[0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/03/thomism-versus-desi...

kjqgqkejbfefn
0 replies
5h19m

doesn't invalidate the appearance that the fundamental constants of the universe were fine tuned for the production of complexity/life.

I think it's the other way around, it's because we are complex reasoning forms of life that we must observe fine tuning of physical constants, necessary for the emergence of complexity.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_Bias

I also came up with my own variation of the anthropic principle:

- 1. Extend the anthropic principle beyond physical connstant. Include factors such as the goldilock zone from planetology, the symbiogenetic origin of eukaryotic cells, the presence of the moon, etc ...

- 2. Rethink the "anthropic situation" as a collection of coincidences. It doesn't directly "select for" observers, but for the right coincidences that allow them to exists.

Two paths open for us from here:

- 3.1. Either God (or whatever phenomenon can explain the presence of the right coincidences) exists and we were dealt with the right set of coincidences.

- 3.2. Or alternatively, this collection of coincidences was built up by a random sampling process. If this is the case, then we should expect this collection to contain *superfluous* coincidences that have no impact on the existence of observers. Imagine you lost the key to your house and someone cuts a key at random from a bit of metal, which luckily turns out to unlock your door. This key has more chances to feature superfluous, redundant notches, than to be an exact copy of the original key.

----

This brings a counterpoint to the cognitive perspective on pattern recognition and could be used to challenge or refine our understanding of why we perceive certain phenomena as 'coincidences' (for instance why the Moon/Sun ratios are the same for both their diameters and distances to the Earth, which allows us to observe quasi-perfect eclipses). This superfluous anthropic principle, in this case, suggests that these perceived coincidences might have an actual basis in the physical properties and probabilistic events of the universe. In other words, it is because God doesn't exist that we can see 'meaningful' coincidences "hinting" at its existence (from the perspective of magical thought).

kadoban
1 replies
14h34m

A couple of the constants it's easy (for a real physicist, not for me) to prove there's no interesting structure to the universe anymore if they vary even a little. Like, no molecules are possible.

So there's a question there for why the values are so exactly set, or if something forces them to be the value they are.

The anthropic principle (that if the universe weren't suitable, we wouldn't be here to know) always struck me more of reasoning that we're _not_ special.

raggi
0 replies
12h59m

"no molecules are possible" does not imply "absolutely nothing forms a structured dynamic", the thought experiment ceases prematurely if it stops there, partly because the structural makeup is not yet well enough known to consider those outcomes. the claim of a completely uninteresting outcome approximating true nothing is empirically unlikely. abstractions tend to fall over far faster than reality does

okamiueru
10 replies
12h15m

I strongly dislike PBS Space Time, but I find it hard to explain why. I might also be just too dumb to get it. It's just the feeling of the goal not being the "listener gaining understanding", but rather "expressing how confusing and complicated it is".

cocoa19
8 replies
11h49m

The channel is definitely not targeted for the lay person.

A counter example, Derek from Veritasium, he did a phd in physics education and it shows. Some of his videos are complex in content, but dumbed down so most people can understand.

I enjoy PBS space time and listening to Matt O’Dowd, but I understand at the most 20-40% of what is covered on the videos. It is frustrating because I like the topics being discussed.

okamiueru
6 replies
9h4m

I'm not convinced. When he talks about things I understand, he does so in a way that I still find frustratingly convoluted. In these cases, it's not for a lack of education. It probably just means that this style of presenting topics just isn't for me, which is completely fine. Diversity in free education is great and commendable.

But I think you touch on the part that I think is the reason why. Because PBS tries to dumb things down, but instead of doing it like Derek does, which adds clarity, PBS does it by "mystifying" it. Probably tickles someone's itch, but I find it annoying.

Take the video posted, for example. It starts out immediately with thumbnail "Life = Multiverse?". If it really was for the niche audience, that title is remarkably dumb, although understandable for the same reasons clickbait titles work. Perhaps PBS meant to present the question whether one leads to or suggests the other? "Life ⇝ Multiverse?" would better express that. Though, the thought process of how multiverse and the anthropic principle go together is: "Multiverse ⇝ Life?".

The video starts out by expressing three statements, related to the Anthropic Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle). Had they instead worded those statements as to be correct, it would be a very nice way of introducing the topic.

This is how it is presented:

"Life exists in our universe" ⇝ "Our universe is capable of producing and sustaining life". Which is fine. We understand what producing and sustaining life is, because it is really just the first statement with some added anthropomorphism.

The next one, which is the whole point of the "hook" for the video, and is probably intended to be a little bit cheeky, except that he keeps a straight face, so, unless you know enough, it'll probably just misinform you.

"Okay. Let's try one final uncontroversial statement. Therefore, there are countless universes".

Well, no. Multiverse theory is one way to explain the unlikeliness of the physical constants working out the way they "conveniently" do in our universe. But this logical inference is not an "uncontroversial statement". It doesn't qualify, yet it is dumbed down to suggest it does. I'm sure that the following "Hm", and look to the side, is meant to express this. What do I know. But I'm not particularly amused or impressed.

So, so far, we've seen the thumbnail, and the first three sentences before the intro video rolls. And, it's been 1. Inaccurate information in thumbnail, 2. incorrect logical inference 3. false conclusion.

I can probably continue the video, but this is why I dislike PBS so much. It doesn't really try to dumb things down. It just IMO, fails to communicate science well.

stevenhuang
5 replies
8h24m

Yeah, your confusion there is like being confused from the use of a literary device. The intent was exactly to illustrate why the implication 'life -> multiverse' may be problematic.

It was communicated just fine, I think you should continue watching?

okamiueru
4 replies
8h14m

Are you sure you got the argument I'm presenting? You did quickly make an edit to avoid a rather rude remark.

My point is that their use of literary devices, as you put it, are often misleading if not flat out wrong. The listener needs to he able identify them as such, and I don't think that's a good way to communicate science.

It doesn't mean that PBS is bad. Note that I have made no such statement. I'm just saying that I dislike it, and tried to be constructive as to why. If this offended you, like your initial remark might suggest, perhaps you are reading too much into it.

stevenhuang
3 replies
7h50m

I did want to avoid implying that videos are harder to understand if you find nonverbal cues hard to understand, but sure. That would genuinely be a reason to avoid PBS videos and that's fine.

The point is their use of the literary device here was not misleading nor 'flat wrong'. It is serving as a jumping off point from the video title 'Does Life Need a Multiverse to Exist?'. You may argue that such a question is ill posed, but then state your argument properly.

Read: they are NOT talking about the anthropic principle here. You are probably confused because you are trying to shoehorn this into discussion when the video is not even talking about this yet. Yes the anthropic principle is cogent to the video but not until later.

okamiueru
2 replies
7h38m

Sounds like we agree then.

The difference in opinion is that I don't consider literary devices to validate incorrect or misleading statements. Which is why I dislike PBS. You do, and that's fine. To each their own.

stevenhuang
1 replies
7h20m

Read: they are NOT talking about the anthropic principle here. You are probably confused because you are trying to shoehorn this into discussion when the video is not even talking about this yet. Yes the anthropic principle is cogent to the video but not until later.

You are not only confused because they are using a literary device, you are _primarily_ confused because you think they are talking about the anthropic principle, when they are not.

Anyways. I am sure you have your reasons for disliking PBS. Just that the reason you've given here is incoherent, for reasons I understand (trying to make a point quickly etc). No worries.

okamiueru
0 replies
28m

You seem very hung up on my incorrect assumption as to what extent the video was about the anthropic principle or not. I have not watched it, nor do I intend to, and I am happy with being wrong about it. That said, it also isn't relevant to my dislike of PBS, or arguments presented. I just happened to click and take a peek at this particular video, to see if I could pinpoint the kind of stuff that I have come to associate with them. I didn't need to watch very long to find examples. Examples, that you can take at face value, in it's own isolated context, which makes it completely irrelevant what you are hung up on, and suggesting I am confused by.

So, I'll make it simple.

"LIFE = MULTIVERSE?", is... a very dumb statement. It can function as a clickbait, but I'm assuming that PBS wants to suggest a relationship of inference. Why start out with possibly giving someone a wrong idea/concept? Now, this isn't a big deal. I just took a peek, and the first thing I saw was rather dumb. So, that's what I'll mention.

Secondly is the sequence of statements, that are explicitly stated as "uncontroversial" in the inference between them.

They are:

"Life exists in our universe" ⇝ "Our universe is capable of producing and sustaining life" ⇝ "there are countless universes".

I'm taking these at face value. Third inference is invalid for more than one reason. Yet, it is presented as nothing but. You consider that a literary device. I can only think of two possible explanations for why: 1. You consider it OK to be incorrect and misleading when it is used as a literary device. 2. You do not understand why it is an invalid inference.

Either is fine by me. However, I'm not really confused. This... shouldn't be confusing. The only thing I've stated as a personal opinion here, is that I dislike PBS for being misleading and incorrect, as a literary device. You suggested that they weren't being misleading or incorrect, because there is a "hint hint, nudge nudge" that it might be ironic. So, my person opinion is: well, that's pretty fucking annoying. Hence my conclusion. Which is why I'll just stick to Derek and the likes who can manage to dumb things down to my level. Everyone is happy.

PS: .. and in case you might argue this; it also doesn't matter what they explain later on, if that's why you mentioned I should watch on. There is no "uncontroversial" series of arguments that will reach the logical conclusion "there are countless universes". It's just one of several ways to reason about why life, and the laws of physics, happen to allow something otherwise improbable. Which is what I'm assuming they will get to, but again, I have no intentions of watching it.

hugryhoop
0 replies
11h24m

Derek tackles easier subjects than PBS space.

dcow
0 replies
11h55m

It’s like a listicle that tells you every best coffee machine in 2024 is a valid purchase to the right kind of consumer when you’re looking for the best one.

knightoffaith
1 replies
15h10m

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.

fwip
0 replies
3h8m

I don't think the claim requires a uniform distribution, just that the values come from some possible distribution (of any shape). With enough (or infinite) shots on goal, you're gonna get all combinations of them.

The question "why these values of constants instead of others?" sort of presupposes that other values are possible. If you instead believe that the values are fixed, then your answer is just "because that's the only value that's possible."

iankp
0 replies
7h34m

Isn't that concept of "luck" as strange as considering us "lucky" for currently being? Non-existent things aren't in a lobby waiting to win a lottery. There was no choice; we came to exist, then considered ourselves. Whatever conditions create, does not imply luck for what is created.

importantstuff
32 replies
11h20m

No one who has replied to your question has got the right answer. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/21753/why-do-ele... has the right answer. There are multiple aspects to this argument, but essentially, the symmetries of your system force the charges in the Standard Model (quarks and leptons) to be the way they are due to gauge anomaly cancellation. If you believe in quark confinement, which is extremely well motivated, computationally, theoretically and experimentally, then the fact that the proton has exactly charge +1 follows naturally.

hansbo
27 replies
10h6m

I am reading this as "it has to be this way, or the model does not hold", but it does not explain why. What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right?

coldtea
10 replies
9h53m

Not a physisist, but "consistency with the model" doesn't mean "because that's how some arbitrary model says it should be".

It's more like: "Because we have arrived at a model that describes well most other aspect of those particles and their behavior, and has verified predictive power, and given the constrains and calculations based on that model, that's what its charge would be".

awestroke
8 replies
9h50m

Still does not explain "why"

chaxor
3 replies
9h39m

I just would like to point out that "why" is not a scientific question. Feynman mentions this quite a lot. The question "why" doesn't have answers in science. A question of "How" has a better chance of being answered in science.

foldr
2 replies
8h50m

I think that was a fairly idiosyncratic point of view of Feynman's. In actual scientific practice you can find hundreds of examples of published scientific papers that address 'why' questions. Here are a couple of completely random examples:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11207-009-9338-5

https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8174/4/3/63

coldtea
1 replies
7h59m

They answer the why's with the same way @hansbo complained about not answering the why, e.g:

" We show that the symmetries of this non-commutative space unify the standard model of particle physics with (2) chiral gravity. The algebra of the octonionic space yields spinor states which can be identified with three generations of quarks and leptons. The geometry of the space implies quantisation of electric charge, and leads to a theoretical derivation of the mysterious mass ratios of quarks and the charged leptons. Quantum gravity is quantisation not only of the gravitational field, but also of the point structure of space-time."

foldr
0 replies
6h31m

It's not uncommon for a scientific paper to raise a question without fully answering it (science is hard). The point is that actual scientific practice does not appear to care about any distinction that can usefully be described as a distinction between 'how' and 'why' questions. You can keep asking 'but why?' ad infinitum and never arrive at a fully satisfying explanation. However, the same is also try of 'but how?' We will find no ultimate answers, but the questions that stimulate scientific research certainly seem to include 'why' questions.

ljosifov
1 replies
9h27m

"Why" is more of a philosophy question, pre-scientific or a-scientific if you like. Science question would be "How". Maybe not this particular Q, but having in mind that on every A-answer, one can again ask Q-question "Why". That's more philosophy not so much science, imo.

hansbo
0 replies
9h16m

I don't think it explains "How" either, in this case.

ruszki
0 replies
6h48m

There are causal links, but we always have axioms for which either there is no reasons, they are just how they are, or we don't know the reasons, we have just experimental evidence for them. At the end, the answer to "why" is always, because they are just how they are.

15457345234
0 replies
9h38m

The 'why' is because 'it's what balances'

i.e. it's the only combination that works. A proton is a bunch of other particles that, when combined together, balance out an electron. The 'why' is 'because that's a stable configuration' in the same way that water at 25c is liquid not gas because the 'rules' of the local environment dictate that.

I mean, why do those particles exist at all? That's really what you're asking. Why do electrons exist, why do protons 'form' from subatomic particles to balance them out? Existential kinda question.

zahllos
0 replies
6h17m

Exactly this. Or to put it another way we don't actually know how the rules of the universe work. So we can't follow a process of deductive reasoning that "why" follows from this or that implication.

Take quantum mechanics. This came out of observations that particles exhibited wave-like behaviour. Mathematics predicts certain things when you start to apply the wave equation. These are then experimentally verified and the model is shown to be pretty good, although it has some deficiencies like not fully linking up with relativity. There are some doubts in some areas of what it predicts as well from what I understand from talking to researchers.

As the article says the original model was that protons were fundamental particles: nothing smaller. This model held up for quite some time but then observational data demonstrated it was insufficient. Same with the three quark model. Knowing the various deficiencies we might go so far as to say "the model that a proton is a +1 charge is good enough" and use that because that works for many situations and that's as much as we need. Although of course, there are always scientists looking to complete the picture.

Science is the incremental acquisition of knowledge through observation and experimentation - and there's an awful lot we haven't figured out.

throw0101c
7 replies
4h31m

I am reading this as "it has to be this way, or the model does not hold", but it does not explain why. What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right?

Perhaps 'because' if the consistency did not exist then the universe would fail to exist.

