[HN Gopher] Inside the Proton
___________________________________________________________________
Inside the Proton
Author : shantanu_sharma
Score : 404 points
Date : 2022-10-19 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| w10-1 wrote:
| Are we still wrongly talking about billiard balls?
|
| I'm guessing the field interaction when a high-energy electron
| hits a proton is a lot more complicated than the kinetics implied
| by the description, but "surprising" results are still stated in
| terms of features of the "particle" produced. It seems like the
| particle analysis is simply ignoring field interactions that are
| not (currently) mathematically tractable, so instead of a 3-5
| quark zoo in proton, we are witnessing 3-5 types of field
| interactions (and don't actually know how "many" "types" there
| are). Is that the case?
| programmarchy wrote:
| Right? Intuitively it seems like there's some kind of vortex
| dynamic happening that would be better represented by something
| like fluid dynamics or harmonics, but we're trying to classify
| different kinds of ripples and eddies as "particles".
|
| Hawking predicted low mass objects could form a black hole, and
| while the proton has less mass than the minimum bounds he
| calculated, it is extremely dense. Perhaps it's dense enough to
| where it's close to a micro black hole such that it "sticks
| together", but information can still be exchanged at its edges?
| If it's acting as some kind of interface between our spacetime
| and a gravitationally collapsed state, then this could possibly
| explain phenomenon like how quantum entanglement is possible,
| with information being exchanged across spacetime via these
| quasi black holes. Just my layman speculation!
| hither_shores wrote:
| > Are we still wrongly talking about billiard balls?
|
| No. Particles are (approximately-)localized excitations in the
| corresponding field. Think waves, not water balloons.
| hinkley wrote:
| When two waves interact it's more like an elastic collision,
| isn't it?
|
| From the article it wasn't clear to me if these extra high-
| energy particles they were seeing as fuzz in the data (which
| are heavier than a photon) are actually unexplained mass or a
| situation of conservation of energy meets special relativity
| (kinetic energy -> mass).
|
| If you put enough energy into separating quarks, I'm told you
| get extra quarks. So an energetic system where the masses
| don't add up doesn't seem like an epoch defining mystery to
| me. So what are we missing?
| hither_shores wrote:
| > So an energetic system where the masses don't add up
| doesn't seem like an epoch defining mystery to me.
|
| Bound states aren't really made of their constituents in a
| classical sense. A proton is a particular configuration of
| the quark fields (really it's more complicated than this),
| but not a simple sum of quark particle states. And in
| particular, its mass doesn't have to be the sum of the
| masses of particle states.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Actually the basic particle created by the creation operator
| for a mode is totally delocalised. Applying the field
| operator to get a localised particle is really an integral
| over many particles
| hither_shores wrote:
| For a free field, yes. But the entities we actually
| interact with are ... interacting. Mode expansion doesn't
| work here. Electrons, photons, etc. aren't really
| "particles" in the sense of ordinary quantum mechanics at
| all.
| amelius wrote:
| How do protons all end up with the same/similar amounts of
| quarks?
| roywiggins wrote:
| Higher numbers of quarks can get bound up together but aren't
| stable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraquark
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentaquark
| ketralnis wrote:
| This could be asked at a few different layers of abstraction
| but I'd start here
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_confinement
| thesuitonym wrote:
| I'm not smart enough to answer this, but it seems to me that
| the question is along the lines of, "Why do all verbs describe
| action?" Because if they were different, they'd be something
| else.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| We call a particular configuration of 3 particular kinds of
| quark "a proton", and another one "a neutron" (there are also
| anti-protons). In general, combinations of an odd number of
| quarks (3, 5, 7, ...) are called baryons (only combinations of
| 3 and 5 have been proven to exist, any more are only
| speculation). There are also some unstable but observable
| combinations of equal numbers of quarks, which are collectively
| called mesons (combinations of 2 and 4 quarks have been proven
| to exist, others are only speculated).
|
| Now, why are the combinations of 3 quarks the only ones (that
| we know of, at least) that are stable is a much more
| complicated question related to properties of the strong force.
| penciltwirler wrote:
| Wait until our particle accelerators suddenly start saying "you
| are but bugs"...
| Razengan wrote:
| DustinBrett wrote:
| These posts always take me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
| Currently on the "Higgs mechanism", throwing words at my brain in
| hopes something sticks.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| If you're interested in the Higgs mechanism as a layman, I
| highly highly recommend this talk by Leonard Susskind:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqNg819PiZY
|
| It's about 1 hour long (plus some questions) and it goes
| through some basic ideas of what it means for something to have
| mass and all the way to the Higgs mechanism.
| junglistguy wrote:
| I don't think they will ever understand what this is all about.
| This is a different level than our brains represent.
| snarkypixel wrote:
| Personally I think it's because we're "looking" at it from the
| wrong angle. A bit like in programming when you're stuck and
| you need to take a step back and approach the problem
| differently. IMHO the fundamental construct is probably
| something way more abstract, i.e. "information", with some laws
| that we aren't even aware of yet that will probably challenge
| the principle of locality.
| user8501 wrote:
| This. It's bad philosophy. Non local, non physical, these are
| the concepts to get comfortable with before attempting to
| understand the quantum in a coherent way, unless
| understanding the nature of physicality and locality isn't
| your goal. Looking at the quantum world as a bunch of tiny
| objects will only lead to an infinite regression, where new
| even smaller objects are continuously discovered.
