Do solid subatomic particles exist?

[Philosophy Explorer]

I know, e.g., that protons can be broken up into quarks.

An internet search has turned up nothing. I don't think there is such a thing as a solid.

What do you think?

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

The notion of a solid doesn't really work in subatomic physics, Phil. Subatomic particles can only be modelled in the Standard Model as dimensionless point-like mathematical entities. This is also perfectly consistent with Einstein's mass/energy equivalence principle, E=mcc, so the best way to think of subatomic particles is simply as little "bits" of energy which are configured in such a way that the emergent entity displays the properties the observer then defines as mass, charge and spin.

[uwot]

As far as we know, there are no 'solid' particles. As Leo says, for the purposes of mathematics, sub atomic particles can be treated as point like entities, but then, for the purposes of celestial mechanics, so can stars and planets. The current thinking is that matter particles are patterns in quantum fields. A good way to visualize that sort of thinking is to look at the weather; if you can follow the analogy, then particles are like storms, tornados and hurricanes, in the quantum field. So called 'virtual' particles are just the wind.

[Philosophy Explorer]

As far as we know, there are no 'solid' particles. As Leo says, for the purposes of mathematics, sub atomic particles can be treated as point like entities, but then, for the purposes of celestial mechanics, so can stars and planets. The current thinking is that matter particles are patterns in quantum fields. A good way to visualize that sort of thinking is to look at the weather; if you can follow the analogy, then particles are like storms, tornados and hurricanes, in the quantum field. So called 'virtual' particles are just the wind.

From what I read up on virtual particles, they're highly theoretical and may not exist at all.

PhilX

[uwot]

Well, 'photons' are virtual particles. Something transfers energy from one group of matter particles to another, we couldn't see otherwise. Whether a puff of wind 'exists' in the same way as a hurricane is for you to decide, but they are made of the same stuff.

[Obvious Leo]

The current thinking is that matter particles are patterns in quantum fields.

This is certainly the fashion of the day but quantum field theory is not without some conceptual minefields of its own, not the least of which is the small matter of putting the cart before the horse. Are the fields determining the behaviour of the particles or is the behaviour of the particles determining what the observer defines as the field. I tend to favour the latter way of looking at it because the notion of a field acting as a causal agent strikes me as unphysical.

I reckon the more important thing to understand is at the next hierarchy of informational complexity, which is of course the atom. The emergent physical properties of the atom are obviously being determined by the subatomic particles it contains. However these properties have less to do with what these particles are than it has to do with what these particles are doing. We must think of the atom as a PROCESS.

[uwot]

Depends if your primary interest is physics or philosophy. Mine is the latter: physicists can tell me what is happening and I'll try to work out what it is happening to.

[HexHammer]

Depends if your primary interest is physics or philosophy. Mine is the latter: physicists can tell me what is happening and I'll try to work out what it is happening to.

Pure nonsense and babble. How can something exist dependent on what you believe in? That's not philosophy, but superstition.

You know, philosophy = love of wisdom = love of good and sound judgement, which what you say is not, ever.

[uwot]

Mr Hammer, you have a very instrumentalist understanding of reality. In fairness, there are some parallels with Leo and myself, funnily enough. I have said before that I am an empiricist at root, I understand that all we can have any certainty of is that phenomena exist/stuff happens. I very much doubt you are astute enough to appreciate that a radically empiricist interpretation allows you to believe that things happen, but they don't actually happen to anything. In Leo's terms, there are processes; no doubt, but what do these processes affect? Knock yourself out, Mr Hammer, give us the answer.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Since virtual particles was brought up, I decided to attach this Wiki link for further study:

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

PhilX

[uwot]

I'm a great fan of Wikipedia, PhilX and in fact when Jimmy Wales asks for money, I generally support him, but you have to understand that it is not authoritative. Frankly, the page you cite is trivial. Do you have a different view? Why did you commend this to us?

[Philosophy Explorer]

I'm a great fan of Wikipedia, PhilX and in fact when Jimmy Wales asks for money, I generally support him, but you have to understand that it is not authoritative. Frankly, the page you cite is trivial. Do you have a different view? Why did you commend this to us?

Virtual particles have a questionable existence and violate laws of physics. Wiki makes a handy reference on this (although a bit technical). You're welcomed to link to better references if you have a list.

PhilX

[Obvious Leo]

Depends if your primary interest is physics or philosophy. Mine is the latter: physicists can tell me what is happening and I'll try to work out what it is happening to.

Same here. Philosophy must be consistent with the empirical evidence which the physicists are able to produce but it needn't comply with the way they choose to interpret this evidence. That's what relativity means. It means it all depends which way you look at it.

[Obvious Leo]

Phil. It all comes back to the philosophy of the quantum, a metaphysical first principle which was rediscovered by Max Planck. I say rediscovered because the philosophy of the quantum is a metaphysical first principle which dates back to the pre-Socratics, specifically to Zeno of Elea and Democritus of Thrace. It simply states that in order for something to be definable as physically real it cannot be infinitely divisible. Reality must have a smallest possible "bit" and this is incompatible with the notion of "volume" which a solid implies. If something is no further divisible then how can it have an "inside"? Obviously the subatomic particles must be further divisible or else no explanation exists for the different physical properties they display and Einstein's mass/energy equivalence principle confirms this. However this means that what we might call a "volume" is an emergent physical property and emergent physical properties are observer-specified by definition. This has important consequences for the way we think the world at the subatomic scale because it means that the spatial extension which we apply to this realm can only be an epistemic and thus phenomenal construct. Instead of thinking of the subatomic particles as "objects" moving in space we must think of them as events occurring in time which we are merely modelling for heuristic convenience as objects moving in space

[uwot]

Virtual particles have a questionable existence and violate laws of physics. Wiki makes a handy reference on this (although a bit technical). You're welcomed to link to better references if you have a list.

PhilX

You could do worse than start with Derek Leinweber's simulations of the gluon field.