There was the Big Bang, but we do not know what caused the Big Bang. But the particular Big Bang that started our particular universe may not have been the only one to occur. There could have been multiple previous Big Bangs where the 'properties' of each of those created universes may not have had the same consistency as we experience, and the inconsistency(s) could have resulted in a 'collapse' or 'destruction' of those universes.

Whereas it was just a coincidence that our Big Bang got things 'right' for the universe to continue to develop.

We could simply be experiencing survivorship bias in/with our universe.

As someone who dabbles in philosophy, and to use its language, our existence is contingent (we, and our universe, do not have to exist):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency_(philosophy)

kamaal
2 replies
4h10m

Thats interesting, what are the chances of another big bang, after our(the current one) big bang?

Could it happen while this universe is here?

plussed_reader
1 replies
2h59m

I recently came into the concept of the great attractor; the mysterious force that our galaxy is hurtling towards. It is thought to be some supermass of star material and other things.

What if that supermass is another(the next?) big bang forming; energy just slides around some universe space banging off here and there, forever?

kamaal
0 replies
1h42m

I don't know much about this of this of course.

But it does feel like you might have a point here. If everything is moving away from each other, things must have a center some where, and thats where this new big bang is forming?

neycoda
1 replies
2h3m

I'm curious how the field that allows vibration exists instead of just pure nothing that isn't a field that doesn't allow vibration or bending or virtual particles etc. Heisenberg's principle seems contingent on the void of nothing being a field that can wobble.

throw0101c
0 replies
42m

Heisenberg's principle seems contingent on the void of nothing being a field that can wobble.

Sadly (?) the word "nothing" seems to have become overloaded, so now—depending on who you talk to—you can have the word pointing to different concepts. See "seven types/levels of nothing":

* https://rlkuhn.com/wp-content/uploads/Closer-to-Truth-Essays...

* https://closertotruth.com/news/levels-of-nothing-by-robert-l...

User23
1 replies
4h14m

Which leads to the wonderful question: why are there any contingent things? And: why are the contingent things that there are as complex as they are?

I don't know of any plausible naturalist explanation besides Many-Worlds. And that supposes for the sake of discussion that Many-Worlds is in fact naturalist.

neycoda
0 replies
2h0m

I've heard an amusing conjecture that I'm not sure how much to take seriously unless there's a mind underlying the universe (like in simulation theory).

The void in its infinite time and endless space (the same as neither existing) became bored with itself, and in its attempt to destroy itself, split and created the universe we have now. Full of endless wonders and anomalies and beauty and travesty. All for the amusement of itself as one that remembers the abyssal void.

XorNot
3 replies
9h48m

Isn't the primary experimental argument beta decay from that link? A nucleus can emit a positron, and observably loses nuclear charge equal to one positive electron.

So by a pretty simple inferrence you could conclude the proton has a positive in it, hence the charge (it of course isn't literally like this for other reasons though).

And since we also observe antiprotons, the opposite can clearly apply.

hansbo
2 replies
9h17m

So a proton can emit a positron. Does that mean that the positron is somehow "part" of the proton? Does it mean that their wave functions interact in some specific way? Is there another reason?

Quantum physics has always bothered me, personally, since I find it difficult to understand reasons. Not philosophical reasons, I am fine with axioms and foundations to models, but rather intuitive reasons why it works a certain way. I know it is an extremely strong theory which makes unexpected, later confirmed, predictions, but there is a frustration that the only explanation to things is "math".

XorNot
0 replies
7h43m

Sort of? But it's less "there is a particle doing things" and more "there's a probability field which can describe a particle doing something" (alongside a bunch of other probabilities it interacts with).

One of the ways you can calculate the probability of nuclear decay for example is to assume that the particle you expect to see is literally existent and trapped inside a potential well defined by the atomic nucleus and then calculate the probability it tunnels out of that to free space.

The thing is "why" does get pretty anthropic: protons match electrons because we observe them to, and then on top of that we observe nuclear decay causing the conversion of a proton to a neutron + a positron (within the limits of our instruments) - so our model predicts that these are in fact the same value, and we keep measuring to check that they converge in that direction (it would be a big deal, for example, if we discovered this wasn't the case - every physicist would love to find out that proton charge and electron charge are actually slightly different).

Koshkin
0 replies
3h50m

Does that mean that the positron is somehow "part" of the proton?

A photon turns into a (virtual) electron-positron pair. Does it mean that the photon consists of these particles?

sullyj3
1 replies
6h17m

Whenever you're asking for an explanation this deep in the ontology stack, you need to think about what kind of explanation would be satisfying to you, and whether you can reasonably expect intuitive answers in domains that lie far outside of your everyday experience. Human brains aren't built to grasp this stuff intuitively.

At a certain point, the reason we like some particular wacky physical model is always going to be "it has the best combination of explanatory power and simplicity"

tinganho
0 replies
5h48m

A thing can be explained with its constituent parts or explained by a parallel analogy. If you don't understand the constituent parts or the analogy or there are neither of these. You won't understand it.

bbor
0 replies
8h12m

“The model does not hold” === “existence wouldn’t be possible”. We found atomic particles, then did some more experiments and found quarks within the atomic particles. The quarks appear to be complex but predictable subsets of the particles. So “why do those subsets add to 1” invites a tautology, because the whole reason we found them in the first place is that they add up to exactly one, and therefor can be part of atoms.

It’s like asking why the left engine of an aircraft happens to emit the same amount of thrust as the right engine; if that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be a plane to talk about in the first place, just an art piece or a flaming crash.

aleph_minus_one
0 replies
8h4m

What causes it? Consistency of a model cannot be the ultimate reason, right?

Which epistemic foundation in which your "why" question is answered do you consider as acceptable for you?

polskibus
2 replies
11h12m

Which answer on physicsexchange is the right one? The top scored ?

guenthert
1 replies
8h3m

The top scored is just the answer liked best. The fact that it refers to proton decay and quantum gravity, both hypotheses which, as plausible as they might be, are not experimentally testable at this time, renders in my mind the confidence of the answer questionable.

importantstuff
0 replies
6h0m

The top answer has multiple reasons. The one I am referring to in particular is this section: "I should point out that if you believe that the standard model matter is complete, then anomaly cancellation requires that the charge of the proton is equal to the charge of the positron, because there is instanton mediated proton decay as discovered by t'Hooft, and this is something we might concievable soon observe in accelerators. So in order to make the charge of the proton slightly different from the electron, you can't modify parameters in the standard model, you need to add a heck of a lot of unobserved nearly massless fermions with tiny U(1) charge." It makes no reference to quantum gravity.

dontupvoteme
0 replies
8h17m

Wait, proton decay was proven?

anon84873628
18 replies
21h17m

No one knows. That's part of the great mystery.

But also in some sense "it has to be that way," since without charge balance atoms wouldn't exist as we know them, and thus neither would all the chemistry that creates the macroscopic world we inhabit.

retrac
15 replies
21h9m

That's a variation on the anthropic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle Maybe a kind of observer bias. If the universe weren't seemingly-perfectly balanced to allow emergent complexity in matter, we wouldn't be here to point out how seemingly-perfect it seems. (If you subscribe to a multiverse interpretation, perhaps most of the infinitely many other possible universes are dead and void.)

ccozan
9 replies
20h19m

An interesting point.

How about the universe kept starting and collapsing/crashing in an infinite loop until by chance the electron and the proton had the exact charge and the universe as it is now could go beyong the initial stage and could continue?

( Ok this feels like a trial an error of somebody playing universe ).

wruza
6 replies
18h48m

How about the universe that quantum-emerges in a truly random sequence of quasistates which disintegrate immediately, and once in a while it happens to be the state that includes "your" "memory" of the previous ones. I mean chronologically from your perspective, they don't even have to appear in order.

By an amazing coincidence, this particular "frameset" is logically consistent and pretty boring, so you have no intergalactic empires, no magic, and no job.

p1mrx
4 replies
17h57m

If perception emerged directly from chaos like that, wouldn't you expect to perceive chaos, rather than a rich world built upon billions of years of evolutionary history?

wruza
3 replies
17h38m

I don't think there's "rather than" in this idea. You surely will perceive every state that is perceivable at all, but time and continuity have no meaning here. Specific history is just an image that always exists only for an instant. Eventually that universe might enumerate all states, so they'd form all sorts of sequences, but that's coincidental.

p1mrx
2 replies
16h57m

Sure, such a universe would create all states, but if perception from chaos were possible, then there would be overwhelmingly more chaotic states to perceive than sensible ones, so you would expect to find yourself perceiving chaos.

I think perception cannot exist without a robust evolutionary history to build upon, which is why you perceive something sensible.

wruza
1 replies
15h50m

It depends on what we see as "perception". Imagine in our regular universe model, the "perceptor" quickly switched between all creatures just like a CPU core switches between all busy processes. That wouldn't invalidate any of the creatures/processes "experience" and wouldn't mix them (ignoring cache, processes aren't that isolated really). All these processes are transient states of the same physical CPU core.

Back to the chaotic universe, the "perceptor" switches between the states, every state is a complete picture. Yes it does see more chaotic states, but they don't leak into each other, including through expectations. There's no memory outside of a state that it could accumulate and experience continuously. Eons of state changes pass between two attoseconds, but there's no way to remember.

That's what I mean by perception. In-frameset perception obviously has to be continuous to make (or not make) sense.

p1mrx
0 replies
14h51m

That would still make the human brain an exceptionally rare state, compared to all the other chaotic states the perceptor perceives.

This particular human brain refuses to believe that the perceptor perceives anything when selecting a chaotic state. If you'd like to hear chaos' opinion on the matter, please pound on your keyboard for a while.

ryukafalz
0 replies
18h19m

Essentially dust theory from Permutation City. I've thought about this a lot.

p1mrx
0 replies
19h37m

I could see why a charge imbalance prevents life from forming, but why would it also collapse the entire universe?

FridgeSeal
0 replies
17h11m

Sssshhhh, you’ll summon all the simulation people out of the woodwork!

buildbot
2 replies
20h25m

This made me think - is a concept like most even defined for infinity?

wruza
0 replies
18h32m

Not a mathematician, but if there's a computable limit, then why not? E.g. most integers aren't powers of 2, cause lim(n to inf: n / 2^n) = 0

kjeetgill
0 replies
18h31m

Probably a cheeky response but certainly!

We can say most positive integers are greater than 5. Or most real numbers are irrational. Half of all integers are even — even though there's just as many of both!

knightoffaith
0 replies
14h51m

I'm not very sympathetic to the view that we're very lucky to be in this universe. That said, there is an interesting response to the anthropic principle response, which I'll mention here just because I think it's interesting to think about what's wrong with this objection:

Suppose you and I were living in a totalitarian state. The state decides that you and I are to be put to death. They drag us into a field, and a shooting squad of several marksmen surrounds us. They all fire - but miraculously, every single one of them misses us.

I then turn to you and say, "Wow, the odds that all of those bullets missed us by sheer chance are so incredibly low. Clearly, it wasn't by chance - they must have coordinated to ensure they missed us, intentionally."

You then turn to me and say, "No, that's silly. It's simply that if any of the bullets had hit us, we wouldn't be around to talk about it."

Your line of reasoning here doesn't seem to be very compelling. Why?

XorNot
0 replies
19h32m

It is however, not an unreasonable one. The main problem with the anthropic principle is if you use it to justify adding free parameters to models which don't otherwise have any physical meaning, and then tune them so they correct out the problems, wave your hands and say "it must be this way because if cannot be any other".

colordrops
0 replies
21h9m

Yes, could be the anthropic principal.

DonHopkins
0 replies
16h17m

On the topic of the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’:

Imagine that physics is like Microsoft COM (or C++ pure virtual function tables), so there's a base IUnknown interface, hiding innumerably different possible concrete implementation classes, that can expose arbitrarily many other abstract interfaces, so you can call iUnknown->QueryInterface(uuid, &otherInterface) to ask for other interfaces like IAtom, IElectron, IProton, IQuark, IParticle, and IWave, and there are also many other obscure higher level dynamic and reflective interfaces like IDispatch, ITypeInfo, and IPersist, just waiting to be discovered and exploited, if only we knew the right uuid to ask for.

And then physics research boils down to QueryInterfacing objects with random uuids, and when that succeeds in finding new interfaces, calling their random functions with random arguments to see what happens. That's probably what the black hole supercomputer at the center of the galaxy is doing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266627

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593432

m3kw9
10 replies
20h32m

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

s1artibartfast
5 replies
20h8m

Who says you can't?

Who says we don't always use it?

jodrellblank
4 replies
15h14m

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?

s1artibartfast
2 replies
2h31m

Electric Power isn't like a pipe and water wheel where you need a net flow of electrons. The work is done by the electric field, which is why we can have AC power where electrons don't have any net travel.

This also is why electric power flows along a wire at the speed of light, while electrons can only travel along a wire at the speed of a snail, or about 1 mm per second

roelschroeven
1 replies
1h41m

The work is done by the electric field, which is why we can have AC power where electrons don't have any net travel.

One doesn't follow from the other. We can easily transport power by making things like a chain or a fluid move back and forth, without any net travel. In a setup with a loudspeaker and a microphone as just one example the air transfers energy from one to the other without any net movement. In those cases it's clearly the movement itself which transfers the energy. Therefore energy transport by AC is no proof for the need of an electric field for energy transport.

That's not say to there is no electric field, or to deny its role in power transfer. There certainly is an electric field. But that field is intimately tied to the electrons in the conductor, and power transfer is intimately tied to movement of those electrons and the way electrons repel each other stronger when they get closer together (or other charge carriers, but in typical conductors that means electrons). You can't have one without the other.

s1artibartfast
0 replies
39m

Indeed! My points was that you aren't consuming electron charge, like you consume kinetic energy of water flowing through a stereotypical waterwheel. That is to say, I was giving a example, not claiming a rule.

sumitkumar
0 replies
10h43m

It is not yet proven that electrons need to flow from point A to point B to transfer electric energy. There is local movement but not in the sense that electrons are flowing through a hose to transfer power.

sumitkumar
0 replies
10h45m

Protons are electricity. But slow. All acid/base reactions. Proton gradients and pumps in the biological cells all work on slow proton electricity.

ludsan
0 replies
19h22m

the proton motive force powers us all

gus_massa
0 replies
16h7m

It is posible if you remove the wires.

In a CRT monitor, you have a ray of electrons that travel in vaccum and it is electricity outside wires. With a similar device, you can create a ray of protons and have also electricity with protons instead of electrons.

Another posibility is to use a water solution with acid. A part of the electricity is made of H+ that are just protons. (Actually, each proton is atached to a water molecule, so it's more like H2O+ than a plain H+.)

I'm triying to imagine a wire where protons can move. I don't think it's theoreticaly impossible, but they are mmuch heavier and bigger than electrons, so they it looks very difficult to find a material where they can move freely.