| swamp40 wrote:
| I think we are still in the "universe orbits the Earth" stage
| of quantum physics.
| marstall wrote:
| than most of our brains represent, perhaps ... but clearly
| there are people who see things others don't ... give them the
| ability to see at these scales, and enough explanatory skills,
| and perhaps it will become something even a child can
| understand.
| criddell wrote:
| A dog is never going to understand Fourier Transforms. I
| expect there are concepts that our brains will never
| understand as well.
| brap wrote:
| Indeed, it's an uncomfortable idea but maybe someday we'll
| have to accept it. That we don't know, we'll never know, we
| can't know. I wonder if we'll be able to _prove_ that we
| can't know something. Or prove that we can't prove it.
| [deleted]
| photochemsyn wrote:
| As I understand it, the reason Feynman diagrams in quantum
| electrodynamics (where the primary entities are electrons and
| photons) can be used to calculate properties very accurately is
| that the electromagnetic coupling constant (1/137) results in the
| higher-order terms in a series eventually vanishing away to
| nothing, while with the strong force the coupling constant is >=
| 1, so the higher-order terms have to be included, leading to
| things like infinities (or at the very least, ratios of very
| large quantities with correspondingly large uncertainties).
|
| The strong force is a bit confusing, as it binds boths quarks
| with the proton and neutron, as well as binding the neutrons and
| protons into atomic nuclei, over short ranges (accounting for the
| upper size limit / stability limit of the largest nuclei). Mesons
| are the force-carrying entity that bind the neutrons and protons
| together, but gluons are the force-carrying entity that bind the
| quarks together, as per this wiki article:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction
|
| Is it the case that theoretical strong-force calculations have
| just hit a dead-end and there's no way out in sight, due to the
| coupling constant issue?
| morbia wrote:
| Actually there's a bit more to it than that. Coupling constants
| change as a function of their energy, they're called 'running
| coupling constants'. As a result of this phenomenon, there are
| domains where alpha_s is small and therefore a perturbative
| expansion of terms is possible. This happens at very high
| energies, so at the LHC we can happily calculate the higher
| order terms that you talk about and each successive term is a
| smaller contribution than the last.
|
| Unfortunately, alpha_s is large at low energies, and by low I
| mean at the atomic and nuclear scale. There you are well and
| truly in the domain that perturbative QCD is impossible. The
| only option at that point is something called lattice QCD at
| the quark/gluon level.
|
| Edit: Typo
| antognini wrote:
| I have idly wondered whether or not there could be a
| completely different approach to QCD from the usual
| perturbative techniques. I remember reading in one of Zee's
| books that back 80s he pointed out to Feynman that the path
| integral formalism that QFT is based on has no natural way to
| treat something as simple as a particle in a box. And an
| object like a proton seems to be more like a particle in a
| box than a free particle undergoing an interaction.
| hither_shores wrote:
| Lattice methods are probably the most common
| nonperturbative approach to QCD.
| morbia wrote:
| Yeah as someone who spent 4 years of his life calculating a
| second order term (Next-to-Next-to-Leading-Order), I have
| often wondered the same thing! In my original post I
| grossly simplified how challenging it is to calculate terms
| in perturbative QCD, even when in the perturbative regime.
| To name a few:-
|
| * Two loop calculations are extremely challenging on an
| algebraic level
|
| * You get low energy (called 'infrared red') infinities
| appearing at low energies. These need to cancel between all
| your contributing terms, and getting them to cancel is
| really really challenging.
|
| * The numerical Monte Carlo approaches become extremely
| computationally intensive because of high dimensional
| integrals and numerical instability caused by point 2
|
| It was not uncommon for calculations of single terms to
| involve multiple PhD students over a decade or more.
|
| Throughout my PhD I certainly felt like something was
| fundamentally 'wrong' with the approach. Alas, I wasn't
| smart enough to rewrite the field with a whole new way of
| thinking so bailed instead.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Reminds me of:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle
| selectodude wrote:
| >It was not uncommon for calculations of single terms to
| involve multiple PhD students over a decade or more.
|
| Forgive my ignorance, but what does calculating this sort
| of look like? I am not a mathematician or even math-
| adjacent.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| Essentially, solving a large number of non-trivial
| integrals.
| Einstant wrote:
| no, you're just going wrong about it; nothing Feynman was doing
| was new. Except for the fact he had a nice semi-directed graph
| to make sense of the celestial equations and the quintuple of
| the time; the Dirac Sea, etc
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| How does the strong force bind neutrons to protons? Is it
| connecting the quarks inside the proton with those of the
| neutron?
| yccs27 wrote:
| How nucleons (neutrons and protons) are bound together is
| similar to a molecule. If they are close enough, they can
| 'share' their constituent quarks. You can calculate the
| interaction by a feynman diagram where the two nucleons
| exchange one quark in each direction. This is technically the
| same as one nucleon sending and the other absorbing a quark-
| antiquark pair, which is why physicists like to say that the
| nucleon attraction is transmitted by mesons (quark-antiquark
| pairs). Of course fundamentally the strong force still
| facilitates the whole interaction, as it's the one preventing
| nucleons from just falling apart into quarks.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| That's the role the meson (a quark-antiquark pair particle)
| carries out, but I agree it's confusing. Here's a question
| from physics stack exchange (without any really clear
| answers, other than "go look up 'residual strong force'", not
| very helpful) that spells it out:
|
| > "I just read somewhere that both gluons and mesons transmit
| the strong force, gluons between quarks inside hadrons, but
| mesons between nucleons. I thought that the strong force
| would have one field, and one associated particle, whether
| inside hadrons, or between nucleons"
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/296457/gluons-
| an...
