What are quarks made of?

I'm usually pretty on-side with Einstein, but I have to say I feel a bit iffy about the Gerber controversy.

Now can we try to stay on topic please? What are quarks made of? Try to offer an answer. If it's different to mine that's OK, I won't jump on you, I'll just say Alphanumeric and I don't see eye to eye on this. That's life. If we all agreed on everything we wouldn't have anything to talk about. By the way, you can diffract an electron. And don't forget the Einstein-de Haas effect and magnetic moment when it comes to evidential standards.

 

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The so-called "Gerber controversy" has been settled. The settlement depends on the understanding of the mathematical formalism, something that you, Duffield, have proven time and again to be totally incapable of understanding.

 

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Joint pain and nausea has contributed to literally elevated blood pressure.

Citation(s) requested. It must be the virus or antihistimines that has me convinced you have never addressed a physics topic in a manner I found significantly instructive to physics undergraduates. Kindly remind me what thread(s) I have forgotten.

I have a predictive model of incompetent cowards so of course I assumed that you would never agree to AlphaNumeric or Guest254 as a judge. That's why I wrote in the section you quoted "... with AlphaNumeric or Guest254 holding the cash and a judge decided by some mutually agreed method."

But if you agree with my description of bound systems as "knots" in the standard model, do you agree with me that my use of "knot" has nothing to do with either topological quantum field theory or knot theory and that any use of this in support of your buzzword bingo is purely quoting out of context? If not, then you would have the burden of proof that in my ignorance of either that I have made a cogent and mathematically precise point. Failure to do so would tend to support my claim that "knot" is a completely informal description of a "localized kink with unspecified structure distinct from the surroundings".

Because I am passingly familiar with the poster's style and engagement would likely be unproductive. Not everyone needs to share my world-view.

 

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quarklets

 

A common excuse you wheel out. In threads where criticism of your claims is on topic you ignore me, otherwise you demand we talk about something else. Always dodging challenges.

Firstly my ability or not to provide an answer has no bearing on the merits of yours. Such a line of argument is akin to theists jumping on atheists when atheists say "We don't know" in response to questions like "How did the universe get here". The fact a theist can give an answer and an atheist admits not having an answer does not make the theist right by default, their position stands or falls on its own merits. As such I do not need to provide an answer myself in order to point out your answer is utterly without any experimental validation or justified connection to reality.

Secondly it assumes that an answer can be given in terms of other things. It is much like the "Is the electron a particle or a wave?". It assumes that something utterly outside of our everyday experience can be accurately labelled using terms/concepts from our everyday experience. Electrons, photons etc could well be viewed as a third category; wave, particle and quantum. Those categories need not have mutually exclusive properties nor should they necessarily be explainable in terms of everyday things. As such perhaps the answer to 'what are quarks made of' is just 'quarkness' or 'quantumness', some kind of physical construct which has no everyday equivalent.

Sure, we can throw around things like 'energy' or 'stress' or 'space-time' etc (as you've done on various occasions) but such things are not entirely satisfactory since those are not materialistic entities. Energy is a label we give to a particular property of things, likewise stress, given their formal definitions in science they are not things in and off themselves but rather properties we assign to things. Space-time (as well as space or time) is pretty much in a class all on its own and whether or not it has properties similar to particles depends on things we currently have very little understanding of, namely aspects of quantum gravity. For example, string theory views space-time as an ensemble construct, the emergent seething structure of countless closed strings but we then can ask "What are the strings made of?" and we have the same problem we had before. If someone, such as yourself, is willing to accept "energy" or some other combination of buzzwords ("stress of space-time", whatever) as an answer to "What are quarks made of" then it doesn't really answer the question, as then we're left with "What is energy?". There is always a point where you have to just say "It is what it is", the lowest level of explanation. What are quarks made of? Energy? What is energy made of? X? What is X made of? Y? What is Y made of? Either it is an infinite sequence or there is some set of 'fundamental materials'. Perhaps quarks, electrons, photons, Zs, Ws, all fundamental particles etc are all built of their individual 'fundamental materials' and that is the bottom. Perhaps there is some singular 'material' from which everything is built, such as the material strings are made of (if string theory were true). Or perhaps it is an infinite nested sequence, always a lower level of construction. I don't know, no one does. What I do know is that anyone claiming to have an answer which is more than "They are what they are" ie the agnostic tautological viewpoint, which the mainstream currently takes since what quantum fields are is not asserted to be anything specific but rather a mathematical formalisation, is just making stuff up without justification. If someone, such as yourself, says "Quarks are made of ...." then the assertion is without any justification or substance unless that premise is part of a working model which is able to recover and is consistent with all experimental observations. If someone were to say "Electrons are trapped light" then they'd need to demonstrate such a premise is viable by providing a model which contains that property explicitly and is able to match all quantum electrodynamics phenomena. Given there is no alternative model currently in existence even remotely as physically applicable as the Standard Model anyone putting forth such claims is just pulling stuff out their backside. When they pull out a working model to go with those claims they are at least vaguely justified in that position.