AdamH12113
0 replies
10h32m

In solids (like metals and semiconductors) the atomic nuclei form stable structures (often crystals). Protons are bound to their nuclei, and the nuclei don’t move, so neither do the protons.

Electrons, on the other hand, can move between atoms, which allows them to form an electrical current.

There are special cases, but that’s the basic answer.

femto
9 replies
20h30m

In the same vein, a neutron can decay into a proton, an electron and a neutrino (Beta decay), so in some sense the neutral neutron is the combination of an electron and proton. (A connection is there?)

In a simplistic way, I see a neutron star as just being a lump of regular (atomic) matter where the high pressure has forced all the electrons into the protons.

Question for someone who might know: Was pressure so high in the early universe that matter originally formed as neutrons, then as pressure reduced electrons and protons were able to separate? Sort of like the formation of a neutron star in reverse?

bugbuddy
6 replies
20h26m

I also have a question. Why should any theoretical predictions be regarded as Science if there is no feasible way to test them?

NegativeLatency
4 replies
19h43m

I think you might need to define your terms more specifically/clearly to be able to get an answer to this.

There's always the layman vs scientists definition of true. Like I think most people would say we know gravity exists, but in actuality we don't really know what gravity is, but we can measure how objects behave and make useful predictions about our world and universe because of that, with it lining up with other stuff we think we know.

Sorta similarly there's the scientific definition of something like dark matter/dark energy where there useful for modeling stuff but unlike what the general public thinks nobody has actually been able to point to a physical object that is dark matter to my knowledge, it's dark because it's unseen, not because it's like chunks of black stuff we can't see.

bugbuddy
3 replies
15h59m

I am going to get downvoted into oblivion again for asking this follow up question but that’s what I live for. What is the line between Physics, a scientific endeavor, and Metaphysics, a philosophical one?

Please set my transparency as high as you can. I totally deserve it. Let me fade into oblivion.

knightoffaith
0 replies
13h41m

Broadly speaking, philosophers of science don't think there's a generic answer to what differentiates scientific inquiry from not-scientific (or pseudoscientific) inquiry. Popper put forward the criterion of falsifiability (if it's falsifiable, it's science, otherwise, it's not science), but after Kuhn and Feyerabend's arguments, philosophers generally drifted away from thinking there's some hard-and-fast rule to differentiate science and pseudoscience.

If you're interested in these issues, you might enjoy Chalmers' What is this Thing Called Science?, an introduction to the philosophy of science that addresses issues like these. Or a primary source like Feyerabend's Against Method, quite a fun read, though maybe not one that many philosophers of science today would give their full-throated endorsement of.

gls2ro
0 replies
12h21m

Metaphysics can answer Why questions while Physics is more concerned with How and What questions.

SAI_Peregrinus
0 replies
14h32m

Physics is testable within the known laws of physics. Metaphysics is not.

dylan604
0 replies
19h20m

As long as it's called a theory instead of fact, then why isn't it science. We might not have enough tech or information on being able to create the test.

mr_toad
0 replies
20h16m

Makes me wonder if the universe as a whole is electrically neutral. Someone should check!

lnauta
0 replies
19h26m

It was a plasma of quarks and gluons first (these particles make up protons and neutrons and other unstable particles) which did cool down and become these particles. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_universe]

There is no reason to prefer any of the possible particles, but as all of them are unstable - minus the proton - they eventually decay to that state. (neutrons are not unstable in nuclei and such).

NB: this is quite simplistic and I skipped many details

aap_
9 replies
21h15m

Charge is quantized. You cannot have just any amount of electric charge. An electron has three elementary units of negative charge, quarks have -1 and 2. Whether it's a coincidence that proton and electron charge are of the same magnitude (and the neutron is neutral) is another question, but at the elementary level you don't have that much choice for what the charge of a particle is.

SECProto
4 replies
20h57m

quarks have -1 and 2.

Wikipedia suggests the quarks that make up the proton have charge ⅔e and -⅓e

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_quark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_quark

opportune
1 replies
20h33m

Is it true that the quarks themselves, in isolation, have that charge? Or is it that combining quarks into a baryon or meson gives the resultant particle a charge according to a fixed ratio of the constituent quarks?

Gemini advanced says it’s the latter, because of color confinement. But I’d defer to a human expert

lnauta
0 replies
19h17m

Quarks can not be alone, because of this confinement. What we see experimentally is that when we add energy to particles at some point they split into new particles and we never see a naked quarks.

We explain this by saying the quarks have a color charge and it must always be neutral. A single quark would be lets say red, but that's for some reason not possible. If we try to rip the quark out, it takes so much energy that this energy can be used to create another quark that results in a color neutral particle (red, antired)=meson, (red,green,blue)=baryon.

NB: this is a bit simplistic and other comments explain this quite in detail NB2: this color charge is just a name, its not an actual color

hazbot
0 replies
20h27m

OP assigned -3 units of charge to the electron, so all works out.

bradrn
0 replies
20h49m

The post you’re replying to seems to be taking ⅓e as the basic unit of charge.

TheOtherHobbes
2 replies
19h46m

But why is charge quantised?

In the Standard Model properties are defined as relationships within/between symmetry groups. There are only so many things you can do to/with/in a symmetry group, and that's where the quantisation comes from.

But... that's a mathematical metaphor applied to observations. It's a good fit, but it doesn't explain why it's those symmetry groups and not others, or why symmetry groups are a good fit at all.

There's likely some kind of fundamental mechanism that generates these symmetries, and no one knows what that is.

timschmidt
0 replies
19h21m

Resonance seems a candidate.

photon_lines
0 replies
5h0m

Information compression (edit sorry you said no one knows why the need to symmetry groups and I provided the answer).

exe34
0 replies
5h45m

Of course, the quarks had to go and be 1/3 or 2/3 of an e in charge. But they can never be observed isolated, so nature allows it.

JumpCrisscross
8 replies
19h56m

why must protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge?

According to QED's spin origin of charge, it's because charge comes from spin. What values a particle's spin can take are restricted to certain integer or half-integer values.

calamari4065
5 replies
19h15m

That just deflects the question one level down without explaining anything.

"Because it is" is not a helpful answer to "why?"

ravi-delia
0 replies
19h8m

The question wasn't "why do protons have +1 charge", it was "why do protons have +1 charge, *considering electrons have -1 charge". The fact that possible charges are restricted to a few values is a much more satisfying answer to the latter than the former

marton78
0 replies
18h14m

Physics doesn't attempt to answer the question "why", it answers "how".

magicalhippo
0 replies
16h55m

Richard Feynman addresses a similar "why" question in a great way in this interview[1], and how "why" questions are problematic in science.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA

empath-nirvana
0 replies
16h6m

You eventually have to take _something_ as given.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
19h10m

deflects the question one level down without explaining anything

There’s a lot of levels to SOC. Which do you think is “because it is?”

If you’re asking why spin values are restricted, it’s in the spin-statistics theorem [1]. If you’re asking why spin causes charge, that’s SOC. There are lifetimes of understanding contained within those layers.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin–statistics_theorem

gwerbret
0 replies
17h51m

According to QED's spin origin of charge, it's because charge comes from spin.

Children have the remarkable ability to see the world as it truly is, and so are able to ask the most profound questions. As adults, we learn to obfuscate our, ah, knowledge deficiencies in various ways, and so lose that ability over time. I'm of the opinion that great physicists are like children in being able to see through to the heart of the matter, and ask -- and answer -- questions that matter. This is certainly a theme you can see with Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, and others.

Why do I say this? Because GP's question was profound, and saying "it's because charge comes from spin" is the sort of obfuscatory answer I see most physicists give very, very often when they're faced with such questions.

That's completely aside from the fact that "it's because charge comes from spin" is entirely incorrect. All charged particles have spin, but not all particles with the same spin and other similar properties are charged.

gus_massa
0 replies
16h19m

I never heard this. I'm almost sure it's wrong. Do you have a link?

mkw5053
5 replies
21h15m

First, I am not a physicist. That said, he's my attempt at an answer that satisfies me: Part of the reason is charge quantization. Neither could be some fractional charge. We also observe charge conservation and electromagnetic force laws as described by quantum electrodynamics (QED). These necessitate that the electron and proton charges be precisely balanced for the universe to function as it does.

AnimalMuppet
4 replies
19h57m

But in fact, quarks are fractionally charged: +2/3 and -1/3.

For this to work, there have to be as many quarks in the proton as the denominator of the quark charge fraction. (And what mechanism forces that?)

And why should the charges on quarks be some nice low-number fraction of the charge on the electron? Why not sqrt(3) or something?

Gravityloss
2 replies
18h58m

There exist "stable" exotic particles of that have non ordinary amounts of lower level quarks. https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/lhcb-discovers-long...

Maybe they might have non integer charge.

exmadscientist
1 replies
17h19m

In QCD, they cannot. All Feynman diagram vertices involved in producing these things (in fact all QCD vertices period) only deal in integer charge units and never leave fractional charges floating around.

Gravityloss
0 replies
5h8m

Ok, I see. Also pentaquarks all have integer charge.

rainbowzootsuit
0 replies
17h35m

I think this is more of a historical artifact rather than a fundamental measurement. In the Millikan oil drop experiment he was able to measure quantized units of charge by stripping a single electron from a drop [1], so much later when quarks are figured out they are proportional to the base unit of charge.

This is similar to how Ben Franklin, having no knowledge of elementary particles, defined the positive and negative polarity of electricity, so we have "electron holes" flowing from the positive end of a battery to the negative end in "conventional current." [2]

Edit to add: the electron's non-even charge numbers comes into light when you see that the charge is 1.602176634×10−19 Coulombs, where 1C/second= 1 ampere. If we were trying to come up with the definition of an ampere with nice base 10 numbers of electrons this would be much different.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment

[2] https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Electrical_Engineerin...

lIl-IIIl
4 replies
21h14m

There's also a anti-proton which has a negative charge. I think this is probably the smallest charge there is.

A neutron can decay into a proton, electron, and anti-neutrino. So maybe one way to think of it is that a proton is a neutron that is missing an electron, that's why it has the opposite charge of the electron.

wiml
3 replies
20h59m

The quarks that make up a proton (or neutron, etc) have charges that are multiples of 1/3 the electron charge. So in one sense that is the real unit charge. But because as far as we know quarks can never exist in isolation we can only ever see particles with multiples of the electronic charge.

a_gnostic
2 replies
19h50m

The number assigned to charge is an arbitrary convention. You could assign quarks with full numbered charges, instead of fractions, but you'd have to rework and recalculate all of physics and chemistry to get the new values right, and that's just too much work.

calamari4065
1 replies
19h16m

No matter what arbitrary value you assign to the electric charge, quarks will always be 1/3 of that. That's the problem in question, not the absolute value.

twic
0 replies
17h10m

So quarks have a charge of 2 or -1, and a two of the former and one of the latter make a proton, which therefore has charge 3. An electron is elementary, but also has charge 3. The question is: that seems like a weird coincidence, how come it's like that?

at_a_remove
3 replies
20h44m

I'll take a shot at this. The "answer," such as it is, is symmetry. The electron belongs to a group called the leptons, which is to say they are lightweight. Leptons obey certain sorts of statistics and consist of the electron, the muon, the tau lepton, the electron neutrino, the muon neutrino, the tau neutrino, and their antiparticles. That's twelve in total.

The mirror of the leptons would be quarks. Up, down, charm, beauty, top, and bottom ... and their antiparticles. Twelve again! Their charges are 2/3e, -1/3e, 2/3e, -1/3e, 2/3e, -1/3e, and the reverse for the antiquarks. One bundle of three quarks is the proton, and it happens to be 2/3e + 2/3e + -1/3e. But so what? There's all kinds of other bundles. Three-quark bundles are typically hadrons (heavyweight) and two-quark bundles are mesons (medium weight). So you have a lot of choices on the other side!

The choices are caused by something called color confinement, which states that you will not get quarks alone. Indeed, you can take a pair of quarks in the aforementioned meson, and if you stretched them further and further apart, when the bond between them (mediated by gluons) snapped, you would have put so much energy into the stretching and snapping to create two new quarks, one at each end of your broken rubber band. Just as you cannot cut a piece of string such that it only has one end, so you have it with color confinement. I don't want to get too far away from the main point but because of this, quarks are found (normally, outside of Big-Bang quark-gluon plasmas) in combination ... and so eventually one of the combinations has a charge number resembling that of the electron.

Also, positrons aren't really the opposite of electrons. They're opposite on the matter/antimatter axis, which automatically flips the charge, q. They are not opposite along the lepton-quark axis, nor are they opposite along the electron-neutrino axis. Instead of one mirror, imagine many mirrors at angles to one another, and "opposite" becomes a less useful term.

oldandtired
1 replies
10h50m

One problem with your explanation is that the muon and the tau (and the pion as a decay product of the tau) all decay into electrons, neutrinos and photons, which would suggest that neither muon or tau are fundamental.

This would put the fundamental leptons being only the electron (and its antiparticle) with the neutrino and the photon.

Such an idea would upset the "symmetry" model.

at_a_remove
0 replies
3h7m

I never suggested that they are fundamental, and nobody said that the symmetry is perfect. In fact, the way the various symmetries break is what gives rise to all of this complexity and only raise more questions.

Also, photons are not leptons -- wrong spin for that. Which in turn can raise yet another axis for our funhouse of mirrors: fermions versus bosons.

fblp
0 replies
13h50m

This is hard to wrap my brain around but thank you for the explanation!

adrian_b
3 replies
20h28m

The fact that the proton has the same charge in absolute value as the electron is just a consequence of the fact that the 8 elementary particles at the lowest energy level, i.e. electron and its neutrino, the 3 up quarks and the 3 down quarks have charges that sum to zero in a 3-dimensional charge space.

These 8 particles and their 8 antiparticles are located in the corners of 2 cubes of unit edge in that 3-dimensional charge space. One cube is in the first octant of the coordinates, with 1 corner in the origin, while the other cube is in the opposite octant, also with 1 corner in the origin.

The neutrino and the antineutrino are in the origin, while the electron and the positron are in the opposite corners of the cubes, in the points (-1,-1,-1) and (1,1,1), and the quarks and the antiquarks are in the 12 off-diagonal corners of the 2 cubes.

As functions of the position vector of a particle in this 3-dimensional charge space, the electric charge is the component of the position vector that is parallel to the cube diagonal that passes through origin and the corners of the electron and positron, while the corresponding component that is orthogonal to the diagonal is the so-called color charge (hence chromodynamics; while the electric forces attempt to make null the 1-dimensional electric charge, the strong forces attempt to make null the 2-dimensional color charge), which is non-null only for the quarks and antiquarks, which are off-diagonal, and it is null for electron, neutrino and their antiparticles.