| foxes wrote:
| I don't think this is necessarily new. On the level of fields the
| universe is not nice little particles or waves in neat groups in
| a vacuum. It's a roaring, swirling turbulent ocean. Yes what we
| call a proton is still a particular configuration, but it's not
| existing in a vacuum, it can entangle with other stuff. When we
| do some experiment it's like trying to pick a particular wave out
| of the ocean. Seeing a charm anti charm pair popping up sometimes
| shouldn't really be a surprise.
|
| There's nothing wrong with the 3 quark description of a proton,
| it's a model, it's useful up to a certain level of accuracy.
| jerf wrote:
| I don't think it is, I think this is just a popsci article on
| that well-known (in the field) fact.
|
| I don't want to make it sound easy, because as the article
| says, our math lacks the ability to handle the way our current
| best theories describe it, but it certainly isn't any easier
| trying to understand QCD through the lens of particles as the
| fundamental objects. It's really a mess of field fluctuations,
| and in those field fluctuations we have certain patterns we
| call "particles", but those patterns can shift and ebb and flow
| in any number of ways, including in ways we have no intuitions
| for since our macroscopic intuition keeps wanting to sneak
| particles in the backdoor despite everything being waves.
|
| Directly understanding what's going on isn't easy, but it's
| probably still easier than trying to hold on to particle-based
| ideas.
|
| Or, you know, since none of this matters on a day-by-day basis
| to hardly anyone, I think just looking at it from the particle
| point of view and calling it a day is a perfectly viable
| option. In which case, a proton is three quarks, full stop.
| It's not 100% correct, but hey, QCD isn't either (still waiting
| on that Grand Unified Theory), so there's no real harm in
| stopping at the 3-quark model.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > but hey, QCD isn't either (still waiting on that Grand
| Unified Theory)
|
| Note that there may well not exist any GUT. However, QCD
| can't be correct until it also accounts for gravitational
| effect, so what we're waiting for is a theory of Quantum
| Gravity that is consistent with both QCD and General
| Relativity.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Is there any information to be learned by the _direction_ of the
| plumes?
| koyanisqatsi wrote:
| "What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our
| method of questioning." -- Werner Heisenberg, Physics and
| Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (1958)
| Veliladon wrote:
| This should be required reading for this article:
|
| https://profmattstrassler.com/2022/09/09/protons-and-charm-q...
|
| Virtual particles do not necessarily have an invariant mass.
| That's why you can find examples of typically huge particles
| inside protons. That's why a beta decay of a neutron can involve
| the production of a virtual W- boson that has an invariant mass
| that's 86 times more massive than the neutron.
| Einstant wrote:
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Thank you for this link! This site is amazing!
| ijidak wrote:
| Thank you for this.
|
| Science communication, even between scientists, is filled with
| lies and half truths that shroud the truth in mystery.
|
| Virtual particles are a good example.
|
| Quarks are fundamental is another example.
|
| A proton is made of three quarks is yet another.
|
| But there are countless others I've come across in studying
| quantum mechanics and relativity.
| cwillu wrote:
| And also https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-
| posts/particle-ph...
|
| "A virtual particle is not a particle at all. It refers
| precisely to a disturbance in a field that is not a particle."
| nimish wrote:
| Also virtual particles don't make sense in a non-perturbative
| regime like room-temp protons, since they are an aid to
| understanding terms in the perturbation series expansion.
|
| Not sure how they even apply in the case where Feynman
| diagrams aren't applicable. Hell, the calculations likely use
| lattice QCD which eschews them entirely!
| zakk wrote:
| Protons are non-perturbative, indeed, but this does not
| mean that there are no virtual particles exchanged inside a
| proton. It seems like your comment implies that, sorry if I
| misunderstood.
|
| On the contrary, this means that there are too many virtual
| particles (gluons) being exchanged inside a proton, so many
| that perturbation theory is not applicable.
| hither_shores wrote:
| Virtual particles are part of an indexing scheme for
| perturbation series - saying that you leave the
| perturbative regime when you have "too many" of them is
| like saying that crystalline solids melt when they have
| too many normal modes.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Are gluons virtual? (Or are they virtual inside a
| proton?)
| frutiger wrote:
| Gluons are real.
| blueprint wrote:
| Virtual particles are also "real", and if you don't
| believe me, at least you have to admit that virtual
| photons alone lead to real energy (e.g. Casimir effect) -
| and it has also been stated that gluons within protons
| can be interpreted as "virtual"... so I'm pretty sure
| your comment is wrong. I'd downvote you if I could since
| that seems to be what the cool kids here are doing but I
| used up all my karma telling the truth.
| cwillu wrote:
| Your question is can be posed as "is there a well-behaved
| resonance of the gluon field in a proton, that lasts long
| enough for it to be identified". It's kinda like
| identifying a bubble in a pot of cold water vs a pot just
| starting to boil vs a rolling boil.
| est wrote:
| this is the most important TIL article I've read in years.
| Thanks!
|
| Basically, it's like a playing around virtual machine on a
| physical PC.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Be sure to click through to the "What's a Proton" article,
| which contains the delightful line:
|
| > In short, atoms are to protons as a pas de deux in a delicate
| ballet is to a dance floor crowded with drunk twenty-somethings
| bouncing and flailing to a DJ.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| This is the direct link
| https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-
| posts/largehadron...