I say all of that because I know you like to say things along the lines of (and this is not meant to literally quote you but be somewhat illustrative) "the barest essence of particles is the pressure-stress of space-time" (or some other buzzword filled pseudo-new age crap). If you have an answer for "What are quarks made of" which is anything other than an honest "I don't know" or a tautological "Quarkness" you're just throwing out random supposition.

Seeing as you brought up evidential standards and your view on things perhaps you would like to provide the specifics of how your work has any testable connection to evidence from experiments. You have put forth your views on quarks (among other things), I would like you to provide any rational justification that your view on things has experimental rationale, specifically can you demonstrate you have a viable model of quarks which is able to correctly align with experimental evidence. If your claims are to be anything more than "This is something random I just made up" then it is necessary for it to have some demonstrable connection to experimental data. Please show it. If you cannot please explain why your view should be entertained any more than "Quarks are made of fairy dust".

And I'm sure you've got not working understanding of those phenomena you mention, you have only a qualitative superficial understanding obtained by reading the simplified explanations of people much more competent at science than you. Feel free to show otherwise.

You often try to dismiss people's criticism of you by implying we're riled up or throwing ad homs at you. Lengthy posts by myself or others are not 'riled' but simply provided sufficient elaboration and explanation on what your various problems are. You'd do well to listen.

You seriously want to play that game with people? The "Look who fell flat on their face!" game?

A man who explains particle physics using a straw from a fast food restaurant has no place being condescending to others about how they won't understand some aspect of high dimensional algebraic topology.

Funny, I remember challenging you to a £100 (or was it £1000, I forget) bet when you were first pushing your Relativity+ waste of time. You claimed your work was worth multiple Nobel Prizes and that one day myself and BenTheMan would be teaching it. I offered to typeset your work so it met the submission requirements of a reputable journal we could decide on and if you got published you'd win and if you were rejected I'd win. Despite you spamming your work on every science forum you could find and being so praising of it you failed to take me up on the bet. Surely it was free money to you, given your confidence in your work?

Of course with hindsight it is fortunate you didn't take me up on the bet, you'd owe me money. But it sure was odd you didn't... almost like you didn't believe your own hype.

Please provide one, just one, physical phenomenon your work can accurately model, providing the quantitative derivation of it from the clearly stated initial postulates of your work.

Given you have been unable to answer this challenge for about 5 years now I think it is staggeringly hypocritical and laughable that you pull out the "There's got to be empirical evidence!" card. Your work have zero empirical evidence as you have zero quantitative model with zero derived results. The only results in your work are from you pointing at other people's work and saying "What he said".

So why do you not have any quantitative models derived from your work? Why are you functionally innumerate, unable to do even the most rudimentary of mathematical methods used within physics? Why is all of your work subjective and supposition based?

Judge for what? You're incapable of any quantitative debate/discussion as you're unable to do any necessary mathematics, while Rpenner has demonstrated multiple times working understanding of degree (and beyond) level material. The only discussion you are capable of is subjective arm waving and making assertions you are unable to back up with anything quantitative. And that isn't just my opinion, it has been the summary you've had about your work from every science forum you've posted it and the journals you've sent it to.

And before you try it, as if often your way, calling your work terrible and your actions hypocritical isn't an ad hom. I'm explaining with justification why your position is hypocritical and your work laughable, rather than saying "Of course your work is wrong, you said it", ie attacking the man as a means to dismiss your attempt at physics.

Sort of like how you should stop trying to look insightful and full of deep understanding by leaving cryptic little comments all over the place, people might think you're all show with nothing to say....

 

Great answer!

Our powers of observations down to more precise levels, and our ability to refine our experiments, may one day reveal further structure...who knows?

But as far as we know, yep Quarks can be seen as fundamental.

 

Quarks have been isolated in what is scientifically referred to as a quark-gluon plasma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark–gluon_plasma

That's quite an accomplishment in itself since the first quark-gluon plasma required a temperature in the 4 trillion Celsius range. The idea that the quark isn't fundamental is ludicrous in my estimation.

 

You're whacked undefined. You're the sockpuppet of somebody whose whacked to the same degree you're whacked.

 

What kind of a sockpuppet needs to stick up for his banned former non sockpuppet self? Hopefully somebody will realize your revealing mistake, + all the old familiar nonsense complaints you hold dear to your heart, and ban the sockpuppet of the banned member Reality Check. You should move on after you're banned this time. Really. Pick a subject you have the 'will' to understand. Go finish writing the book you claimed was going to upset the apple cart of modern science. Seems you had it on the verge of publication a couple of years ago. LOL.

