Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Do they have a composite structure? Are they made of pure indivisible energy? Wouldn't that mean that everything's ultimately made of pure indivisible energy? Has science ever detected a quark by itself?
What are quarks made of?
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
Current theory has quarks and electrons as fundamental (along with several other particles).
Light. Check out low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation to gamma photons.
No. They are the components of a composite structure. Think of them as the loops of a knot. Or the crossing points. See the red green and blue in the yellow hadron in your image? Take a look at this. Now start from the bottom left and trace around it clockwise. Call out the crossing-over directions. Up down up. Ring any bells?
No. You can split a photon in pair production. A photon is almost pure energy, but you can split it. And pair production is just the flip side of annihilation.
Nearly.Magical Realist said:
No. And now you know why.Magical Realist said:
Quarks seem to be fundamental, indivisible particles - that is to say it is not known if a quark can exist independently, we only detect them when "smashing/colliding" particles.
Until we are ever able to isolate and "smash/collide" quarks, we will never know if it has a "composite structure".
What may I ask, though, is "pure indivisible energy"?
Until we are ever able to isolate and "smash/collide" quarks, we will never know if it has a "composite structure".
What may I ask, though, is "pure indivisible energy"?
Here's a link to the SCIAM article.
The Inner Life of Quarks.
http://share.auditory.ru/2007/Tatyana.Polyakova/English/11- Scientific American November 2012.pdf
No and yes
Magic,
No.
Current orthodoxy holds quarks to be indivisible. Matter is made up of the three quarks inside of baryons (protons and neutrons), leptons (electrons, neutrinos, and positrons), gluons (quark "light"), mesons (nuclear "light"), photons (light and magnetic force carriers), and gravitons (this's force carriers). Mesons are made up of two quarks. All particles are then variations of these. Prions have been proposed to be more primitive particles although I'm not sure of their properties. I suppose they are required to connect quarks with leptons and force carriers. Decades ago, Chinese physicists proposed "stratons" as matter's bottom level. "Loops" and "strings" are the current candidates for fundamental particles and these must be related to "space-time's" components.
Yes.
I think quarks are composed of quarklets because experiments have shown electrons to be composed of two sub-particles. From this, I think quarks may be divided into three "sub-quarks" and then those into two quarklets each. In other words, I think quarks are composed of sub-quarks which are equivalent to electrons...
Magic,
No.
Current orthodoxy holds quarks to be indivisible. Matter is made up of the three quarks inside of baryons (protons and neutrons), leptons (electrons, neutrinos, and positrons), gluons (quark "light"), mesons (nuclear "light"), photons (light and magnetic force carriers), and gravitons (this's force carriers). Mesons are made up of two quarks. All particles are then variations of these. Prions have been proposed to be more primitive particles although I'm not sure of their properties. I suppose they are required to connect quarks with leptons and force carriers. Decades ago, Chinese physicists proposed "stratons" as matter's bottom level. "Loops" and "strings" are the current candidates for fundamental particles and these must be related to "space-time's" components.
Yes.
I think quarks are composed of quarklets because experiments have shown electrons to be composed of two sub-particles. From this, I think quarks may be divided into three "sub-quarks" and then those into two quarklets each. In other words, I think quarks are composed of sub-quarks which are equivalent to electrons...
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Oh really? Mind to cite this experiment that no one has ever heard of?
We had a discussion on quarks their explanation was quiet different , there were no quarklets , Quark was a fundamental particle , there was argument of quarks heavier the protons , that is ok bring more snow .
This does not necessarily prove they are made of light, only that they are capable of being converted into other particles and that they have anti-particle versions. The fact the Standard Model does not view them as made of light and yet can accurately predict all of their as yet observed behaviours illustrates that there exist viable interpretations of the data in contradiction to your claim, including said annihilations. As such your assertion is unjustified, as id your attempt to use said annihilations as sufficient justification for the assertion.
If we collide particles with their anti-particles at low energies then we typically get photons. However, sufficiently high collisions leads to Z particle production. And by that I don't mean the $$q+\bar{q} \to \gamma + \gamma \to \textrm{stuff}$$ which is the mechanism by which quark jets are formed by electron/positron collisions (ie they need an intermediate set of particles), I mean that the particles produced are Zs and not photons. This is because Z particles have all the same properties as photons other than having mass, namely all their quantum numbers are the same.
By your logic can we conclude electrons, positrons, quarks etc contain Z particles too? If not and somehow the energy of the collision allows for a modification of what comes out then you have the added problem of the fact Zs do not interact directly with photons, necessitating another intermediate state in the annihilation process. All of these would require quite explicit modelling in order to determine whether or not such a notion is consistent with all observed data, much as models for Zs, Ws, the heavier quarks, the Higgs and proposed GUT particles all must crunch through the implications of the processes they allow or disallow to see what the precise impact on most easily observed decay products would be.
Given that no model which views the electron or quarks as bound states of photons has yet been able to come even remotely close to correctly modelling all of the relevant particle physics data it would be remiss of you to present what are as yet very under developed and experimentally unjustified assertions as if they are justified. And given that is precisely how you've failed to qualify your assertion you're not exactly being open and honest.
