Comment on the video "Electrons do not spin" by Dr. Matt O'Dowd and PBS Spacetime - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWlk1gLkF2Y
If the electron – and particles like quarks – have zero size, an explanation is that matter isn’t composed of “little hard balls” but of pure mathematics. This is consistent with something Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow wrote in the 2010 book “The Grand Design”. They said aliens may do the same experiments we do but may not describe the results by using quarks. And Max Tegmark’s 2014 book “Our Mathematical Universe” proposes that the cosmos isn’t merely described by maths but IS maths. Here’s my own suggestion for expressing experiments and the universe in non-material terms –
Let's say electronics' binary digits (BITS) of 1 and 0 - aka base 2 maths - are the ultimate composition of, and are used to "draw", Mobius strips. Then two Mobius strips can unite to form a figure-8 Klein bottle. Trillions of Mobius strips can form a photon, and trillions of more complex figure-8 Klein bottles can form the more complex graviton. (The Klein is immersed, not embedded, in the 3rd dimension.) If the whole universe is projected from 2D (as proposed by the holographic-universe theory), then both gravitational and electromagnetic waves must be projections from 2D, too (according to this posting, from the Mobius strip which is made up of binary digits). Therefore, the range of frequencies (aka bandwidth) called gravitational and electromagnetic waves is composed of BITS. The universe is a mass of this gravitational-electromagnetic unification (and there is nothing except sufficient bandwidth). This also gives plausible answers to a couple of questions Albert Einstein asked – “What is a photon?”, and “How could gravitational-electromagnetic unity be possible?” (the photon and graviton would both form from the topological Mobius and Klein [as well as binary digits], thus producing gravitational-electromagnetic unity).
The physicist and science historian Abraham Pais wrote that “In 1924 the scientist Wolfgang Pauli was the first to propose a doubling of electron states due to a two-valued non-classical "hidden rotation". Extending the ideas of “doubling”, “two-valued” and “hidden rotation” from the quantum spin Pauli had in mind to the Mobius strip being a basic, fundamental unit of reality; it can be seen that Pauli’s proposal has an analogy to this article. The doubled Mobius strips (doubled to form a figure-8 Klein bottle) could be produced by the two-valued binary-digit system used in electronics. The bottles possess a hidden rotation, now identified as adaptive Wick rotation, which gives a fourth dimension to space-time. In a holographic universe where the 3rd dimension results from information in a 2nd dimension, there would only be two space dimensions in reality and time would be the 3rd dimension.
In 1988’s “A Brief History of Time”, Professor Stephen Hawking writes - "What the spin of a particle really tells us is what the particle looks like from different directions." Spin 1 is like an arrow-tip pointing, say, up. A photon has to be turned round a full revolution of 360 degrees to look the same. Spin 2 is like an arrow with 2 tips - 1 pointing up, 1 down. A graviton has to be turned half a revolution (180 degrees) to look the same. Spin 0 is like a ball of arrows having no spaces. A Higgs boson looks like a dot: the same from every direction. Spin ½ is logically like a Mobius strip (your video’s cube with its attached ribbons reminds me of the Mobius), though Hawking doesn’t specifically say so. This is because a particle of matter has to be turned through two complete revolutions to look the same (this reminds me of the spinors associate with rotation), and you must travel around a Mobius strip twice to reach the starting point.
Just a comment about "If the electron – and particles like quarks – have zero size,"
Even the Earth and Moon are dealt with as if they had "zero size", meaning that all of their masses are dealt with as if it was concentrated in their "center of mass", in classical equations used to calculate their trajectories.
Of course we know very well that they do not have "zero size" and that this is just a convenient mathematical representation to more easily calculate their trajectories.
My comment is: Why should this be different for electrons and quarks? Why should calculating their trajectories as if all of their substance was concentrated in their "center of presence" imply that they have zero size?
Good question! At first, it got me thinking about something I read years ago. I think Richard Feynman was once asked what an atom is or what subatomic particles are. He pondered this for a minute, then answered "I don't know." I think he mentioned that the more scientists investigate the subatomic world, the more convinced they become that there's nothing there. If I remembered the anecdote correctly, it'd be indicative of zero size literally being zero size and not just convenient maths.
But a concrete reference might be more convincing. In their book "the matter myth", Paul Davies and John Gribbin wrote that Isaac Newton said matter consists of "solid, massy, impenetrable, movable particles" (p.5). The authors also state "... scientists have found it fruitful, or even essential, to regard the portion of the Universe they are studying in entirely new terms, terms that bear little relation to the old ideas of materialism and the cosmic machine." (p.2) The text on the inside of the front cover says these are "concepts like chaos, self-organization, adaptation and information-flow".
So little, hard balls like quarks and electrons become an optional, though possibly outdated, description of reality supplanted by a more accurate model using information and mathematics as the literal composition of matter. It seems to follow that the Earth and Moon aren't merely solid, inert lumps but may be assemblages of immaterial information.
Dear Rodney Bartlett
Of course, whatever exists at the subatomic level of magnitude, we can understand only via reverse engineering, given that no direct observation is possible.
If interested, this is something that I tried to put in clearer perspective in the first part of this article:
Article Emphasizing the Electromagnetism according to Maxwell's Init...
Best Regards, André
Dear André Michaud
Thanks for your message, and for your article. I've been thinking about Maxwell and electromagnetism. You spurred me on to write a pile of new thoughts. I ended up posting a new article on ResearchGate. If you have time to look at it, it's at Preprint Inverting Kaluza - From Maxwell's Electromagnetic Equations ...
Here's the abstract -
In 1919, the mathematician Theodor Kaluza began to play around with Albert Einstein's formulas for gravity. Out of curiosity, he reworked the equations to see how they'd look in five, rather than four, dimensions. The exercise yielded an extra set of equations, which were the same as James Clerk Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field. His idea of a fifth dimension had produced a mathematical unification of gravity and electromagnetism. This article proceeds from Maxwell, and Einstein, to the 5th dimension. Along the way, we visit frames of reference in Special Relativity, Electromagnetism, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, the Matrix, Antigravitons, Incompleteness Theorems, New Irrationals, Calculus, Celluloid Motion, and Vector-Tensor-Scalar Geometry.
Dear Rodney Bartlett
Glad that you found my article useful for your purpose. No doubt you noted that while you are exploring relative motion for macroscopic masses, I was exploring absolute motion for charged particles at the subatomic level.
I found that these two levels (macroscopic and subatomic) were related somehow.
Best Regards, André
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