The projections of the off-diagonal corners of the cubes on the diagonal are at one third and two thirds distances from origin, which is why the electric charges of the quarks are 1/3 and 2/3 in absolute value (where the unit of electric charge is the electron charge, i.e. the diagonal of one unit cube), even if in the charge space all the particles have coordinates that are either 1 or 0 in absolute value.

While this symmetry of the charges is interesting, it is not known why it is so.

In any case, if this symmetry had not existed, the Universe as we know it could not exist, because this symmetry ensures that in the nucleons the total color charge of the quarks is null, so they no longer interact through strong forces (except at very short distances, where the residual forces bind the nucleons into nuclei) and at the next level the total electric charge of the atoms is null, so they no longer interact through electric forces (except at very short distances, where the residual forces bind the atoms into molecules).

The same symmetry exists for the other 2 groups of 8 particles and 2 groups of 8 antiparticles, where the muon and the tauon correspond to the electron, because those particles have greater masses but identical charges with the first groups.

In the initial state of the Big Bang, this symmetry of the charges ensures that even if there were only particles in equal numbers and without any antiparticles, the total electric charge and the total color charge of all matter was null.

While the neutrinos do not contribute to any of the charges, their presence ensures that the total spin, i.e. the total angular momentum, was also null.

dist-epoch
1 replies
19h36m

Can you please link to a picture of the 2 cubes?

Is this image another visualization of the same thing?:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_Model.svg

We know that the electric charge is not fundamental, but a projection of the weak isospin and hypercharge after the Higgs field symmetry breaking. How are weak isospin and hypercharge related to the 2 cubes?

adrian_b
0 replies
9h26m

No, that figure is not it.

I do not remember now where to find a suitable figure, but these are the coordinates of the corners of the 2 cubes:

neutrino & antineutrino: (0,0,0)

electron: (-1,-1,-1)

positron: (1,1,1)

down quarks: (-1,0,0), (0,-1,0), (0,0,-1)

down antiquarks: (1,0,0), (0,1,0), (0,0,1)

up quarks: (1,1,0), (1,0,1), (0,1,1)

up antiquarks: (-1,-1,0), (-1,0,-1), (0,-1,-1)

The particle-antiparticle pairs have an inversion symmetry over the origin.

The quark triplets have a rotational symmetry of order 3 around the principal diagonal of the cubes that passes through the origin.

The weak isospin and the hypercharge are an alternative equivalent expression of the charges, but I prefer this picture as it is easier to understand and visualize. It also demonstrates the quantized nature of the charges that determine the strong and electromagnetic interactions, and that they are based on the same quantum, so they are not independent interactions. The also quantized spin must be added as a fourth value, to completely determine the weak interactions too.

The various sets of values that can be taken as charges are related by bijections (one-to-one correspondences), so which are taken as fundamental is a matter of convention.

In any case the chromodynamics is useful only for providing qualitative insights and for distinguishing things that are possible from those that are impossible. It is completely useless for computing quantities that are useful in practice.

As it is also obvious in the parent article, it is still impossible to compute the mass and the magnetic moment of the proton, much less for any more complex nuclei or hadrons.

dario_od
0 replies
19h34m

Thanks!

westurner
2 replies
15h48m

Are there intermediate [electron,] charge states between + and - in superfluids and/or superconductors?

Is there superposition with electron charge states?

anon84873628
1 replies
13h50m

The typical model of superconductivity says that electrons in the material pair up to form a quasiparticle -- the "cooper pair" -- with new properties, namely not experiencing resistance. The original quantized charge of the electrons still adds up to the same amount.

Unlike protons an neutrons, electrons are considered elementary particles that can't be broken down any further, so their charge can not be "divided" into something less than 1.

westurner
0 replies
2h10m

Quantum Hall effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Hall_effect :

The fractional quantum Hall effect is more complicated and still considered an open research problem. [2] Its existence relies fundamentally on electron–electron interactions. In 1988, it was proposed that there was quantum Hall effect without Landau levels. [3] This quantum Hall effect is referred to as the quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect. There is also a new concept of the quantum spin Hall effect which is an analogue of the quantum Hall effect, where spin currents flow instead of charge currents. [4]

Fractional quantum Hall effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_quantum_Hall_effect :

The fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) is a physical phenomenon in which the Hall conductance of 2-dimensional (2D) electrons shows precisely quantized plateaus at fractional values of e^{2}/h, where e is the electron charge and h is the Planck constant. It is a property of a collective state in which electrons bind magnetic flux lines to make new quasiparticles, and excitations have a fractional elementary charge and possibly also fractional statistics

westurner.github .io/hnlog/#story-38139569 ctrl-f "quantum Hall", "hall effect" :

- "Electrical switching of the edge current chirality in quantum Hall insulators" (2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41563-023-01694-y ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139569 )

But that's not elementary charge.

"Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’" (2024) https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-co... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39374020 :

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 protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge? if the proton is this insanely complex thing, by what rule does it end up equaling exactly the opposite charge of an electron? why not a charge of +1.8e, or +3e, or 0.1666e, etc? Certainly it is convenient that a proton and electron complement each other, but what makes that the case?
rimunroe
2 replies
21h2m

So first off: charge is quantized. Glossing over some weird particles (like quarks) which can't exist by themselves an integer multiple of e as their charge.

It's been a while since I finished undergrad so my knowledge is rusty, but I don't recall any isolatable particles whose charge wasn't -1e, 0, or 1e. If that's the case, the easiest explanation for why they have the same charge is that if they didn't have opposite charges there wouldn't be anything holding them together in an atom.

rimunroe
0 replies
2h34m

Oops, missed the edit window. That was supposed to be "Glossing over some weird particles (like quarks) which can't exist by themselves, all particles have a charge which is an integer multiple of e"

metricspaces
0 replies
20h45m

clearly related to measure (in the abstract sense) and harmonics of natural numbers. what has fascinated me for years has been the sense that we need to rebuild number up using complex numbers and harmonic measures. what we get are still numbers but no longer this monotonic sequence which is a ‘lazy’ or ‘simple minded’ way of ordering N. when ordered by harmonic measures of primes, N itself has structure (beyond a simple incrementing list) but the order is strictly limited to measures provided (rational) with the prime roots of the measure. (an example is the ‘primorial’ harmonic measure of {2, 3, 5} - think rings).

in these harmonic measures, ‘gaps’ between various levels naturally would arise from simple (x) op. For non-relative prime members, the mapping n x n is all over the place but for relative prime members, n x n always results in another relative prime in the ring, so, naturally those ‘lines’ are ‘stable’ and ‘in phase’ so ‘manifested’.

in other words, there is stuff in the R realm — in between ‘quanta’ — but we’re not allowed, capable, ever, of seeing or measureing it.[edit: as in they ‘exist’ in the same realm that (sqrt -1) i exists in — an unseen realm we call ‘imaginary’..]

api
2 replies
18h36m

At the end of the day loads of these types of questions boil down to the anthropic principle. If it didn’t work out so that things could be stable, nothing would be asking the question.

That’s not a satisfying answer but we don’t have a better one in the realm of science. All we have left is either randomness/serendipity or spirituality/religion.

wruza
1 replies
18h25m

One issue I have with anthropic filter is that for some reason fundamental parameters fit into a tiny neat table. So out of the vastness of incredibly complex universes that boggle the minds of their creatures we ended up here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_Model_of_Element...

api
0 replies
18h16m

Maybe there’s an inverse relationship between complexity and the odds of it being stable. Universes with 500000 elementary particles might end up as entropy baths with no interesting structure.

Meanwhile those with too few might be “crystals” with no dynamism.

In all kinds of systems including computational models like cellular automata there exists a threshold known as the “edge of chaos” where among other interesting things universal computation becomes possible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_chaos

Maybe our universe is in such a zone. Not too simple for dynamic open ended phenomena, not too complex for order.

alex_smart
2 replies
13h51m

https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA

Richard Feynman on why questions

ajkjk
1 replies
12h44m

That video really annoys me. He's right at one level but totally wrong at another. Yes, you have to explain everything in terms of things people can understand and if they don't know much you can't give a correct explanation... but also, if you actually try, people can understand a lot more than he's pretending they can. Not at a technical level, yeah, but intuitively, it is possible to get general understandings way beyond his attempts at answering that question.

For instance fundamental charges are a lot like positive and negatively-oriented vortices in a fluid, which when they touch cancel each other out and radiate energy away. They're not _exactly_ like that, but they're a lot like it, and that's a model people can understand without knowing the first thing about quantum field theory. Sure, you won't understand from that why like-charges repel each other, not really, but if you play with the analogy for a while it starts to seem why that might be true as well.

(See https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/09/24/samuel-becketts-guide-... for some pictures of this... I wish I had better though.)

Magnetism is quite a bit trickier to explain in this model but it can done with some work. In particular: a charge radiates little linear packets of energy just by existing; when one of these packets hits another charged particle it moves a tick closer or further away (based on +/-). A current/moving charge/magnetic dipole radiates away little spiraling packets of energy which are aligned in the plane orthogonal to the conventional magnetic field; when these hit another charged particle they get rotated a tick.

exe34
0 replies
5h41m

Not at a technical level, yeah, but intuitively, it is possible to get general understandings way beyond his attempts at answering that question.

The issue with giving people an intuitive model that's not at the same level of complexity to the mathematical models, in my experience, is that a lot of people, including out-of-field experts then run with the intuitive model into bizarre territory and treat it as a prediction of the original tested theory. They reason correctly within the simplified world of the analogy but when it clashes with the real world, they dig down and reaffirm their preconceived notions.

On the other hand, I suppose they were never going to honour Cromwell's rule anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter.

ajkjk
2 replies
12h38m

I don't know the actual answer, but from my understanding of QFT the answer is going to be roughly this shape:

Charge is not actually a quantity on the real number line; it's more of a "count" of something. Not sure what exactly. The "topological defect" model of charges in 2d is a decent analogy though, in which a charge can be e.g. a count of how many vortices there are in a field which are oriented in a certain direction (picture a bathtub with a bunch of drains, and ask, how many tornado-like vortices, if we count clockwise vortices as +1 and counterclockwise as -1, are there? The number can vary but obviously it has to be an integer because what would half a vortex even mean?)

But that model is too simple for charge, since quarks have +-1/3 or 2/3 but the result always adds up to an integer in a hadron. Maybe it's something like a type of winding number or linking number? I don't know. Whatever it is, when the "correct" explanation is found, it will be obvious why it is always an integer and why its constituents are always 1/3 or 2/3, and it will no longer seem interesting to ask why it can't be any old fraction, because that misunderstands the "type" of object that it is counting.

trenchgun
1 replies
12h18m

Is there a reason why we say quarks have fractional charge instead of having just +-1 or +-2? And Then electron and proton would have -3 and +3?

vihren
0 replies
11h30m

That's purely by convention. It's just that we fist discovered electrons and protons and quarks with their fractional charges came in much later.

wrycoder
1 replies
20h29m

It’s even more complicated. The charge on the electron is partially screened by virtual positive charges emerging briefly from the vacuum, so what we measure is less than the actual charge.

AnimalMuppet
0 replies
20h0m

But isn't the same thing going on for the proton?

(Of course, absent some good reason, one wouldn't expect the two screenings to exactly balance...)

dboreham
1 replies
20h17m

Something...something...gauge theory.

Or perhaps -- it's a constant in the simulator source code.

dylan604
0 replies
19h17m

Maybe it's so difficult because it's not a constant, but a magic number used in the code. (yeah, I'm dealing with lots of magic numbers in some code currently being worked on)

carabiner
1 replies
19h33m

Why does light decay quadratically and not linearly? Why are the laws of physics algebraic at all? Why did the Big Bang happen? Ask enough why's and get to: we just don't know. Turtles all the way down.

computerfriend
0 replies
16h19m

The first one is well known. It's because it's radiating in three dimensions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

Mistletoe
1 replies
16h47m

I believe the end of my physics textbook in college just said “be grateful that the charge on the electron is what it is because without it our universe wouldn’t exist if it was even slightly different” or something to that effect.

Our universe may be the trillionth trillionth one created and we are in an anthropomorphic universe just like we are on an anthropomorphic planet. It always makes me grateful.

The charge on a proton is +1.602 x 10-19 C, and the charge on an electron is -1.602 x 10-19 C.
Mistletoe
0 replies
9h56m

Sorry that should say anthropic and not anthropomorphic haha. Too much time has elapsed to edit it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

ynniv
0 replies
16h41m

Huh. It would make a lot more sense if the "complicated" proton was +3 and always paired with three "simple" -1 electrons. Maybe someday we'll find the electron is really three of some even more fundamental particle.

y04nn
0 replies
20h27m

I'm not an expert, but e is the smallest possible charge, so you can't have a fraction of it, probably related to to Plank constant.

Edit: after verification, the smallest possible charge is e/3 (the quantum charge), e is the elementary charge.

A relevant link to for the question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_charge?useskin=vect...

xwolfi
0 replies
12h53m

Maybe think of it more simply, one precedes the other, this much positive charge in one place attracts negative charge of equal magnitude around it: if you send more electrons (and to be honest, talking of positive charge for a proton is a bit wrong: a positive charge being the absence of electrons... and electrons giving the "negative" charge as they add up), they'll detach and push away those that were already there.

There is nothing convenient, it's as logical as saying that you were tshirts when you go out: there is nothing extraordinary that one torso = one tshirt, as having two or zero tshirts wouldn't help: 0 would make you want one more tshirt, 2 would make you want to remove one.

sumitkumar
0 replies
10h53m

Maybe the proton is not complex but the process to probe it is. Proton is an aggregate of emergent phenomena like mass and its resultant properties. For a simplistic model assume that proton is a tetrahedron with energy wave generators at the vertices and how those waves interact with each other creates the emergent phenomena like mass, charge etc. It will be difficult to probe such a tetrahedron by just studying the properties of the waves and the peaks in those waves/interference which are perceived as particles by the probes.

strogonoff
0 replies
15h50m

Don’t take things described by physical models (proton, electron, the idea of “charge”, etc.) at too much of a face value.

All it is is a web of predictions: we do A then B seems to happen, reliably. We then transform it into a story of sorts, to categorize and classify, find patterns and correlations—that’s just how our minds work—and those models are useful, as they create shortcuts for more useful predictions—but it’s all too easy to start thinking of entities these models describe as if they were real, concrete things (that’s also how our minds work).

I recommend to maintain a sort of Schrödinger’s treatment (they exist if convenient, but otherwise they don’t really) for things described in physical models, because none of the above-mentioned categorization and classification is set in stone. None of it can be proven to be objectively true, unless you have some sort of exclusive access to the fabric of underlying reality that bypasses your consciousness.