|
| Also check out the comments and comment answers there. Very
| interesting too!
| 1ark wrote:
| They have not seen our legacy code base.
| fnikacevic wrote:
| Or my npm dependencies
| hinkley wrote:
| In the last couple years I've dropped our node_modules
| directory size down by half, and I'm still disgusted both
| with the state of it and how much work I put into
| accomplishing that.
|
| The moral of too many of my stories is if something is
| bothering you, track it first before trying to fix it.
| Because it's easier to get other people to help police a
| graph than a series of unix commands. And for everyone else
| you'll get regressions when you're focused on some other
| priority. Data points like "sometime in the last month" are
| pretty hard to nail down on a large codebase, especially if
| it's not a monolith. Last Tuesday around noon is pretty
| specific.
| amelius wrote:
| Do you work on ProtonMail?
| [deleted]
| pokstad wrote:
| Reminds me of the sophon from The Three Body Problem.
| vutekst wrote:
| hopefully when we finally unfold them we don't get attacked by
| lower dimensional beings
| SaberTail wrote:
| I had a professor that was fond of saying "the proton is a
| garbage can" when talking about its composition.
| antognini wrote:
| From "we are made of stardust" to "we are made of garbage
| cans."
| xdavidliu wrote:
| "we are but stardust and garbage cans, Maximus".
| onemiketwelve wrote:
| If it's good enough to plug up wounds, it's good enough to
| make the universe
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| trash within, trash without. very zen.
| outworlder wrote:
| > 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 don't necessarily subscribe to the 'simulation' viewpoint, but
| that sounds exactly how some lazy evaluation/procedural
| generation system would work. Don't need to compute values until
| they are needed. Just like atomic orbitals.
|
| Add that to all the quantization we have discovered in nature,
| the speed of light limit (which is also the speed at which
| information can be transmitted), the time dilation effects with
| speed... and that provides plenty of food for thought.
| joyfylbanana wrote:
| I was thinking about the Linux Steam compability software.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| I don't believe that would be referred to as "the proton"
| unless it was being called "the proton compatibility layer".
| It's important not to forget the colloquial meanings of words
| :)
| greenthrow wrote:
| The GP makes sense, your comment makes no sense.
| acomar wrote:
| people make grammatical mistakes often enough when typing
| that you kind of need to parse sentences in the way that
| makes the most sense. this sometimes means parsing correct
| grammar as a mistake because the fixed version makes perfect
| sense. then you read the article and laugh at yourself
| because yep, both kinds of proton are quite complicated.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Coincidentally, also the most complicated thing imaginable.
| [deleted]
| GiorgioG wrote:
| They haven't seen Kubernetes.
| bee_rider wrote:
| They haven't seen Electron.
| Scarblac wrote:
| But is Kubernetes imaginable?
| jq-r wrote:
| Depends on your imagination.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| "Don't take the brown acid, man, you'll get Kubernetes"
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Or node_modules!
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6s0wov/hea...
| lake_vincent wrote:
| Plot twist: protons _are_ cosmic k8s!
| yongjik wrote:
| Reminds me of this comic: https://abstrusegoose.com/235
| tonymet wrote:
| the most complicated model imaginable.
| fleddr wrote:
| A proton contains an entire universe on its own, and our universe
| itself is a proton. You will never reach the end of its depth as
| it will reveal just another nesting level, until you hit the
| level where one would require more than all of the universe's
| energy in existence to reveal it.
|
| Hence, reality cannot be understood, by design. Reality is chaos,
| meaning and stability mere perception.
|
| Source: it was revealed to me.
| davrosthedalek wrote:
| Take less drugs.
| cratermoon wrote:
| It's interesting that the article and the animations still lean
| on the concept of the proton having an "inside" with some kind of
| boundary. It makes for interesting animations, but that's not
| really a good way to understand anything at the quantum level.
| The particles and forces that make up a proton have probabilities
| of having certain features like momentum and velocity, and they
| are more likely to be within a certain area, but there's no
| "inside" for a charm quark to pop out of. The measurement that
| finds a charm quark/antiquark pair is just showing a certain
| state of the system that under standard conditions has a state we
| call a proton.
| dang wrote:
| We've taken the bit out of the title that was sapping people's
| ability not to make obvious jokes. Let's discuss the interesting
| bits now please!
| swamp40 wrote:
| "My God, it's full of stars!"
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| Proton Saga
| ur-whale wrote:
| >Proton Saga
|
| LOL.
|
| Did you by chance live in Malaysia towards the end of the 80's
| ?
|
| [EDIT]: never mind, I see they are still making them in 2022 .
| Who knew!
| davesque wrote:
| Sort of off topic, but sometimes pondering these low-level
| physics questions forces me into a philosophical state of mind.
| It seems like asking questions about basic particles is
| representative of a mode of thinking that drills down ever
| further, trying to find some kind of conceptual bedrock. But it
| always seems possible to ask again, "What lies underneath this?
| What is the cause of this thing's existence?" In any case, it
| seems either that you have found the one thing that underpins
| everything else or you have found the collection of things that
| all endlessly perpetuate each other. Both of those possibilities
| seem somehow unsatisfactory or impossible. There must always be
| something else. Could it be that this conceptual craving is
| somehow just a side effect of how our minds are built? Or is it
| fundamental to reality in some way?
| d0mine wrote:
| There are books on the topic e.g., "The End Of Physics" by
| D.Lindley.
|
| There are two questions:
|
| - whether there are laws that describe everything there is to
| know (e.g., the answer is yes for chess--there are rules that
| describe it). It is the "fundamental" dimension (particle
| physics at the moment)
|
| - whether there is something to do once we know all the laws.
| The answer is yes ("knowing rules do not make you a
| grandmaster") e.g., we likely know all of the fundamental
| physics required for turbulence or brains but it doesn't solve
| these fields (there are interesting unresolved problems). It is
| the "applications" dimension.