No, that is your interpretation of things, based on extremely under developed tentative ideas developed by others which you have decided to incorporate into your claims in a qualitative way.
This superficial description of yours is without quantitative basis within your own 'work' and the few papers putting forth this idea a number of years ago were not considered particularly note worthy by the community, nor do they provide significant link to experimental data. Given I repeatedly ask you to provide a single physical phenomenon your work can quantitative model in line with experimental data and you fail to answer that question each and every time I ask it I also conclude you haven't developed any quantitative specifics yourself either. Hence this assertion of yours is baseless.
As already stated, given that the Standard Model does not view things as you describe, ie you're putting forth your own views, it is dishonest of you to state such things without a qualifier such as "In my opinion..." or "In my attempt to understand particle physics....". I generally qualify my responses with "According to the Standard Model...." or "In general relativity...", which is making it clear what is being said is through the lens of a particular model, not undeniable fact known directly from experiment.
According to the Standard Model it is because the binding strength between quarks is sufficiently strong that to pull quarks enough distance apart from one another that they could be considered 'isolated' provides the system with enough energy to manifest more quarks, thus once again combining them into bound states. Alternative ideas are in existence but as yet none of them have been able to actually model such particle dynamics in a way consistent with experiment to the massive extent achieved by the Standard Model.
Notice how I'm not saying the SM is true and quarks are necessarily fundamental. Instead I'm saying that according to the only model thus far developed capable of actually modelling the dynamics of the systems in question they are viewed as fundamental.
Farsight, in future you are to qualify any posts or claims or assertions which come from your pet theory with "In my opinion..." or something of that form. You should make it clear when you are giving everyone your own 2 cents on a subject and when you're simply passing on the current mainstream view. Given your ignorance of the current mainstream view in many domains of science I'd suggest you be very precise in what you say. If you cannot abide by this and continue to present your own pseudo-scientific fringe theory.... no, it's not even a theory, it's qualitative arm waving, without making it clear you're not talking about the current mainstream view then you'll be given a warning or holiday, depending on the severity.
If the thread starter wishes to here Farsight's about quarks then I suggest they both go to the fringe section of the forum and have a discussion there. I would point out to the thread starter that Farsight has no working understanding of any domain of physics to even undergraduate level, he has no hands on experience with experimental data, he has no working model of any physical phenomenon and yet he has repeatedly declared himself a world expert in a number of domains and that his work is worthy of multiple Nobel Prizes. If that's someone whose thoughts you'd like to hear about things he has no experience or understanding of, knock yourself out. Farsight has been given plenty of opportunities to provide justification for his claims, all of which he has failed to do. As such his work is taken to be pseudo-scientific qualitative arm waving and has no place within this section of the forum. Farsight, when you can provide sound quantitative modelling connecting your claims to reality and can answer relevant direct questions about your work then you can post it in this forum. I could be really strict and say not until you have it published in a reputable peer reviewed journal but I'm a generous guy.
You're being too antsi, Alphanumeric. Sure I could have qualified my answer, or said energy or wavefunction rather than just light, but I'm not some "my theory" guy. The trefoil thing comes from topological quantum field theory. One of the contributors to this was Ed Witten. It isn't pseudoscience.
See this article to get the gist of it: "When the protons met, the immense energy that had been stored up in their motion was suddenly released in the form of quarks, photons, electrons, gluons, muons, pions, kaons, and other particles that materialized like tornadoes churned out by a furious weather system." And don't forget that the vector bosons have very short lifetimes. You can't treat them as the lowest common denominator.
See this article to get the gist of it: "When the protons met, the immense energy that had been stored up in their motion was suddenly released in the form of quarks, photons, electrons, gluons, muons, pions, kaons, and other particles that materialized like tornadoes churned out by a furious weather system." And don't forget that the vector bosons have very short lifetimes. You can't treat them as the lowest common denominator.
But you don't know the first thing about topological quantum field theory! I thought* you'd even admitted this much! Farsight, if you want people to take you seriously you'll have to drop the all talk and no trousers routine.
*I can't seem to search my old posts -- but I distinctly remember my continued requests for you to elaborate on your knowledge of topological quantum field theory were met with evasion and flat out refusal. As a matter of courtesy, I will give you another opportunity to elaborate on your knowledge of this subject. I will happily make a thread for you to do so.
electron quarklets
I read about an electron-versus-electron collider experiment in which they were smashed together and the report from this was that electrons seemed to have two sub-particles. The article was in an encyclopedia, Americana or Britainica. But I also read that a neutron splits an electron into a sub-charge upon the surface of its proton and at its center. The proton is "sandwiched" between the electron...
I would call the electron sub-charges "quarklets".
I read about an electron-versus-electron collider experiment in which they were smashed together and the report from this was that electrons seemed to have two sub-particles. The article was in an encyclopedia, Americana or Britainica. But I also read that a neutron splits an electron into a sub-charge upon the surface of its proton and at its center. The proton is "sandwiched" between the electron...