With that in mind, you would see that the weird coincidences are not that problematic. It just means there is a better model out there, and that will always be the case.

sixQuarks
0 replies
16h10m

You would think that with my username, I should know the answer. But I have no clue

quantified
0 replies
15h21m

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?

otabdeveloper4
0 replies
12h55m

give me a religious explanation that isn't a religious explanation
nurettin
0 replies
4h43m

I think we simply observe the most stable states of existence which preclude asymmetry and all other states of matter have either gone extinct, or are so fickle that we can only observe them momentarily. So the deep truth behind why and what exists and what cannot is pretty straightforward.

mise_en_place
0 replies
11h17m

I mean it's not that complicated to understand. e is just a physical constant. It's been measured as such, with varying degrees of precision. The creator is as lazy a programmer as we are. To make the math work, + and - are used.

leptons
0 replies
18h27m

why must protons and electrons be perfectly complementary regarding charge? if the proton is this insanely complex thing, by what rule does it end up equaling exactly the opposite charge of an electron?

Perhaps "complexity" and "anti-complexity" are the forces that attract. Order and chaos. To have one you must have the other. Without both nothing about this universe would work.

Sorry, I'm high.

jkhdigital
0 replies
21h6m

Because if it were any other way then you wouldn’t exist to sit there and ponder the question. That’s the unsatisfying answer.

I think it makes sense to draw an analogy to evolution—stable arrangements of elementary particles that (somehow) reinforce similar arrangements around them will come to dominate the observable universe.

instagib
0 replies
15h4m

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...

gpsx
0 replies
1h54m

In a "grand unified theory" (which does not include gravity) the strong, electromagnetic and weak forces are unified into one gague theory. SU(5) is one choice. In these theories, the electron, quark and neurtinos fit together as if they were different versions of the same particle, just as in the standard model the up quark has three "colors". In these theories there is a well defined relation between the charges. You can lookup the SU(5) unified theory to see more. I would say these theories are widely believed, but we have not managed to put them all together yet.

exmadscientist
0 replies
21h14m

This is called "charge quantization", and it is not definitively explained by modern theories. There are some very good arguments for it, to be sure, but I don't think they're quite case-closed, of-course-it-must-be-that-way good. It is related to C symmetry, as a discrete symmetry, which ties in to Lorenz invariance and all that, so there's that angle too.

empath-nirvana
0 replies
16h8m

One thing to note is that up and down quarks are separated by exactly one unit of charge (2/3 is 1 more than -1/3).

The charge coincidence is one of the reasons that scientists are looking for a grand unified theory -- part of which would ultimately mean that in some sense quarks and electrons are _the same thing_, and the electroweak and strong forces would be unified.

da39a3ee
0 replies
5h40m

Maybe that was a form of matter that was stable early in the history of time and matter, and so it survived, but others didn't?

cozzyd
0 replies
16h2m

Disclaimer: I am not a theoretical physicist (but I am an experimental one...).

If the universe, at the time of the big bang, had no net charge to begin with, and charge is conserved, then it follows that we would have particles whose charge will on net cancel out, and therefore charge would be quantized in some reasonable way. Note that there are doubly charged particles (e.g Delta++) but they're not stable. Some theories do predict fractionally charged particles (millicharged is the term of art) but there is no experimental evidence.

Now, was the universe neutral to begin with? If it wasn't , then that would presumably leave a strong imprint on early universe cosmology. I believe that current measurements of galaxy structure formation, cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis probably place extremely strong constraints on early universe neutrality, though there may be caveats I'm not aware of.

ambyra
0 replies
13h59m

Electrons balance the nuclear charge by their distance from the nucleus. They’re not perfectly equal; the electrons move closer or farther to maintain balance with the nucleus. I think it’s called effective nuclear charge.

amai
0 replies
59m

A simple answer could be that there is an elementary charge. No free particle can have less than this charge and charges are quantized in terms of this elementary charge.

This is in opposition to e.g. mass. There is no elementary mass, and so no particles need to have the same mass.

SECProto
0 replies
21h4m

Not a physicist at all but I'd offer the following thoughts on the question of "why":

- Take a neutron, pull out an electron (and an antineutrino), and you're left with a proton.

- Asking why protons and electrons are so different is a little bit like asking why hydrogen and iodine have exactly opposite charges even though iodine is so much more complex: they're made of different things

JohnMakin
0 replies
18h30m

I don’t think this is a stupid thought at all. It’s a very good question and appreciate all the answers, it’s something I’ve wondered myself

FredPret
0 replies
18h10m

How can you ask that and also claim to not be a smart person lmao

EchoReflection
0 replies
28m

friendly suggestion, avoid describing yourself as "not a smart person". Research definitely shows that self-talk can have significant effects. I know this from my own life and experiences, but for the sake of writing this response I asked ChatGPT to look up some research to back me up:

"Sure, positive and negative self-talk can have significant effects on various aspects of mental health, performance, and well-being. Here are some scientific research findings on this topic:

Impact on Stress and Coping Mechanisms:

Research suggests that positive self-talk can help individuals cope with stress more effectively by promoting adaptive coping strategies and reducing negative emotional responses. Conversely, negative self-talk is associated with increased levels of stress and maladaptive coping behaviors such as avoidance (Hanssen, M., Vancleef, L., Vlaeyen, J., & Peters, M., 2013).

Influence on Performance:

Studies have shown that positive self-talk can enhance performance in various domains such as sports, academics, and professional settings. Positive self-talk is associated with increased confidence, motivation, and persistence, leading to improved performance outcomes. Conversely, negative self-talk can undermine performance by inducing self-doubt, anxiety, and distraction (Hardy, J., Hall, C., & Hardy, L., 2004).

Effects on Mental Health:

Positive self-talk is linked to better mental health outcomes, including higher levels of self-esteem, resilience, and subjective well-being. On the other hand, negative self-talk is associated with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and lower overall psychological functioning (Marshall, S., Parker, P., Ciarrochi, J., Sahdra, B., Jackson, C., & Heaven, P., 2015).

Physiological Responses:

Research suggests that self-talk can influence physiological responses such as heart rate, cortisol levels, and immune function. Positive self-talk is associated with reduced physiological arousal and stress reactivity, whereas negative self-talk can trigger a stress response and impair immune function (Penley, J., Tomaka, J., & Wiebe, J., 2002).

Neurological Correlates:

Neuroimaging studies have identified neural correlates of self-talk, showing that positive self-talk activates regions of the brain associated with reward processing, cognitive control, and emotional regulation. In contrast, negative self-talk is linked to increased activity in brain regions involved in threat perception and emotional reactivity (Morin, A., & Uttl, B., 2013)."

Anyway, I'm sure you're not beating yourself up all the time about being a dummy, but like I said in the beginning of this response, just a friendly suggestion about mindset and word-choice :)

blackhaj7
36 replies
20h46m

I have no doubt quantum physicists know what they are talking about but when I read stuff like:

“changes its appearance depending on how it is probed"

"you can’t even imagine how complicated it is"

"the proton contains traces of particles called charm quarks that are heavier than the proton itself"

I always think it is the kind of excuse a schoolkid would give their teachers for their calculations being wrong

Rayhem
22 replies
20h39m

I have no doubt quantum physicists know what they are talking about but...I always think it is the kind of excuse a schoolkid would give their teachers for their calculations being wrong.

Just to emphasize how extreme this dichotomy is, not only is quantum mechanics correct (in that it's a predictive model), it's the most correct physical theory humans have ever devised in that the measurements there have more significant figures than anything else.

mcmoor
14 replies
20h28m

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.

neuromanser
9 replies
19h17m

You mean it's not just a hypothesis.

I would really, really expect users of this site to know the difference.

andrewflnr
6 replies
17h22m

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?

Early theories and fleshed-out hypotheses overlap a lot. There's no sharp transition from one to the other.

snowwrestler
3 replies
14h54m

String theory is supported by a ton of evidence in that it can produce many predictions and hypotheses that match observed data. That’s why it’s called a “theory” and why people continue to study it.

What’s missing is a test that would produce evidence that would allow us to distinguish between string theory and competing theories. But that’s not nearly the same thing as saying it has “no real evidence.”

andrewflnr
1 replies
13h39m

In fact that's exactly what I meant by saying it has "no real evidence". Otherwise you could claim the totality of the universe as evidence for your pet Theory of Everything as long as it's not actually falsified yet, including but not limited to a theory where fundamental particles are fairies who use slide rules to decide how to interact.

volemo
0 replies
9h47m

If you fairy theory predicts the outcomes as well as the other theories that are on the table now then indeed it belongs there with them until someone finds a way to distinguish them and prove one is a better model of the reality. Better yet if the fairy model makes the calculations "cleaner" and easier.

philipswood
0 replies
14h27m

Correct me if I'm wrong, but string theory is still in the "it's so pretty and elegant is must be true kind of territory".

Not only do they have no proof, most of the potential experimental confirmations are at energies so high they're effectively out of reach for the foreseeable near future.

infamouscow
1 replies
15h45m

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

andrewflnr
0 replies
14h57m

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.

mcmoor
0 replies
15h0m

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

elpocko
0 replies
18h32m

What if they don't? Will they cease to be users of this site? What if they speak a lot more languages than you, just not perfectly? Does it even matter what you would expect?

julianeon
1 replies
17h14m

The other famous example is PET scanners, which actually use a form of antimatter: positrons (the antimatter counterpart of electrons).

hwillis
0 replies
16h40m

You don't even need that. The prediction he's referring to as most accurate is the magnetic moment of the electron, which is used in plain old MRIs. If we didn't have the quantum mechanical correction, all of our MRI images would be distorted. Only by a few pixels, but it'd be noticeable!

tonyarkles
0 replies
15h46m

In some devices it's something they have to fight against. In others, like SSDs, it's the feature that makes them work! It's not just a theory and it's not just another flaw that we've got to work around, we've taken it from a theory and turned it into useful technology.

sph
0 replies
9h9m

We used fire in our daily lives even before organic chemistry existed.

seeknotfind
3 replies
18h44m

So many significant digits includes a level of self-consistency of the model, since we are assuming the model to some degree in order to measure it. Though in this case, it's not the calculations that are wrong, but the model, we hope is wrong. That is, a new perspective and a new way of thinking about things may reveal more. Of course, we are always fighting against the irreducible complexity camp. However, the fundamental lack of cohesion between quantum and relativistic theories demonstrates there is at least one big thing we are still doing wrong.

hwillis
2 replies
16h43m

So many significant digits includes a level of self-consistency of the model

No, that's incorrect. The specific measurement -the most accurate scientific prediction humans have ever made, the anomalous magnetic moment- is only to 1 in 10 trillion. The magnetic moment (think moment of inertia) is the ratio of force from the magnetic field to the mass of the electron. You put an electron into a magnetic field, and it'll turn to face the field at a certain speed. If you stick the electron in a vacuum, it overshoots (because of rotational momentum) and ends up wobbling back and forth at a specific frequency. That's how MRIs work; they make a big magnetic field (stronger on one end) and then measure how many electrons are wobbling in different areas, since the electrons in high-strength fields wobble faster.

Specifically, you expect the wobble to get ~2.8025 GHz (similar to a microwave oven) faster for every 1000 gauss (please, no jokes about teslas). It's very convenient to measure a difference in frequency, since you can just measure the drift over time. Because that frequency is relatively high it takes about 30 minutes for the frequency to drift off by a half-cycle and totally cancel out your reference.

And it's super easy to get a reference frequency, too. It's just the charge of an electron divided by 2x the mass of an electron. Did you do this experiment in physics class? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcn2VgBNJjg

Then you measured the charge/mass ratio of an electron. A clock that's accurate to 1 in 10 trillion is also not a big deal, although unless you have an oscilloscope in your house its probably more accurate than any clock you own. Still, you can buy a better Phase Locked Loop for a couple bucks.

If you just wanted to measure the difference, you don't need that much precision, though. The correction from quantum mechanics is pretty large, relatively speaking: ~0.16%. Even the next several digits are super easy, and it's only those last ones that you really need to bust out the liquid helium.

Lawrence and Livingston made the first cyclotron out of literal junk: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/4-inch-c...

And it really doesn't take much more than junk to get to that 0.16% accuracy that lets you see that a classical prediction of the electron is just VERY wrong. But if you listen to those wizards with the bongos, suddenly they're really, really right about what that difference is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex_function

seeknotfind
1 replies
11h46m

For instance, there is disagreement on if time is quantized, and relatively says time is relative. So at the point we might reimagine the basis of our understanding, two independent measurements of Hz are incomparable. Whatever is out there for us to discover, I'm sure it'll take us all by surprise. I've no doubt you know way more about how we measure these things in practice than I do, but our scientific model and measurements are inextricably linked. This isn't a useful way to think for most practitioners, but it's the perspective that the next Newton or the next Einstein will need to consider. So, in rootier poster comment that this feels like a wrong calculation, I want to treasure that part of the perspective that seeks to reimagine the fundamentals.

hwillis
0 replies
1h56m

but our scientific model and measurements are inextricably linked. [...] This isn't a useful way to think for most practitioners, but it's the perspective that the next Newton or the next Einstein will need to consider.

I totally get it, and you aren't wrong, but this is literally the thing it applies to the least. The core thing here is that the obvious assumption about how the universe would work is very (>.1%) wrong, and the purely theoretical quantum math is incredibly, absurdly, amazingly correct.

It's not about measuring some amazingly small thing and having it be amazingly correct. It's about us seeing an incredibly large error in how the universe seems to behave, which QED explained perfectly. It's like the ultraviolet catastrophe or einstein's cross except its billions of times more correct.

ronald_raygun
1 replies
6h6m

Just because it’s quantitatively accurate doesn’t mean it’s “true”. Like a fun fact I like is the geocentrism was extremely accurate in terms of astronomical predictions when heliocentricism came about (it was actually more accurate for a while).

alok-g
0 replies
1h23m

How do you define 'true'?

If two theories are working very well with no experiment available to indicate right vs. wrong for them, Occam's Razor would be all we would have to make a choice. That however does not really make one of them truer than the other.

blackhaj7
0 replies
18h21m

That’s awesome to hear.

I totally back the scientists and wish I could understand it better but I always like to have a chuckle that the crazy sounding parts are just the scientists making up stuff

jiggawatts
10 replies
19h53m

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 does. Factions instead of consensus. Branches splitting off all the time and never supplanting the majority. Orthodoxy (Copenhagen). Shunning anyone that steps out of line (Everett). Refusing to question the holy texts, etc…

Another key symptom is requiring members to prove their devotion by saying and doing things that are obvious nonsense. Bending their common sense to the will of the group. In Christianity this is the trinity: one God that is three. In QM it’s the wave-particle duality, which is just nonsense. You can’t have a point with a kilometre long wavelength!! Yet, we are to believe (on faith!) that radio waves are made of photons.

Turns out that magical thinking and religiosity is the essential nature of humans, especially in large groups.

Whenever there is insufficient evidence to bring everyone into line, the line splinters into warring factions where the best argument each tribe has is: “my tribal leader said so!”

DonHopkins
3 replies
15h52m

It's really easy to spout bullshit like that, if you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and you're just trying to carry the water for religion by unfairly accusing science of having religion's fundamental flaws.