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/contemplating-the-end-of-phys...
| narag wrote:
| I don't know, but let me point the obvious: it feels very weird
| that fundamental things are so complicated.
|
| Somehow I _want_ to think that there 's a much simpler layer
| underneath and all this _imperfection_ comes as a second order
| side effect.
|
| Plato's cave seems the relevant meme. But is it really
| complexity a side effect or, as you suggest, is simplicity a
| side effect of our minds' pattern matching preferences?
| davesque wrote:
| I can sympathize with this. I love discovering some
| generalization that subsumes all the complexity. But what if
| we follow this to its extreme? Suppose we find the one
| perfect symbol that precipitates all other concepts? What
| then does that symbol even do but just reflect or perturb its
| environment? Isn't that just like moving the goalposts? Makes
| me think of the concept of Kolmogorov complexity. That's the
| idea that the informational content of some signal is
| equivalent to the length of the shortest computer program
| that can produce it. But what interprets the program? And how
| complex is that thing? It's all circular. And I'm not sure
| there's really a way out of that. It's just an inherent
| feature of looking at the universe conceptually.
| ur-whale wrote:
| The thing that really matters when breaking thing apart into
| ever smaller things is not really if we are accessing ever
| deeper level of reality.
|
| What matters is: can we use this newly discovered sub-structure
| to _do_ something we couldn 't before.
|
| The answer to this was a clear and resounding "yes" when we
| reached the level of molecules (chemistry, which allows us to
| do a great many useful things), still "yes" at the level of the
| atom (atomic energy, transistors, etc...).
|
| It is however unclear that QCD, quarks and inner proton
| structure reality level have yet produced anything usable to
| implement our will upon the world.
|
| It may yet happen, but to answer your questions: once the depth
| we dig at stops producing anything usable by an engineer
| (string theory, quarks both currently fall into that bucket I
| think), not entirely sure the digging is philosophically
| valuable in any way.
| fleddr wrote:
| Very limiting to couple the pursuit of knowledge to
| application, commercial exploitation, or laying our "will" on
| the world.
| davesque wrote:
| I think your reply gets at the answer to my own question that
| I tend to lean towards. And that is that craving further
| concepts is an inherent problem that follows from being a
| thinking being. What you say seems like part of the answer,
| which is that one needs to make a conscious decision not to
| be bothered by the fundamental lack of a justification for
| reality. Just focus on what your knowledge enables you to do.
| But it still seems sad on some level that we're "condemned"
| to coast through this world that is so rich in detail but
| seemingly lacking in purpose.
| lazide wrote:
| LEDs and most modern microprocessors make no sense without
| quantum mechanics, for one.
| c0mptonFP wrote:
| Neither do magnets.
| Analog24 wrote:
| I think you may have some hindsight bias here. I do not think
| that when chemical and atomic structures were
| discovered/understood that knowledge was immediately put to
| use. Nuclear physics dates back to the late 1800s, it wasn't
| until the 1940's where that knowledge was put to practical
| use. I wouldn't expect anything different with QCD. In fact,
| I would expect it to take significantly longer to develop
| practical applications of the theory given how much more
| complex it is.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Fair point, not knowing when something might come in handy.
|
| I still believe looking for things we can use should be a
| guiding light.
| tasubotadas wrote:
| ur-whale wrote:
| There seems to be an unspoken assumption that all protons (as in:
| a set things that seem to have similar external properties and
| behaviors) are actually identical "inside" or - to put it another
| way - all "built" the same way.
|
| Other than Occam's razor, why is that assumption considered
| valid?
|
| Have we verified this experimentally?
|
| Or does some complex piece of math show that only one possible
| internal structure can lead to similar externally observable
| behaviors?
| blueprint wrote:
| "one that's too bizarre to fully capture with words"
|
| well i guess we'd better give up. what a ridiculous statement.
| planck01 wrote:
| No, they're not wrong. Some of these concepts are hardly
| explainable without math.
| [deleted]
| blueprint wrote:
| Actually the concepts are perfectly explained by plenty of
| people who, you know, actually know. Read the other links in
| this thread. But please downvote me some more. It's obvious
| you're not arguing reasonably because you're clearly leaving
| out the fact that the terms in all these relevant equations
| are associated with physical components that we talk about
| WITH WORDS
|
| Like mass and charge and energy and probability
|
| If you know the math you can share it here and say what the
| terms mean
|
| If you dont know the math then your comment contains the lie
| that you know what you're talking about and that people
| should listen to you
| knaekhoved wrote:
| Is the "charm quark is heavier than proton" thing the usual
| situation where the author conflates the mass of the particle
| with the mass of the particle plus the mass of the field
| associated with a free particle? Every system is lighter than its
| constituent particles in this sense, but sometimes people make a
| big deal about it, usually when the binding energy is high (i.e.
