(Alpha) The electron is not a pointlike particle?

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Green Destiny

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http://www.electronspin.org/2.htm

According to this link ''we no longer view the electron as a pointlike particle.''

If this is true, then it's pretty momentous. I thought it was generally considered among scientists as a state of fact that the electron was treated as a pointlike particle, but then in the back of some of our minds, we have often thought this need to be nonesense, for how can something with no structure even exist?

Any physicists here like to back the claim of the article? When did the electron, if this is the case, have this sudden transformation in the textbook?
 
That's a crank site and the "we" is the author talking about himself.

Electrons ARE modeled as points in QED and the Standard Model, which is good enough for all experimental work. In contrast, the crank site doesn't do any confrontation with the experimental record.

Electrons are considered as non-point-like in String Theory, but the web site you cite doesn't do any String Theory calculations and cannot justify the description on the website.
 
Why is infinite density not allowed in a physical model? Where is there a density term in a Lagrangian of particle physics?
 
prometheus said:
The uncertainty principle is the answer.
Click to expand...

That only presents a problem if you want to know exactly where a point particle is located. The way that spatial extent of the particle itself (rather than its wavefunction) is investigated is by looking for internal structure. And to date, nobody has turned up any experimental evidence for an internal structure of the electron.
 
I suggest that describing an electron as a point particle (in a mathematical sense) overlooks the fact that electrons exhibit wave properties.
 
I liked the diagram, but the answer and interpretation is slightly flawed, but nice try.

Dirac co-ordinates, please.

Light in, Light out.
 
For large N ensembles (the classical, Maxwellian domain and electronics) of electrons, the 'particles' are smeared out into a state referred to as an electric fluid.

Today we have single-electron devices in which the transfer of charge across a potential barrier is exactly like the transfer of a drop of fluid. The drop forms and 'falls' under a voltage potential, just like a drop of water does under gravitational potential.
 
mathman said:
I suggest that describing an electron as a point particle (in a mathematical sense) overlooks the fact that electrons exhibit wave properties.
Click to expand...

They aren't described as classical point particles, they are quantum mechanical point particles. In which case their wave properties are described just fine.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
How can something with non-zero mass have zero length, width and height? Would that not result in infinite density?
Click to expand...

How can something with zero-size have a place in a world where dimensions exist? Fundamentally the world then, is nothing. It's a world of zero dimensionality. Does it make sense? I'm not sure.

Rpenner

Thank you for the clarification.
 
Green Destiny said:
How can something with zero-size have a place in a world where dimensions exist? Fundamentally the world then, is nothing.
Click to expand...
Why should the dimensionality of space-time have any constraint on the dimensionality of objects in the space-time.

We think of objects as 3 dimensional but only because we view arrangements of particles in everyday life. You can define a 3 dimensional cube with 8 points, its corners. Electromagnetic forces then fill in the gaps to make objects feel 'solid' and while the dimensionality of space affects the dynamics of the electromagnetic force it doesn't constrain the dimensionality of the objects who have electromagnetic charge. String theory has objects of every dimensionality, though strictly you could say they are all ensembles of strings at a strong coupled limit but that's a technical point in itself.
 
kurros said:
They aren't described as classical point particles, they are quantum mechanical point particles. In which case their wave properties are described just fine.
Click to expand...
I don't know who "they" refer to. However, the question was posed by someone concerned about infinite density, which sounds like a question about a mathematical point.
 
Link is pseudoscience. Thread closed.

Or I can open it and move it to pseudoscience.

PM me if you want it moved.
 
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