It's a veritable Gish Gallop of logical fallacies:

False Analogy: The argument compares quantum mechanics (QM) to religion, stating that both involve factions, orthodoxy, and unchallengeable beliefs. However, this is a false analogy because the nature and methods of scientific inquiry (e.g., empirical evidence, peer review, falsifiability) are fundamentally different from those of religious belief (which is based on faith and doctrine). The comparison oversimplifies and misrepresents both science and religion.

Strawman Fallacy: The argument misrepresents the nature of quantum mechanics by suggesting that it operates purely on faith or dogma, similar to religious belief. This ignores the extensive empirical and theoretical work that underpins quantum mechanics.

Ad Hominem (Circumstantial): The argument suggests that scientists who work in the field of QM are practicing a form of religious devotion rather than scientific inquiry. This is an ad hominem attack because it attempts to discredit QM by attacking the motives or character of its practitioners, rather than addressing the scientific validity of the field itself.

Hasty Generalization: The argument makes broad generalizations about quantum mechanics and its practitioners based on limited observations (e.g., some disagreements among physicists). Scientific disagreements are a normal part of the scientific process and do not necessarily imply that the entire field is akin to a religion.

Appeal to Ignorance (Argumentum ad Ignorantiam): The argument implies that because some aspects of QM (like wave-particle duality) seem counterintuitive or hard to comprehend, they must therefore be nonsensical or based on faith. This is an appeal to ignorance, as it suggests a lack of understanding or evidence is equivalent to proof of the argument's correctness.

Overgeneralization/Sweeping Generalization: The argument overgeneralizes the behavior of scientific communities, suggesting that all scientific disagreements lead to "warring factions" and are akin to religious schisms. This overlooks the nuanced and varied ways in which scientific communities debate, test, and revise theories.

No True Scotsman: By defining 'true' science as being free of disagreements or factions (and suggesting QM doesn't meet this standard), the argument potentially commits a No True Scotsman fallacy, where arbitrary criteria are set up to define what 'real' science should look like.

jiggawatts
2 replies
13h19m

[re False Analogy]: You falsely assume that just because something is called a science that it has all of the attributes of an idealised, perfect science. A field of study can be named "Science of such-and-such" and be filled wall-to-wall with bickering quacks that don't agree on the basics. In practice, every scientific field has its flaws due to historical reasons, strong personalities overruling common-sense, etc. For example, the beta-amyloid hypothesis for explaining Alzheimer's disease is an example where you can't get published unless you "toe the line" and agree with a hypothesis that hasn't lead to a cure after decades of dead end research.

[re Straw Man Fallacy]: I didn't say it depends purely on faith. I said that its practitioners have splintered into mutually incompatible cliques much like how religions tend to. This is a social phenomenon, and a criticism of the people and their organisation, not the mathematics or results, per-se.

[re Ad Hominem]: So you're saying that nobody is ever allowed to question the effectiveness of a field of scientific study at being actually scientific? PS: "Half of all published medical studies are wrong." is a well-known issue with the medical science field. Should we tar-and-feather the heathens questioning the holiness of the priests?

[re Hasty Generalization]: "some" disagreements!? They can't agree on any fundamental aspects! Are photons real, or just a mathematical shorthand? Is there "action at a distance", or is it strictly local? Etc... You'll find that if you ask a bunch of physicists these questions, they'll give different answers.

[re Appeal to Ignorance]: Wave-particle duality is not "wrong" in the sense that it is a mathematically valid method for calculations (or not). The issue is that it's "just a trick", much like the Fourier transform or the Laplace transform. Most students only learned to perform calculations in this one way, and are blithely unaware that this is a short-cut with well established specific limitations. It doesn't apply to all things everywhere. I'm saying you didn't read the footnotes in the manual, not that the manual was wrong.

[Overgeneralization]: Nope, just one. Other scientific communities have other issues. They all do to some extent. To pretend that all scientists (as people), scientific fields of study, or scientific processes are perfect and above criticism is deeply ignorant of reality and human nature.

[No True Scotsman]: This is the opposite argument to the one above. Pick one.

It boils down to this: I don't even have to know how to do a thing myself to recognise that other people don't know either. If two of them disagree on matters of fact, one of them is wrong. If many of them disagree in many ways, more than likely they are all wrong. This same criticism is popularly levelled against religions (plural!) of which there are many mutually exclusive variants, even within one main branch such as Islam or Christianity. They regularly kill each other over such disagreements, such as Shia vs Sunni or Protestant vs Catholic.

You're saying I shouldn't criticise this.

On what basis do you think that?

Or did ChatGPT think this for you?

bowsamic
1 replies
11h55m

I’m really confused here as a quantum physicist myself. Yes there is huge disagreement and yes it’s a problem, but also what is the alternative? It’s not like we can just give up on quantum mechanics because you personally have philosophical problems with it. My task is to reduce the fundamental quantum noise that we see in gravitational wave detectors after removing all the classical noise. How would it be constructive to just say “let’s pretend there is no quantum noise?”

To me it’s exciting that there is no clear interpretation for quantum mechanics, and it also nicely retroactively casts doubt on our interpretation for all previous theories: did classical mechanics just coincidentally present as deterministic? Etc. maybe you think questions about determinism are woo but I think that would be quite extreme

Honestly, I don’t see why it’s a problem that there are different interpretations of quantum mechanics

DonHopkins
0 replies
7h43m

He's apoplectic that ChatGPT was able to cut through his bluster and bullshit and enumerate his Gish Gallop of logical fallacies like a hot knife cutting through butter. If it stings so much, then maybe he should first run his own ridiculous conspiracy theories and baseless accusations against science and false equivalencies about religion through ChatGPT himself before posting them here, to strengthen them up and educate himself, instead of embarrassing himself by being so thoroughly and effectively schooled by a mere LLM and an actual quantum physicist.

Original Argument:

Quantum Mechanics as Religion: Quantum mechanics (QM) is likened to a religion, with disagreements among physicists, an orthodox Copenhagen interpretation, and adherence to seemingly nonsensical concepts like wave-particle duality.

Logical Fallacies and Mistakes:

False Analogy: Comparing QM to religion overlooks fundamental differences in methodologies and goals. Science is empirical and self-correcting; religion is based on faith.

Strawman Fallacy: Misrepresents QM as purely faith-based or dogmatic. QM is grounded in empirical evidence and rigorous mathematics.

Ad Hominem: Attacks the character or motives of QM practitioners, rather than addressing the scientific validity of QM itself.

Hasty Generalization: Overgeneralizes from disagreements among physicists to claim the entire field is unscientific.

Appeal to Ignorance: Assumes that because aspects of QM are counterintuitive, they must be nonsensical or faith-based.

Overgeneralization/Sweeping Generalization: Claims that disagreements in QM are indicative of flaws in all scientific fields, ignoring the diversity and complexity of scientific disciplines.

No True Scotsman: Imposes arbitrary criteria for what constitutes 'real' science, excluding QM based on its interpretive disagreements.

Validity of Arguments:

Limited Validity in Recognizing Disagreements: The argument validly recognizes the existence of disagreements and different interpretations within QM, which is a natural aspect of any evolving scientific field.

Misinterpretation of Nature of Science: However, the argument fails to appreciate the empirical basis of science and the role of theoretical diversity in scientific progress.

Rebuttal from an Actual Scientist:

Quantum Mechanics as a Practical and Evolving Science: The scientist highlights the practical applications of QM, the excitement of unresolved questions, and the evolving nature of scientific understanding.

Assessment of Rebuttal:

Practicality and Utility: The rebuttal correctly emphasizes the practical applications of QM, which are well-established and empirically validated.

Scientific Progress and Open Questions: The scientist’s view of the unresolved aspects of QM as exciting and valuable is in line with the nature of scientific inquiry, which thrives on exploration and continuous refinement.

Conclusion:

The original argument conflates the philosophical and interpretative aspects of QM with religious belief, using several logical fallacies. It overlooks the empirical foundation and practical success of QM.

The rebuttal from the scientist provides a more accurate representation of QM as a practical, empirically grounded, and continuously evolving field of science. The existence of different interpretations and unresolved questions is not a flaw but a driving force for further research and understanding.

daedrdev
2 replies
18h23m

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.

jiggawatts
1 replies
15h14m

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.

canjobear
0 replies
12h44m

How do you explain double-slit experiment results under this view?

- The screen accumulates dots corresponding to photons.

- Any measurement that would let you determine which slit a photon went through destroys the wavelike interference pattern at the screen.

bobbylarrybobby
1 replies
17h43m

All of the disagreements in QM are metaphysical: what is measurement, how does a wavefunction collapse, what is reality, etc. Everyone agrees on the math that leads to predictions (which have been matched by observation to an almost perfect degree). And I'd imagine that just about everyone also agrees that it's incredibly unintuitive. But the math works.

bowsamic
0 replies
12h4m

That’s not really true, there may be ways to experimentally distinguish between those disagreements

ChrisClark
0 replies
19h37m

I want whatever you're smoking, because it's the best predictive theory we have, and is constantly tested and proven. Only the why is in question, but the math absolutely works.

tim333
0 replies
17h6m

Popular science writers on this stuff tend to be in a similar position to the teachers. The real physics is described in complex mathematics and doesn't translate to simple English very well.

gchamonlive
0 replies
7h3m

It's definitely not wrong, but maybe more akin to the earth-centric view of the universe and the insane patterns that planets would trace in the sky. Just in this case we don't have another object like the sun to use to pivot our models. Maybe there are superstructures hidden that we could access if we could look into objects outside space-time, but until then space-time reduction is what we have right now other than guesswork (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplituhedron)

indigoabstract
18 replies
21h43m

“In fact, you can’t even imagine how complicated it is.”

Well, maybe someone could imagine it, otherwise, all that complexity would have led to a gargantuan number of bugs and the universe would have crashed..

Smoosh
13 replies
21h28m

Maybe all the other instances crashed, but we got lucky and get to apply the anthropic principle.

The real question is, are we running on bare metal, in a VM, or in a container?

gumby
4 replies
21h19m

The real question is, are we running on bare metal, in a VM, or in a container?

We can't be running on the bare hardware; there is clearly an OS enforcing the hardware abstraction (e.g. every electron is identical).

But is each universe its own process? What happens if you fork()?

emmelaich
2 replies
18h45m

every electron is identical

That's an illusion; there is only one electron.

gumby
0 replies
16h53m

That’s how the kernel implements it anyway; every time you do a syscall to look at it you get a different pointer to the same 'struct lepton'.

ForIveSyntax
0 replies
18h20m

buddhism intensifies

rkagerer
0 replies
14h43m

Universe is a quantum computer, forking every Planck interval.

ForIveSyntax
3 replies
21h18m

Why do you ask? Are you hoping to ROWHAMMER a parallel universe?

Genuinely curious if there’s any scientifically useful direction to this question

WXLCKNO
1 replies
20h16m

I'd watch a movie with that premise.

tomoyoirl
0 replies
15h29m

I believe they tried an experiment that was similar to that at the start of Schild’s Ladder — and for their troubles they were rewarded with a vacuum decay expanding through space at about 0.5c.

skirmish
0 replies
15h26m

"According to the more conservative cosmologists, an alien superpower – maybe a collective of Kardashev Type Three galaxy-spanning civilizations – is running a timing channel attack on the computational ultrastructure of space-time itself, trying to break through to whatever's underneath." in Accelerando

wwilim
1 replies
21h17m

It's all WebAssembly

syrusakbary
0 replies
19h13m

hahaha as a founder working on the Wasm space, this made me giggle!

antipaul
0 replies
15h46m

We run on GPUs. The real question is, what does the AI that runs us, run on?

Aerbil313
0 replies
3h23m

I’ve never understood the anthropic principle. It’s a very big maybe for seemingly no reason. Existence of a single universe is a pretty hard thing to contemplate, why should we consider multiples of it?

tim333
2 replies
17h3m

This has always seemed to me one of the best arguments against the simulation hypothesis.

cantrevealname
1 replies
14h28m

> all that complexity would have led to a gargantuan number of bugs and the universe would have crashed

This has always seemed to me one of the best arguments against the simulation hypothesis.

Can you expand on that? Are you saying that if we were in a simulation, the observed complexity of the universe (or the complexity of particle physics) would have caused the simulation to crash? Ergo, we are not in a simulation?

tim333
0 replies
8h58m

My thinking is more that if it was a simulation they wouldn't make it so a single proton was so complex as to be almost impossible to simulate accurately. I mean is a simulation you might expect if to look like pixels or minecraft or something close up. Or maybe simple point particles. But I don't thing the equations describing a proton are exactly soluble and also the results very complex so the best you can do is a very approximate simulation.

erikaww
0 replies
21h32m

Just needs a little abstraction- and not the leaky variety

calibas
15 replies
21h5m

Reductionist philosophy is very common in science. It's essentially the idea that you can break things down into simpler parts to better understand how everything works.

It's kind of "common sense", if you understand how all the components on a circuit board function individually, then you can piece together how the entire board will function. In computer science, you can reduce everything to operations comparing 1s and 0s, then use that to deterministically recreate higher-level abstractions like strings, floats, and colors on a monitor.

Then there's quantum physics, which turns reductionism on its head. Things are supposed to get less complicated as you get smaller, not more complicated! It's like the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know.

jononomo
7 replies
20h28m

the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know

This is why the "god of the gaps" critique is so short-sighted. It relies on the assumption that as science progresses it will "close the gaps". In reality the opposite happens. Another example is the cell -- in Darwin's day it was thought to be a simple thing, but then we learned more about it and it turned out to be monstrously complex and the mystery intensifies.

notahacker
4 replies
18h43m

Nope, the "god of the gaps" critique has nothing to do scientific discovery being a route to omniscience, something only some religious figures have ever claimed to have even the possibility of access to. It's the set of things religions claim the only explanation/evidence for repeatedly shrinking, as we found explanations for weather that have more predictive power than "the wrath/favour of the gods", found cures for the stuff that was supposed to be divine or karmic punishment and found explanations for differences between animals that we can use to make different animals (in increasingly specific ways), until eventually there was nothing left of the original religious explanations of how things came to be except a determination to posit the divine as the cause of anything scientists weren't confident on.

A shift in the position of the faithful from "this an accurate account of how the world was created direct from the creator" to "well actually that stuff was all metaphorical but the Big Bang must have been God's moment because you can't explain anything that happened before then" is not a trend in favour of the explanatory power of religion.

In the case of protons (or for that matter cells), religion never had anything to say about them in the first place never mind an explanation that's more compatible with quantum phenomena than early 20th century physics, and it's quantum physicists not priests that are the people busy making them do weird things in particle accelerators and saying 'told you this might happen'.