| the mass difference is large).
| mrtri wrote:
| causi wrote:
| I've never really understood the statement that "most of the mass
| of the proton comes from virtual particles inside it." That being
| the case, why isn't the mass density of space outside the proton
| almost as great as it is inside the proton? Is the density of
| virtual particles greater inside, and if so, why?
| cwillu wrote:
| "A virtual particle is not a particle at all. It refers
| precisely to a disturbance in a field that is not a particle."
|
| https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-ph...
| sharpneli wrote:
| Just ignore the "virtual particles" part. Most of the mass
| comes from the binding energy. As in the rest masses of the
| individual quarks is small compared to total mass of proton.
|
| Virtual particles themselves can always be ignored as they are
| not physical. They're purely a computational method in some
| approaches. They don't exist in others at all. And even when
| they are part of the method what kind they are depends. Looking
| at momentum space? Your virtual particles can have any
| position. Looking at position? Your virtual particles can have
| any momentum.
|
| Alternatively: Virtual particle just means that if you have a
| certain kind of field, what kind of "particles" you need to sum
| up to get that kind of field. The field itself is the physical
| thing. Viewing it mathematically as sum of virtual particles is
| just a mathematical viewpoint.
| xeromal wrote:
| Is the binding energy made up of gluons?
| FranchuFranchu wrote:
| It's a bit like the "energy" in an electric capacitor. It's
| a property of the system's state that is related to the
| interactions between the particles.
|
| In a charged capacitor, there's a lot of electrons on one
| side, but very few of them on the other. When you close the
| capacitor, suddenly you get a lot of energy out of it.
| sharpneli wrote:
| It's not. Just like how if you push two identically charged
| plates towards eachother the potential energy in that
| system is not made of photons.
|
| Sure you can describe the electric field in that case by a
| viewpoint where you sum virtual photons together to get
| said electric field. Whereas a non virtual photon is
| alltogether a different thing. You can actually describe a
| normal non virtual photon as a sum of virtual photons.
|
| Point is that virtual particles are just a mathematical
| tool.
|
| Actual real gluons do exist and they're analogous to the
| actual photon.
|
| In case of electromagnetism the actual stuff is the
| electric field. With proton (so in quantum chromodynamics)
| it's the gluon field. It's called that because every
| particle has a field and every field a particle. It would
| be kinda like calling electric field a photon field. Same
| difference.
| simonh wrote:
| Looks like it, quarks are bound together by gluons so as
| you go up the energy scale and 'see' more quarks the gluon
| energies dominate. In fact about 99% of the Proton's mass
| is in the form of this binding energy.
| ars wrote:
| Binding energy is not gluons. Gluons are massless,
| binding energy is just energy, it's not a particle.
| baq wrote:
| No such thing as 'just energy', every force needs a force
| carrier particle and gluons are that for the strong
| force. Photons are massless, too.
| sharpneli wrote:
| Saying it's made of gluons is exactly the same as saying
| that a charged object in electric field has it's
| potential energy made of photons.
|
| It's not exactly informative nor true. Yes you can
| describe the electric field as sum of virtual photons but
| that's different to a normal photon. And even then the
| electric field is not the same as the potential energy.
| Sure it defines it but it's not the same as the potential
| energy of the charged object.
|
| In case of protons it's the same. It's better to think of
| it as a field, which it is. Gluon in itself is "just" an
| excitation of that field. Just like photon is an
| excitation of the electric field. And the binding energy
| of the proton comes from the quarks interacting with the
| gluon field.
|
| The reason I'm talking so much against the virtual
| particle viewpoint because then people will start
| thinking of some things whizzing about. That's not what
| happens. It's a field.
|
| It's actually better to think of even the normal fermions
| with mass with fields, because that's what they are. It's
| no longer surprising that how does electron go through
| both slits at the same time or how all electrons are
| identical. Of course they are identical as there is just
| one electron field that has a very specific kind of
| excitation that propagates.
|
| This is not some random "Look at my weird theory". It's
| what Quantum Field Theories are. I mostly blame bad
| science journalism looking at Feynman diagrams (a great
| mathematical tool, don't get me wrong) that has people
| thinking too much about virtual particles.
| simonh wrote:
| I didn't say the binding energy is gluons, but I suppose
| it's more accurate to say that the binding energy of the
| strong nuclear force is mediated by gluons.
| ars wrote:
| It's not made of anything, it's just energy.
|
| To think of a proton as containing tons of gluons would be
| a mistake.
|
| Additionally gluons are expected to be massless, they
| basically come into existence as needed.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The quarks that are bound in a way we call a proton are held
| together by the strong force at a certain distance from each
| other - that distance is what we consider the volume of the
| proton, with the quarks being "inside that volume". This system
| of 3 quarks has some amount of potential energy, and/or some
| amount of kinetic energy from the relative movement of the 3
| quarks. The mass of this system is then given essentially by
| E=mc^2, with E being this kinetic energy.
|
| There is a very good video of a lecture by Leonard Susskind
| that explains why energy and mass are interchangeable in this
| way if you want a more in-depth explanation:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqNg819PiZY
| mouzogu wrote:
| what an obnoxious site. huge fixed cookie banner with only
| "agree" option and saying they care about your data.
|
| reading the privacy policy they say:
|
| > We currently do not honor "Do Not Track" signals.