 

I'll weigh in just to share in the conversation. I think quarks are "kinks" or localized disturbances in the Higgs field.

 

By definition, localized a disturbances of the Higgs field are Higgs bosons.

 

So which is it? New computer after your parents took the other one away? Paid the 'server bill' at the mental institution? Woke up from a coma? Warp Drive technician? LOL. I'm going with 'a localized disturbance' at the mental institution.

 

Apparently God doesn't think so. The alien posse doesn't seem to think so either.

 

Ha ha ha. Trying to focus on something other than physics. So much for free will.

 

Doh! I have this idea there is some kind of "floor", a single kind of "something", an aether maybe, a space-time continuum brane of some kind, that kicks out particle-anti-particles when there is enough energy density. Anyway, I've gotten rusty on the subject and won't be fighting vigorously for my point of view. Other than I do not approve of the way the laws of physics were designed.

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brucep:

You're trolling your personal baggage again, bruce. And don't you even read and understand the background facts before you make your drive-bys?

Please note that I merely corrected the mistaken identity situation which led rpenner to make comments based on that mistaken identity between two entirely different people on the net (one "Reality Check" with a "space"; the other "RealityCheck" with "no space"). That particular exhange between me and rpenner was settled, and no further comment necessary, when Tach (and now you, brucep) pop up with your personal malice and baggage attacks which ignores the reason for the mistaken identity correction of rpenner's comment.

Moreover, you also are obviously oblivious of the information that the admin here has allowed "Undefined" to continue posting because he brings no personal baggage or poison (like you and Tach keep doing, against site rules, even when you have no clue as to the context of an exchange which triggers your troll mode posts/attacks).

So my advice, brucep, is beware that you are not banned for doing all the trolling and site rules breaches, ok?



Mazulu and rpenner: I just read your exchange re higgs field etc, and would like to ask you whether its conceivable that the quark-gluon field perturbations could have their counterparts in the electron-photon perturbations of the electromagnetic field? Like the electron and photon is to the electromagnetic field what the quark and gluon is to the higgs field? Meaning that the higgs perturbations could come in TWO kinds (quark and gluon), one a particle and one a wave; just as the electromagnetic perturbations come in the two kinds (electron and photon), one a particle and one a wave? Just a passing thought, nothing more, for the purposes of exploration of Magical Realist's discussion topic possibilities.

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...someone who knows physics and doesn't troll.

....someone who knows no physics and trolls.

You seem to think (incorrectly) that the electron is a particle while the photon is a wave, both of them have a dual nature, both wave and particle.

 

One conceptual consideration is, science have only gone in the direction of atoms toward quarks. But we have not shown this in the reverse direction in the lab. We have not started with quarks and assembled these into an atom to show these are building blocks. One needs to be careful about two way assumptions on one way streets.

For example, I can take a piece of paper and add energy as fire. After thousands of experiments we can say the result is gases, soot and char. These will be the building blocks of paper, by the current standard, since it is not important that we can also reverse this using these same ingredients. If turns out that making paper actually starts with other ingredients.

The biggest variable left out is extreme gravitational pressure which was around when matter formed. We do collider experiments under low gravity and low pressure so are more than likely generating a different phase, which is not reversible. I would guess matter has a phase diagram, like all materials in nature, and we are only describing matter phases as a function of energy on a low gravity isobar.

 

What are quarks made of? What is more important is: what is space-time made of? If we knew, could we build a field generator that could separate a shuttle from space-time, effectively sidestepping the speed of light limitation. Could we use it to travel to other worlds?

 

Careful, Tach, don't let your personal baggage and ego make you miss the context again!

That 'dual nature' is CONTEXTUAL, and dependent on the measurement/interaction construct involved which detects particle OR wave characteristic of the feature under study/observation, but not both particle and wave characteristic simultaneously, remember?

And as Farsight and everyone keeps pointing out, and which you still seem not to 'get', all such features and perturbations are fundamentally all waves, and some merely have configurational/standing effects which localizes them more than others, so that a 'particle' characteristic emerges/detected, whereas others are clearly waves and are treated as 'particles' under certain limited conditions/constructs.

Maybe you should stop mouthing off about others for a while, Tach, and take time out to look to your own ignorant generalizations when trolling and baiting like that while missing the point of a post and its complete context?

In other words, you failed to note the corollary/comparison made in my comment to Mazulu and rpenner, regarding possible 'counterpart' perturbation modes/features in higgs field and in electromagnetic field. Hence your personal opinions about persons are neither here nor there. Thanks anyway for your response, Tach, however irrelevant, ignorant and incorrect it was in the context. Do better.