(Also, someone should let the theists know that it's the quirkiness of quarks that proves God's design so they stop writing about how it's the perfect orderliness of atomic structure that's God's design)

knightoffaith
2 replies
14h5m

It's the set of things religions claim the only explanation/evidence for repeatedly shrinking

I haven't read The God Delusion or wherever the "god of the gaps" critique originated - what is this actually referring to? Are we just talking about like, pagan polytheistic explanations of natural phenomena? What serious Christian or Buddhist thinkers using religion to explain things like weather or medicine are being referred to here?

A shift in the position of the faithful from "this an accurate account of how the world was created direct from the creator" to "well actually that stuff was all metaphorical but the Big Bang must have been God's moment because you can't explain anything that happened before then" is not a trend in favour of the explanatory power of religion.

As early as St. Augustine, writing around ~400, and one of the most influential Christian thinkers, we have discussion of the account of creation in Genesis being metaphorical. Long, long before the theory of the Big Bang.

notahacker
1 replies
6h48m

I haven't read The God Delusion or wherever the "god of the gaps" critique originated - what is this actually referring to?

A rare point of agreement between Nietzsche and the evangelist Henry Drummond was that the Christian apologetic approach of "ah, but that hasn't been explained yet, so it must be God's will" to all the discoveries of the Enlightenment wasn't a very impressive one. Not least because of the tendency of gaps to cease to be gaps.

Ultimately "the more we learn, they more we learn we don't know", to quote the OP is a route to agnosticism not a belief in a particular deity, and it's particularly hard to see an omipotent, benevolent God who created man in his own image in the incomprehensibility of quantum indeterminacy to the average layman (although I'll give credit to the creativity of those suggesting that three quarks must be proof of the Trinity)

What serious Christian or Buddhist thinkers using religion to explain things like weather or medicine are being referred to here?

It'd be easier to ask what serious theologian said "nope, this stuff about the weather being controlled by divine fiat and pestilence being a punishment for the Fall is just stories and actually you might be able to alter them - perhaps even in your favour - as soon as you stop praying and start doing." well in advance of the accompanying science? Augustine, since you're apparently a fan, was pretty confident that the problem of pestilence was the product of a literally occurring Fall involving two actual First People, which doesn't square very well with evolutionary biology.

Monotheism hasn't quite had the problem of people landing on the moon god, but it's fair to say that what many mainstream monotheists believe today has changed considerably in scope from what mainstream monotheism purported to explain for most of its existence.

As early as St. Augustine, writing around ~400, and one of the most influential Christian thinkers, we have discussion of the account of creation in Genesis being metaphorical

Sure, Augustine made four different attempts to explain Genesis because even in his time the six day account - still an article of faith for many other Christians even today - didn't make much sense. None of them involved evolution from apes, and he still ended up with Adam and Eve being literal people who caused suffering for everyone [and everything] else via Original Sin.

geye1234
0 replies
1h3m

Augustine, since you're apparently a fan, was pretty confident that the problem of pestilence was the product of a literally occurring Fall involving two actual First People, which doesn't square very well with evolutionary biology.

My understanding is that the current hypothesis says we are, in fact, all descended from one couple. I could be wrong about that though.

In any case, there's no contradiction between Original Sin, and germs and immunity and the like, as explanations for disease. See my previous comment.

geye1234
0 replies
1h12m

Nope, the "god of the gaps" critique has nothing to do scientific discovery being a route to omniscience, something only some religious figures have ever claimed to have even the possibility of access to. It's the set of things religions claim the only explanation/evidence for repeatedly shrinking, as we found [scientific] explanations...

The 'god of the gaps' argument, which is pushed very hard by the new atheists[0], is question-begging and therefore worthless. The assumption is that if something is going to be explained at all, it must be via scientific methods. Therefore (they say) the appeal to God should be seen as a poor hypothesis, comparable in kind to scientific hypotheses, but vastly less useful in terms of prediction.

The whole debate is about whether it's rational to think that the entirety of an explanation for something is scientific. Therefore, the 'god of the gaps' argument is circular and question-begging.

The good arguments for God's existence and attributes, which the new atheists ignore[1] or grossly straw-man, involve the most basic of observations (such as 'there is change' or 'there are objects of the same type'), followed by deductions from said observations. They're rational arguments, assuming they're successful, but they're not scientific hypotheses. They do not appeal to things we can't explain, nor to complexity, nor to any alleged design (the last phrase is misleading anyway).

[0] It's in Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, I think Krauss too

[1] Dennett gives them one paragraph out of 478 pages in Breaking the Spell, and is guilty in this paragraph of a very common straw-man, which shows how little he's read. Dawkins also uses the same straw-man in God Delusion IIRC.

neuromanser
0 replies
19h21m

And yet, biology has grown with the complexity of the cell as we know it, as opposed to the bronze/iron-age myths of near-east goat herders.

I_Am_Nous
0 replies
19h45m

We have kind of an opposite problem to the god of the gaps as well, in which a phenomenon can be determined to "just be the way it is", such as objects with mass exerting gravitational forces on each other. We can say "God made them do that" or we can give up and say "We'll never know why, it's just a constant" and both are equally problematic because either way, we assume we can't eventually discover the "why".

TeMPOraL
3 replies
20h36m

Things are supposed to get less complicated as you get smaller, not more complicated!

They're not. In general, once you take a lot of little things to make a big thing, you may notice a bunch of emergent properties, but one of the major emergent property is that... all the variability cancels out, or averages to a simple quantity. See e.g. all the complex dancing of great many particles making up everyday objects, that all average to a simple scalar number we call "temperature".

IshKebab
1 replies
19h56m

That doesn't happen for everything. Biology is an obvious counterexample.

TeMPOraL
0 replies
10h40m

Or is it? Biology at micro-scale seems much more complicated than at macro-scale. It has this thermodynamics quality to it.

vacuity
0 replies
20h11m

As I understand it, many "laws" in science, such as Ohm's law, also emerge from this sort of "neatness at scale".

scotty79
0 replies
10h40m

Smallest parts are less complicated. Even some mammals that have zero intuitions about that scale managed to develop math to describe it pretty much perfectly. Which is impossible with larger scale systems such as cells or organisms where the best we can do is some statistics that accurately predicts some thing sometimes.

passion__desire
0 replies
7h22m

There is normal heat death which is when maximum entropy is achieved. Even after that, the universe still goes on complexifying till it reaches maximum complexity at which point there is no other complex states to jump to. - Leonard Susskind.

geye1234
0 replies
18h32m

I think there's a difference though. The examples you cite relate to artificial things, where reductionism makes sense. Quantum physics describes natural things, where I don't think it does, even at a macro level.

A natural thing's behaviour can't be reduced to the sum of its parts. Example: an organ, taken out of an organism, stops being an organ and becomes a lump of rotting flesh. Its behaviour fundamentally and completely changes. So an organ can only be considered an organ insofar as it's a part of an organism. Similarly, an oxygen atom within a water molecule displays vastly different properties from those it would display when a free radical (or as part of an O2 molecule). Examples could be multiplied. So I don't think quantum physics is any different from the 'macro' world in this regard.

So I think the difference is natural-artificial, not quantum-macro.

Tagbert
14 replies
21h57m

Then there are neutrons that are like protons with just a little bit more. It's sort of like infinity + 1. Is it bigger or is it equal?

(I know, infinity is not a number, really)

drdeca
7 replies
21h45m

Huh? With a little bit more what? Complexity? I expected that they would be pretty much the same except with a different mix of the different quarks and such (and also, unstable without having a nucleus to be a part of, and with a neutral charge)

Tagbert
6 replies
21h37m

I've heard neutrons described as a union of a proton and an electron based on masses. The reality is probably much more complex.

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
21h2m

neutrons described as a union of a proton and an electron based on masses

If you squish an electron and proton really hard, you'll get a neutron [1].

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

bigbillheck
1 replies
20h55m
JumpCrisscross
0 replies
20h47m

If I understand correctly, which I probably don't, this is what releases the final wave of neutrinos in a supernova.

exmadscientist
1 replies
21h8m

The neutron and the proton are pretty similar. Of course, there's that tiny little bit of extra mass, but other than that:

Strong-force-wise, they are very hard to tell apart.

Weak-force-wise, you have the obvious changes in allowed interactions, but it's all stuff that's plain once you understand the theory of the weak force. No surprises.

Electromagnetism is actually the interesting one: just how neutral is this neutral garbage can? There are some interesting measurements to be made here. ILL in particular has done a lot with neutrons.

And the there's gravity. Gravity, you ask? Really? Yeah! If neutrons are really neutral, they don't interact electromagnetically, it's hard to get the strong force to come out and play, and the weak force only really does its thing here on the predictable* timescales of neutron decay... so all that's left is gravity. And thus, neutrons get used (or, I guess, more commonly just proposed...) as probes for gravitational effects! Fun, huh?

(* Mostly. See neutron lifetime controversy....)

floxy
0 replies
18h12m
marsissippi
0 replies
21h23m

Certainly when a free neutron decays it releases a proton and an electron, but also (probably, hypothetically) an antineutrino.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_neutron_decay

gweinberg
3 replies
21h5m

Yes, just what I was thinking: a neutron is actually more complicated than a proton, it's like a proton with an electron stuck inside it.

gus_massa
1 replies
16h0m

No. you can'tput an elelctron inside a proton to get a neutron. If you make them colide and you are lucky, one of the up quarks of the proton changes to a down quark, and now you get a neutron. Both up and down quarks are elelmentary particles as far as we know.

scotty79
0 replies
10h34m

Isn't it weird how one elementary particle can become completely different elementary particle by "absorbing" (?) yet another elementary particle? How exactly does that happen?

Doesn't each particle species have it's own separate quantum field? How does one convert into another?

Electromagnetic field can convert into quantum electron field by spawning electron-positron pair from a single photon. But all those exchanges are just weird. It's really shocking that people managed to figure out the math that rules over this.

saalweachter
0 replies
20h28m

It makes me so angry that a neutron isn't a proton and an electron stuck together.

hughesjj
1 replies
21h42m

Wat?

Neutrons are (primarily) UDD while protons are (primarily) UUD. Although I do wonder if this charm+anticharm ghost exists in other hadrons

gus_massa
0 replies
15h57m

Neutrons are (primarily) UDD while protons are (primarily) UUD.

Yes, this is correct.

Although I do wonder if this charm+anticharm ghost exists in other hadrons

Yes, neutrons and all the other hadrons have virtual pairs of char-anticharm quarks. (And some of them have actual charm or anticharm quarks.)

dcow
10 replies
11h45m

“The proton is a quantum mechanical object that exists as a haze of probabilities until an experiment forces it to take a concrete form.”

I’m getting really tired of hazy probability distributions and waves that only collapse and materialize when observed. I 100% accept that QM is a useful tool to model our current understanding based on increasingly sophisticated observations, but I fundamentally don’t believe that a proton is some shape shifting quantum soup of energy that doesn't form until someone comes around and thinks about it. That is unless reality is approximated and expensive compute is directed only toward what’s being observed to better enhance the simulation.

I probably need to add that I am also tired of simulation theory.

I really suspect we just aren't good enough at observing things or don’t exist in enough dimensions to understand what we’re observing. And so the cross sections we are able to pin down end up looking like they are part of some probabilistic system.

I still have bets on this all being a massive game of life.

roelschroeven
1 replies
2h0m

In my understanding a wave function doesn't collapse just when someone observes it; it collapses when it participates in any physical event.

"I fundamentally don’t believe that a proton is some shape shifting quantum soup of energy that doesn't form until someone comes around and thinks about it." is the way quantum mechanics is often portrayed in pop sci, but it simply can't be true. Quantum mechanics existed just fine before there was anyone to observe it and think about it.

l33tman
0 replies
1h25m

It reflects the fact that the measurement apparatus, environment in general and the observer in particular are all also part of the "wave function". Until these are linked to the system to be observed (like the proton), the system has to be analyzed as the full set of possible configurations of its constituents.

After you link it up with the apparatus, it is pulled into the system as a new part of it, and so on. The more stuff you pull into the system, the less number of different configurations you sum over, eventually you end up with a single configuration with an observer that has a clear measurement result in her mind. This process is what is called "wavefunction collapse" in old physics texts (and a lot of modern pop-sci accounts).

What sets this apart from other purely probabilistic theories is that it's non-local, the entire linked system from the proton to the measurement apparatus to the observer has to be taken into account in the calculations if you are to be thorough. In local theories you can separate the parts of the system and handle them separately, like you could say "there is a 1% probability that a charm quark pops out in the upper left part of the proton every second" etc. You can't really do this in QM/QFT, and this is what in essence leads to all of the counter-intuitive results and confusion..

desmosxxx
1 replies
11h6m

IIUC, that is just a hidden variables theory. Bells theorem tells us that it would at least be non-local which is just as weird/interesting IMO.

demurgos
0 replies
8h17m

I really enjoyed this Minute Physics and 3Blue1Brown video describing hidden variables and Bell's theorem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs

As you said, it's implies that we're not failing to measure some "hidden variable" that would explain probabilities away, but that the vary nature of these objects is probabilistic.

vladms
0 replies
10h29m

In the opposite direction, I feel mildly annoyed when people expect a precise/clear answer to questions which can be answered mostly/better with probability distributions.

Considering how you can test statistics in real life (ex: Buffon's Needle) there must be something very "statistical" embedded in reality itself (it is true that quantum mechanics pushes everything very far so can seem to complex).

sph
0 replies
9h12m

I get what you mean, but still I'd rather accept probabilistic particles than the 11-dimensional bull that is string theory.

scotty79
0 replies
11h2m

For my personal purposes I resolved the issue by looking at elementary particles as if they are only the "probability" waves. Never anything else. Measurement is just an interaction and it reshapes the waves making them narrower. But they never become pointlike particles with specified location or momentum. They are always more or less fuzzy.

If they are all bound into macroscopic object they are sharper and as a result they can make other elementary particles they "measure" (interact with) also sharper.

If particles interact with fuzzier part of macroscopic object, like an edge of a slit, they can become fuzzier, more wavy.

So the proton really is that shapeshifting soup. Never anything else. If you hit it with something hard enough it becomes momentarily disturbed into a bit sharper state that can tell us something but it immediately goes back to soup because of chaotic microscopic interactions inside.

The matter looks sharp only on macroscopic level. At the level of particles it's always fuzzy, but we have trouble of ditching the concept of little balls bouncing of each other because the math describing exchange of energy and momentum between those fuzzy "waves" looks like there were some small balls bouncing. But this comes, I believe accidentally only from the fact that all forces have sort of spherical symmetry.

notfed
0 replies
10h51m

I fundamentally don’t believe that a proton is some shape shifting quantum soup of energy that doesn't form until someone comes around and thinks about it

This is a pop-sci analogy. I find it tiring as well.

The many worlds interpretation doesn't paint the picture this way. It paints it as a recursive for-each loop iterating over all solutions to the next step of the physics function.

I still have bets on this all being a massive game of life.

...on the back of a giant turtle, amiright?