|
| I guess they mean "care" as in want.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances--things
| like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-
| button breakage. They're too common to be interesting._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| It seems every day that the concept of us existing, without an
| external cause, is absolutely 0%. Or at least lim x-[?] ([odds of
| us existing]) = 0.
| breuleux wrote:
| This is to be expected, though. Given that there is an infinite
| number of possible things that could have existed, it is
| natural that they all had very low to infinitesimal
| probabilities to begin with.
| ko27 wrote:
| You don't need an "external cause". You would still have the
| same trouble of explaining that. You only need many attempts,
| same as with evolution. Life in space can be explained with
| Anthropic principle
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| This fits the pattern of discussion I often see about the
| anthropic principle. Someone (I'll label them the
| "Creationist", though it could just as well be an advocate of
| intelligent design) asserts that the probability of things
| "just happening" is vanishingly small. Sometimes the
| Creationist cites some generally-accepted science, and
| sometimes does a probability calculation, resulting in a
| _very_ small probability that things happened by purely
| naturalistic means.
|
| Someone else (call them the "Evolutionist") responds with the
| anthropic principle - that, if no intelligent life had arisen
| in this universe, there would be nobody here to observe that
| there was no intelligent life. And this is completely
| logically correct. It is also irrelevant. The Creationist
| never asserted that it was improbable that life arose in this
| universe, but rather that it was improbable that it arose
| _purely by naturalistic means_. The question isn 't _whether_
| we 're here; the question is _how_ or _why_.
|
| The Creationist was saying, either we're here by purely
| naturalistic, evolutionary means, with some probability (call
| that Pe), or by being created, with some probability (call
| that Pc). As far as I can see, Pc is unknowable, even in
| principle. But the Creationist argument is that Pe is so low
| that it seems reasonable that Pc is higher. That is, it seems
| reasonable to suppose that we are here due to creation, not
| just evolution.
|
| The anthropic principle doesn't answer that argument at all.
| It gives an argument about "whether", not about "how".
|
| Or to put it in different terms: The anthropic principle says
| something like, if there are a billion universes, and life
| only arose in a thousand of them, we have to be in one of
| those thousand to be having this conversation. (Note that I
| don't actually believe in multiple universes; this is just to
| make the probability discussion clearer.) But the Creationist
| never denied that. The Creationist says: Of those thousand
| universes, if life arose by creation in 998 of them and by
| evolution in only 2 of them, it seems reasonable to suppose
| that we're in a universe where life originated by creation,
| not evolution. The anthropic principle, which asserts that
| we're in one of the thousand, doesn't address the
| Creationist's argument at all.
|
| Unless.
|
| It seems to me that everyone who pulls out the anthropic
| principle in this situation implicitly assumes that Pc is
| precisely zero. They never explicitly state this assumption,
| but I think it's there in their thinking. So for the
| Evolutionist in this conversation, Pe and the probability of
| life at all are exactly the same, and the anthropic principle
| _does_ address the actual claim.
|
| But, instead of being irrelevant, in this case the anthropic
| principle is begging the question. The Evolutionist starts
| with the conclusion that they are arguing for. That's invalid
| logic. That's so invalid that, to the degree that the
| Evolutionist relies on the anthropic principle to support
| their position, to that degree they should doubt their
| position.
|
| (I think the Evolutionist pulls out the anthropic principle
| for an additional reason - it's easy. It lets them "win" the
| discussion without having to disprove the Creationist's big
| scary probability number.)
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Nothing can be explained by the Anthropic Principle, it's an
| observation not an explanation.
|
| "Why did you punch me in the face?"
|
| "Because if I hadn't, you wouldn't have a broken nose"
|
| That isn't an explanation why the punch happened, it is
| observing that the nose would not have been broken without a
| punch.
| claar wrote:
| I agree. I believe that the infinite engineering prowess
| observed in the proton and so many other aspects of creation
| (Like the eye! Wow!) point directly to the existence of God.
|
| But then again, I've never met anyone who became a believer
| through observing creation. Just as my confirmation bias leads
| me to see God in these stories, I imagine unbelievers tend to
| receive confirmation of the absence of God.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Well you believe in the absence of Zeus, don't you? Then why
| doesn't that make you an atheist? (Hint: it does, since
| you're atheistic about a hell of a lot more Gods than any you
| might choose to believe in. So you're at least 99.99%
| atheist, or 100% atheist as the number of Gods goes to
| infinity.)
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| No? Atheist literally is A-Theist, similar to amoral being
| A-Moral ("a" being a common prefix for "anti" or
| "opposite"). A-Theist means one does not believe Theism,
| the "belief in the existence of a supreme being or
| deities."
|
| In which case, by believing in one specific God, one is not
| an atheist in any sense toward other religions. Believing
| in one specific God literally means that you do have
| "belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities,"
| your only dispute is to _which_ one.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Note that a- is a different prefix than anti-. a- means
| "without", whereas anti- means "the opposite of". So,
| being a-theistic means that you are "without god(s)".
| Being anti-theistic would meant that you oppose god(s).
| An amoral thing is a thing to which morality doesn't
| apply (for example, weather phenomena are amoral). Anti-
| moral would mean something that is opposed to morality,
| which would probably make it immoral (such as a human
| killing another human that hasn't wronged them in any
| way).
| jerf wrote:
| You believe your argument don't you? But how can you, when
| there is such an infinity of arguments you don't believe
| in?