I would call the electron sub-charges "quarklets".
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Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Here is a chart of all the elementary particles discovered to date, which include six quarks, six leptons and five bosons. It lists their attributes: mass, charge and spin.
Yes, I too am waiting on the edge of my seat to learn whether the total number of kinds of elementary particles will truly turn out to be 17, a prime number. Until recently it was 16, a nice comfortable power of 2.
I don't think that's right, quarklet. You can find articles referring to the separation of electron spin and charge, but this is done via quasi-particles. See this. I'd say it's more like "stretching out the electron wavefunction" rather than actually separating it into sub-particles. Like the photon, it isn't made of sub-particles.
Guest: I certainly don't know TQFT inside out, but I know of it, and that's enough for you to know that I'm not just making this stuff up. See Woit's blog where he said this: "If I had to point to a paper that truly looks like 21st century work that fell by accident into the 20th century, this would be it." I don't evade or refuse, that's not me.
Guest: I certainly don't know TQFT inside out, but I know of it, and that's enough for you to know that I'm not just making this stuff up. See Woit's blog where he said this: "If I had to point to a paper that truly looks like 21st century work that fell by accident into the 20th century, this would be it." I don't evade or refuse, that's not me.
Guest254 may be thinking of [thread=134839]"Please explain the 'tubes' that connect the quarks"[/thread] where Farsight wrote:
Or perhaps you were thinking of [thread=106395]"Topological solitons of ellipsoid field - our particle menagerie correspondence?"[/thread] where Farsight ignored you after you asked
Or this thread from 2010: [thread=101783]"(Alpha) Unification of gravity, gauge fields, and Higgs bosons"[/thread] where Farsight describes his mathematical education and coping skills. (Page two of the thread is somewhat disjointed following the deletion of posts by user "Serapheous".)
I looked elsewhere and it looks like Farsight has the modus operandi of never admitting he has the first idea about advanced mathematical topics but consistently leaving that impression. I looked elsewhere for an admission, found none, but even Reality Check makes fun of Farsight's essential inability to back up his mathematical pronouncements. http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=169567&page=30
and linked to Roger Picken's page at the Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon). Farsight then spends the rest of the time evading the basic question:
How do you know that these things are not all complete gibberish? I only say this because I've seen you mention TQFT several times before, and I really struggle to see how you can take any meaning from a theory of mathematical physics whose complexity makes most professional mathematicians wince!
If you know an easy way, please let me know.
Or perhaps you were thinking of [thread=106395]"Topological solitons of ellipsoid field - our particle menagerie correspondence?"[/thread] where Farsight ignored you after you asked
Hi Farsight.
I think I've seen you mention topological quantum field theory before, and it's something I'd like to know more about. I've tried a couple of times to understand TQFT, but sadly with little success! I'd genuinely like to know how you went about it, and which sources you've used. I have a PhD in maths, but all the notes and books I've looked at made even me gulp!
Even better, would be if we could make a thread on it.
Or this thread from 2010: [thread=101783]"(Alpha) Unification of gravity, gauge fields, and Higgs bosons"[/thread] where Farsight describes his mathematical education and coping skills. (Page two of the thread is somewhat disjointed following the deletion of posts by user "Serapheous".)
I looked elsewhere and it looks like Farsight has the modus operandi of never admitting he has the first idea about advanced mathematical topics but consistently leaving that impression. I looked elsewhere for an admission, found none, but even Reality Check makes fun of Farsight's essential inability to back up his mathematical pronouncements. http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=169567&page=30
That's the thread where you wrote: "So in summary, a quantum bound state is a little like a high-dimensional knot of quantum field configurations".
This has to be short, as I am on a cell phone waiting two hours to see a doctor, but I believe that post #5 of that thread is a reasonable (if understandably mathless) explanation to a layperson what a standard model description of any bound system was in contrast to the Dirac description of a free (uncoupled) electron. "Knot" here is a perfectly cromulent word, free from any extra significance you might choose to add. Not everything is about your delusions of competence or your mathy buzzword-of-the-day.
If you feel my description of the bound systems of standard model Lagrangian in contrast to the plane wave solutions of the Dirac or Maxwell equations is so fundamentally misguided, then I strongly urge you to formulate that as a challenge in Formal Debates. If you like, I invite you to choose any Moderator or Admin as judge for any moderator-inflicted penalty you select. Or we may have a monetary wager of up to 1000 pounds (or Euros if that is the preferred currency in Poole) with AlphaNumeric or Guest254 holding the cash and a judge decided by some mutually agreed method. If you can find a judge who is employed as a English-speaking non-emeritus lecturer or better in the physics or math departments of a four-year university or better and that person has more than 5 peer reviewed articles published on quantum field theories since 2000, then I not only agree to that person as judge but offer the lesser of $599 USD or the amount of the monetary wager to pay such a person for their service. Please, there is no need to respond in haste. I give you up to two weeks to accept or make a counteroffer. (Provided I survive.)
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"Fundamental" means that quarks are made of quarks.