How bout placing your bets on this instead: it's the evaluation of an algorithm ("physics") on a data structure ("the universe"), and like all algorithms, exists eternally and independent of any substrate.

l33tman
0 replies
1h34m

QFT is the most well-tested physics theory mankind has developed and certainly is not a "haze" as the pop-sci articles write.

What they mean by the "haze of probabilities" is that you need to iterate over all possible configurations of the gluons and quarks in the proton to produce experimental predictions.

It is for sure computationally ludicrous, but conceptually it's really not better or worse than to say that particles are billiard balls moving around by Newton's Equations. You're just more used to the latter, but spend some time working with for example Lattice QCD and you get completely used to the former being the "actual" underlying physics rules.

kalekold
0 replies
8h14m

I still have bets on this all being a massive game of life.

You might be right!

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-h...

andoando
8 replies
17h7m

Is it possible the universe is infinitely complex? i.e, "turtles all the way down?".

I find the concept of duality and replication in physics very interesting. Everything seems to have an opposite, with properties such that when these opposites come together, they form a bigger unit, which itself has an opposite.

cooper_ganglia
5 replies
16h54m

I don't "believe" too many things that can't be evidentiarily substantiated, but as silly of a thing to reference for this kind of discussion, I personally have the irrational, unscientific belief that this Simpsons opening is unironically the most accurate model of the Universe that we have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycvlJ9XMd94&ab_channel=cakta...

lying4fun
2 replies
16h5m

I’m going to entertain this literally because it’s fun: so we need to zoom out enough to find those big galaxy surrounding atoms which are actually universes, or conversely to zoom in more to find galaxies and a universe within atoms. But it seems that there’s either missing understanding how to cross that zoom in/out threshold or it’s impossible by the laws of physics to zoom so far to make a full circle, like it’s forbidden for the snake to bite its tail. I imagine people have discussed this stuff a lot, and came up with better analogies and more nuanced models

andoando
1 replies
12h7m

Yeah thats my thought too! What if there was a whole universe inside of an atom? Or on the other hand, we and everything we observe is just a single atom in a greater collection of atoms forming what is table to some other consciousness?

I know I probably sound like a complete goon, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

(I just watched the simpson video. haha, I thought I was being original)

tauntz
0 replies
9h28m

Shower thought: maybe not even an atom but what if our "universe" is a short-lived quark or antiquark? For an observer in the "next level" universe, that quark would exist only for 10^-24 seconds (or whatever the lifetime of quarks is) but for us, that's the whole lifetime of the universe. And it's turtles all the way down indeed, with infinite universes all over the place..

mettamage
1 replies
16h23m

There is a fractal-like nature to the universe due to certain math thingies working out on all levels (e.g. scale free networks/power laws being all over the place).

lying4fun
0 replies
15h58m

The other day I was washing dishes and there was some water dilluted milk residue in my plate, but due to plate having been moved around it painted a nebula like pattern - it was beautiful, a sight to behold. So I thought what’s the invariant here between the milk and nebulas that make them look the same. Do you think that stuff you mentioned could explain this and countless similar phenomena

sph
1 replies
9h1m

When I was a curious kid, I asked my father the opposite: what if there is one fundamental physical rule that forbids us to know everything about the universe?

Something that we will continuously bump against without being able to resolve further, by definition.

Is there such a thing as Gödel's incompleteness theorems in physics?

andoando
0 replies
20m
robotnikman
6 replies
22h0m

Had to re-read the Title for a sec. I thought it was referring to Proton, the compatibility layer software.

nomel
1 replies
21h47m

To be fair, all known implementations of Proton's execution are entirely dependent on protons.

FredPret
0 replies
17h50m

Dependency hell

Night_Thastus
1 replies
21h28m

And here I was thinking it was about Proton, the Mail/Calendar/VPN/Cloud Storage/PM/etc.

avmich
0 replies
21h17m

Here's another pretty complex Proton - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(rocket)

tux3
0 replies
21h53m

Well, the natural proton not only was first, but means first (from Greek πρῶτος)

So I think we can give it priority on that one :)

agloe_dreams
0 replies
19h8m

In fairness, the title probably matches. You go off and write a DirectX translation layer and make it work properly in an entirely different operating environment while matching DX quirks. Absurdly complex.

OldGuyInTheClub
5 replies
21h54m

Is it surprising there are signs of the heavy quarks? The diagrams that include them have tiny but nonzero values. Hearken back to Hitchhiker's - it is not impossible, just highly improbable.

pdonis
2 replies
21h37m

No, it's not surprising theoretically, but experimentally it's still quite an achievement to be able to spot even these rare events.

exmadscientist
0 replies
21h4m

It was a bit of an open question what would happen with the heavy charm quarks, given that they each mass more than the entire proton, but yeah... anything else would have been a major surprise.

OldGuyInTheClub
0 replies
19h21m

From the article's description it sounds like they tortured the data until it told them what they wanted. If the charm did show up, how long did it exist? In conventional spectroscopy, the broader the line, the shorter the lifetime (and v.v.) It smells like a sub-attosecond lifetime, if that.

missingET
1 replies
20h18m

What’s interesting is that there’s a net charm content: there are more charm quarks to be found than anti-charms.

Given that charm quarks are heavier than the proton, you’d expect to only find them in deep inelastic collisions when they are produced in pairs with an anti-quark, so it is surprising that there’s an asymmetry.

AnimalMuppet
0 replies
19h22m

Wait, what? I read the article as saying that it's an open question whether there's a charm asymmetry.

rapjr9
4 replies
17h19m

When I read articles like this I can't help but think that if they were probing apples with a hammer, using stronger and stronger hammer blows, they would conclude that apples are flat and mushy. With stronger hammer blows they'd find the apples are paper thin and hot. How do they know when doing these collision experiments that some of the resulting particles are not popping out of the CMB and aren't actually in the things being collided at all?

dvsfish
1 replies
16h33m

I literally was just having a foggy version of this exact same thought whilst reading the article. Especially

"Researchers recently discovered that the proton sometimes includes a charm quark and charm antiquark, colossal particles that are each heavier than the proton itself."

You articulated my feeling better than I could. Surely this is something the researchers have accounted for and there's a good explanation (whether I can actually understand it is another story)

empath-nirvana
0 replies
15h52m

https://profmattstrassler.com/2022/09/09/protons-and-charm-q...

It's explained better here.

tl;dr; is that they are virtual particles and don't have the same mass as a "real" charm quark.

scotty79
0 replies
10h52m

Well, not from CMB (because it's too weak) but from the energy delivered by hitting it, through pair creation.

Another weird thing are virtual particles that can popup without energy. They are similar to real energetic particles in a sense that they are manifestation of the same quantum field (for example charm quark field) but they are different from real particles because they don't carry energy and thus can't live long.

World is very weird. Math works though.

Proton is just a weird ball of bubbling energy that stays in one place because up quark and down quark quantum fields got "stuck" together there through complicated colored strong force. But there's so much energy there that wants to get free but can't that there are constantly things popping in and out of existence.

empath-nirvana
0 replies
15h58m

They're basically plunking the underlying fields with a lot of energy in a small space, causing waves, which are then measured as particles. In a sense, they're not really finding particles that were already there, but they're measuring the behavior of fields at high energies and small scales.

supportengineer
3 replies
20h14m

I enjoyed this sentence

“The proton is a quantum mechanical object that exists as a haze of probabilities until an experiment forces it to take a concrete form.”

Could gravity be the effect of mass in an indefinite form? As sort of a vacuum in spacetime?

hwillis
0 replies
16h17m

As sort of a vacuum in spacetime?

Definitely not. For one thing, gravity isn't just mass. The gravity of a moving baseball is higher than a nonmoving baseball. The gravity of a charged battery is higher than a discharged battery. Same protons, neutrons, and electrons, but if you change their velocity or how they are arranged then they have more gravity. It's the stress-energy tensor, not just the mass (by which you mean matter?).

Could gravity be the effect of mass in an indefinite form?

A very clear way to see this is not true is to compare stars and black holes to quarks. The space between quarks acts like they are different, larger or smaller quarks depending on how the real quarks happen to be arranged at that moment.

So, if we apply the same idea to a very large star, it would sometimes act like a black hole or a supernova or a star depending on where it was and how it happened to be doing and also maybe just sometimes spontaneously?

But mostly, if it was really far away you would expect it to act like a black hole, because from a far distance it seems like its all in one small point, and a black hole is an irreversible phase transition. But that doesn't happen, and stars look like stars no matter how far away you are. If reality worked like this, we'd expect nearby galaxies to have almost no dark matter and faraway galaxies to have lots and be very small. But instead galaxies and dark matter are pretty much the same no matter how far away they are from us.

This is a pretty ill-posed question though. I'm cramming it into a box that has an interesting answer just for fun, and I don't think it answers much of what you are asking.

db48x
0 replies
19h41m

Nope.

chadcmulligan
0 replies
18h7m

I always think 'an experiment' could be said better, because the thing doing the measuring is also a haze of probabilities and the measurement is how these two probabilities interact and change each other.

JimmyRuska
2 replies
16h19m

Sounds like it's just a Haskell thunk but as a probability wave

Lazily evaluated until there's a probability it has to interact with something. Since you can never really see the value of the actual function, but only see what it looks like when it's forced to evaluate a computation in some context, an interaction, you can never get a precise definition of the function

yazzku
0 replies
13h38m

Control.Monad.Random

canjobear
0 replies
12h29m

The difference is that these thunks can interfere and get entangled with each other.

quickthrower2
1 replies
7h40m

Is the proton population homogeneous or is each like a snowflake?

Physically can proton 1 behave differently to proton 2 modulo the usual quantum uncertainty around speed/position.

passion__desire
0 replies
7h35m

In quantum mechanics, indistinguishable particles (also called identical or indiscernible particles) are particles that cannot be distinguished from one another, even in principle. Species of identical particles include, but are not limited to, elementary particles (such as electrons), composite subatomic particles (such as atomic nuclei), as well as atoms and molecules. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indistinguishable_particles

codewiz
1 replies
4h14m
crazygringo
0 replies
4h6m

Not a dupe (usually used for discussion from the same day or week), but a previous discussion (from two years ago).

bloopernova
1 replies
20h5m

In the article, quarks and such are referred to as having momentum and angular momentum.

Is that the same thing that affects objects at our scale, or does it mean something different?

db48x
0 replies
19h41m

Same thing.

0xbadcafebee
1 replies
21h1m

still simpler than a k8s cluster

geodel
0 replies
2h55m

Agree. I think if one bombard 100K Kubernetes cluster with softballs there still won't be a single repeatable observation.

xhrpost
0 replies
18h44m

See also: "Do protons really contain charm quarks?"

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/proton-contain-charm...

tomrod
0 replies
17h47m

That sea of quarks might be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen!

thriftwy
0 replies
20h42m

If you supply more energy budget, the proton will be able to throw together a more effective show. I guess that's it.

standardUser
0 replies
22h10m

And neutrons, well, they have a great sense of humor.

ronald_raygun
0 replies
6h9m

The proton is the most complicated thing I could ever imagine? Pshhhh whatever. I can easily imagine two protons.

roland_nilsson
0 replies
11h42m

Reading this I couldn't help thinking of the epicycle theory of planetary motion. Under the holy assumption that planets had to move in perfect circles, people invented increasingly complicated circles-on-top-of-circles models in order to explain all observed trajectories. Then Kepler came along and said "hey, it's an ellipse!"

retrac98
0 replies
8h23m

"mechanical object that exists as a haze of probabilities until an experiment forces it to take a concrete form"

Sounds like your average codebase.

poorman
0 replies
20h34m

I'm surprised there isn't a gimmicky VisionPro app for it

piombisallow
0 replies
3h40m

The complexity of fundamental physics is vastly overrated, it's just unintuitive. The simplest cell is orders of magnitude more complex than a proton.

odyssey7
0 replies
18h21m

Is the state space of a single proton sufficiently complex for the complete range of first-person experience to fit within it?

malablaster
0 replies
19h15m

Summary:

“The proton is an incredibly complex particle that physicists are still working to fully understand. Experiments over decades have revealed that the proton is not just three quarks, but contains a sea of transient gluons and quark-antiquark pairs. The HERA accelerator provided evidence of this "gluon dandelion" structure by detecting low-momentum quarks and antiquarks emerging from gluon splitting. Most recently, machine learning analysis of thousands of proton snapshots found traces of heavy charm quarks within the proton, suggesting its makeup is a quantum mixture of different quark states. Future experiments like the Electron-Ion Collider aim to map out the spins and 3D structure of quarks and gluons inside the proton.

One interesting finding highlighted is the recent discovery, through machine learning analysis of past proton data, that the proton contains traces of heavy charm quarks, implying its composition involves different quark combinations in a quantum superposition. This suggests the proton's makeup is more complex than previously understood.”

luxuryballs
0 replies
14h56m

I’m of the opinion that particles are like galaxies, the more we zoom in the more we’re going to find, there won’t be an end only another achievement of zoom level.

jonahbenton
0 replies
21h47m

(2022)

electrondood
0 replies
12h1m

The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity

It's not an object at all. The reason quantum physics is so weird, is that our conceptual model of things existed ng as discrete objects no longer works. An "object" is like a conceptual convenience method on some region of spacetime.

bondarchuk
0 replies
7h23m

For a second there I thought I'd missed a breakthrough or 10 and they'd actually manage to record a video of 3 quarks going about their business. Alas, it's only a "data-driven animation", but due to the noise it looks quite convincingly like an experimental recording.

bluepoint
0 replies
3h48m

The take home and "easy to digest" conclusion is that the proton is a linear superposition of states. The most likely of these states (the ones with highest amplitude) have 3 quarks. The second most likely have 5 quarks. When you make an observation you may see 3 or 5 quarks.

arter
0 replies
17h42m

A question that came to me as I was reading the article was - what makes us think that all protons are the same ? Can it be that instead of every proton having a superposition of 3 quarks, or 5 quarks or more, we have some protons with 3 and others with 5 ? How did they verify that this is not a case ? I am assuming they never managed to isolate 1 proton and test it twice.

VagabundoP
0 replies
9h49m

The article didn't explain how the charm quark and antiquark hiding in there are heavier than the proton?

The video/animations were pretty nice though.

SaberTail
0 replies
21h48m

I had a professor who was fond of saying "the proton is a garbage can".

This is why the LHC (and other hadron colliders) has to run at such a high luminosity (collision rate). Most of the time, when it collides two protons, the parts that interact are only carrying a tiny fraction of the energy, so you don't get the interesting high energy physics you want to probe.

RicoElectrico
0 replies
18h57m

The headline image could make for a nice wallpaper, full size: https://d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/uploads/2022/10/PROTON...

Razengan
0 replies
14h53m

Wait till you see the sophon.

Ono-Sendai
0 replies
16h0m

For all the simulation argument believers, note that we can't even accurately simulate a single nucleus.