|
| This is word chopping, not an interesting philosophical
| argument. Truth is exclusionary, and the space of excluded
| hypotheses is at a minimum exponentially larger than the
| non-excluded ones, if not super-exponentially, if not some
| variety of simply infinitely larger, depending on how you
| count. Appealing to the size of the universe of false
| statements and/or "things you don't believe" is not
| meaningful.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > imagine unbelievers tend to receive confirmation of the
| absence of God
|
| Another interesting question to ponder though: Who's fault is
| this? Is it God for not jumping out of the shadows screaming
| "I am he, worship me!"? Or is it an unbeliever who makes
| assumptions about how a God would act, and finds there is no
| God because he doesn't fit the unbeliever's assumptions? In
| which case, what is the unbeliever but a God himself?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I remember my first joint.
| syarb wrote:
| You say "us" existing, but I think the more interesting way to
| phrase it is "anything" existing. Why there is something
| instead of nothing?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_there_is_anything_at_all
| thesuitonym wrote:
| That page is strangely far in the Wikipedia game from getting
| to Philosophy. I expected it to get there much sooner.
| airstrike wrote:
| The 'Existing' article is the one to blame... 'Philosophy'
| is there as the second term, but 'reality' is the first
| term and that one takes you on a pretty long detour
| andrepd wrote:
| I distinctly remember being 6 or 7 drifting to sleep one
| night and suddenly visualising what it would be like if there
| existed _nothing_ at all, not even empty space but nothing,
| no Universe and nothing ever happening ever or anywhere. It
| was terrifying.
|
| It was about the same time that a family member had died so I
| was coming to terms with the fear of dying for the first
| time, so I guess that's what triggered this.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| ...Which makes the concept of an external cause existing, which
| must be vastly more complicated than us, absolutely less than
| 0%. ;)
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| It's an odd question either way. Does God need a cause? Does
| the Big Bang need a cause?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I do not understand your point about his "Just Cause"
| pun. Other than that it can mean two things
| simultaneously depending on how it is interpreted.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| I think the point was that it is circular reasoning.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| "Just Cause" was certainly not intended by Bush or his
| minions to be a pun. Remember, this is the same family
| that gave us "Mission Accomplished".
|
| Conservatives aren't known for their sense of humor,
| which is usually limited to punching down and demeaning
| weaker opponents, not insightful self depreciation and
| candor. Case in point:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_%C2%BD_Hour_News_Hour#R
| ece...
|
| The "Just 'Cuz" interpretation was pointed out by critics
| of Bush's otherwise unjustifiable invasion. The US
| created the original problem by supporting and paying
| Noriega while turning a blind eye to his abuses and
| corruption for so long.
|
| The operation plan it came from was called the "Prayer
| Book", so circular reasoning was the essential
| justification of its self fulfilling prophecy, just like
| with any religion.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_P
| ana...
|
| >Origin of the name "Operation Just Cause"
|
| >Operation plans directed against Panama evolved from
| plans designed to defend the Panama Canal. They became
| more aggressive as the situation between the two nations
| deteriorated. The Prayer Book series of plans included
| rehearsals for a possible clash (Operation Purple Storm)
| and missions to secure U.S. sites (Operation Bushmaster).
|
| >Eventually, these plans became Operation Blue Spoon
| which was then, in order to sustain the perceived
| legitimacy of the invasion throughout the operation,
| renamed by the Pentagon to Operation Just Cause. General
| Colin Powell said that he liked the name because "even
| our severest critics would have to utter 'Just Cause'
| while denouncing us." Critics, however, renamed it
| Operation "Just 'Cuz", arguing that it had been
| undertaken "just [be]cause Bush felt like it."
|
| https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/war-and-rhetoric/
|
| >The incursion into Panama, which came to be derisively
| known as "Operation Just 'Cuz," is the hardest to justify
| on Realist grounds. The rationale for going in doesn't
| stand up to the test of time but made some sense at the
| time. The Panama Canal was indeed a longstanding American
| interest. And the war on drugs angle was important, as
| was the the complicated relationship with Noriega.
| Regardless, we certainly didn't go in to make Panama more
| safe for democracy. Nor did we stay for years nation-
| building. It was a limited incursion, over in less time
| than an NBA postseason.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210603051719/https://www.lo
| nel...
|
| >The US reaction was swift and unrelenting. In the first
| hour of December 20, 1989, Panama City was attacked by
| aircraft, tanks and 26,000 US troops in 'Operation Just
| Cause,' though the US media often labeled it 'Operation
| "Just 'cuz."' Although the stated intention of the
| invasion was to bring Noriega to justice and create a
| democracy, it left more than 2000 civilians dead and tens
| of thousands homeless, and destroyed entire tracts of
| Panama City.
| xeromal wrote:
| They're making a joke.
| indymike wrote:
| I'm not sure a pun this bad is allowed to have a point.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| I can ask the question, so yes, they do.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| God has to have a cause _because you can ask the
| question_? To me, that logic seems rather suspect...
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| You assume that God is bound to the system of causality
| in which you exist?
| tsegratis wrote:
| You assume we exist. DonHopkins effectively assumes we
| don't exist, so reaches an opposite conclusion
|
| On just cause ;), cyclical explanations create a giant
| hamster wheel. Why the wheel at all? So I think he implies
| the need for a prime mover. I.e. a force outside the system
| that defines the system. Kinda like axioms are needed to
| make maths work
|
| Just my 2p
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-19 23:00 UTC)