Over-complication of science
Discussion
It is impossible for a TV program to make particle physics or Cosmology 'over-complicated, it is fiendishly so, TV can only cause misunderstanding.
The misunderstanding carries right across to the net.
I'll give you an example, I'm away almost all of tomorrow, so I'll pose this question, it is not a trick question, it is a simple one, you can go to the net to 'be sure' of your answer, but answer this clearly:-
How many Quarks are there in a Proton?
That's it, simple question, no slight of hand or word-play, just 1 proton, how many Quarks?
I'll give you the answer later tomorrow, almost all of you will be wrong, quite possibly all... we'll see.
The misunderstanding carries right across to the net.
I'll give you an example, I'm away almost all of tomorrow, so I'll pose this question, it is not a trick question, it is a simple one, you can go to the net to 'be sure' of your answer, but answer this clearly:-
How many Quarks are there in a Proton?
That's it, simple question, no slight of hand or word-play, just 1 proton, how many Quarks?
I'll give you the answer later tomorrow, almost all of you will be wrong, quite possibly all... we'll see.
TheHeretic said:
Is this the 'there is only one quark and it whizzes about very fast so it is everywhere at once' type answer, like the photon one?
I'm not going to search the net for an answer, but this is what I would have said, either this, or only part of a quark, if that makes sense.It's quantum numbers and behavior match three quarks - uud. As far as I'm aware that doesn't mean it's 'made of three quarks', which is the standard answer. All that means is that it has two more up quarks than up antiquarks and one more down quark than down antiquarks. I'm pretty ignorant of particle physics though.
oh and some other thoughts on what has been said in this thread as I realise I have not really responded to it all...
When I was younger I did read up on that science malarkey a lot more than now. Though I haven't seen him in a while did have a friend who landed himself at CERN eventually and used to have some fairly deep discussions back at uni about this sort of stuff.
Hopefully they are not reading this, but now I do work in an office with a load of fairly uneducated idiots. It does not stimulate the brain cells. I suppose I also do not read such media to give me a good insight into what is actually happening, rather than just the reactionary and exaggerating kind. Is New Scientist still the most common source these days?
Yes I am very suspicious of anything I hear for the first time. I prefer to only agree with something once I have fully understood everything behind it
When I was younger I did read up on that science malarkey a lot more than now. Though I haven't seen him in a while did have a friend who landed himself at CERN eventually and used to have some fairly deep discussions back at uni about this sort of stuff.
Hopefully they are not reading this, but now I do work in an office with a load of fairly uneducated idiots. It does not stimulate the brain cells. I suppose I also do not read such media to give me a good insight into what is actually happening, rather than just the reactionary and exaggerating kind. Is New Scientist still the most common source these days?
Yes I am very suspicious of anything I hear for the first time. I prefer to only agree with something once I have fully understood everything behind it
Efbe said:
oh and some other thoughts on what has been said in this thread as I realise I have not really responded to it all...
When I was younger I did read up on that science malarkey a lot more than now. Though I haven't seen him in a while did have a friend who landed himself at CERN eventually and used to have some fairly deep discussions back at uni about this sort of stuff.
Hopefully they are not reading this, but now I do work in an office with a load of fairly uneducated idiots. It does not stimulate the brain cells. I suppose I also do not read such media to give me a good insight into what is actually happening, rather than just the reactionary and exaggerating kind. Is New Scientist still the most common source these days?
Yes I am very suspicious of anything I hear for the first time. I prefer to only agree with something once I have fully understood everything behind it
New Scientist and Scientific American have both gone downhill a bit. Still normally worth a read though.When I was younger I did read up on that science malarkey a lot more than now. Though I haven't seen him in a while did have a friend who landed himself at CERN eventually and used to have some fairly deep discussions back at uni about this sort of stuff.
Hopefully they are not reading this, but now I do work in an office with a load of fairly uneducated idiots. It does not stimulate the brain cells. I suppose I also do not read such media to give me a good insight into what is actually happening, rather than just the reactionary and exaggerating kind. Is New Scientist still the most common source these days?
Yes I am very suspicious of anything I hear for the first time. I prefer to only agree with something once I have fully understood everything behind it
Meetings cancelled until this afternoon!
So, you don't have to wait any longer.
The answer to my question is that there are none.
Not a single one in any proton... anywhere in this Cosmos.
If I attached a 'Quark Detector' to my mythical Spaceship and travelled everywhere in the Cosmos, through stars, through black holes, everywhere... and it would show zero, not a flicker.
A little realised fact is that there hadn't been a single quark in this Cosmos for more than 13.5 billion years until 1968!
It wasn't that we hadn't detected them, they simply did not exist.
Mankind produced them and the only quarks in this Cosmos are those made by us (of course if I'd come across an intelligent life-form or two in my travels they too may be producing them)
This is the truth, all those pages dedicated to what a proton is made of are all wrong... or rather tell you a less than half-truth and many get it wrong completely.
It's worse than that though, everything produced inside an accelerator is entirely man-made and don't exist in the Cosmos any longer, they did more than 13.5 billion years ago, but not today.
So, you don't have to wait any longer.
The answer to my question is that there are none.
Not a single one in any proton... anywhere in this Cosmos.
If I attached a 'Quark Detector' to my mythical Spaceship and travelled everywhere in the Cosmos, through stars, through black holes, everywhere... and it would show zero, not a flicker.
A little realised fact is that there hadn't been a single quark in this Cosmos for more than 13.5 billion years until 1968!
It wasn't that we hadn't detected them, they simply did not exist.
Mankind produced them and the only quarks in this Cosmos are those made by us (of course if I'd come across an intelligent life-form or two in my travels they too may be producing them)
This is the truth, all those pages dedicated to what a proton is made of are all wrong... or rather tell you a less than half-truth and many get it wrong completely.
It's worse than that though, everything produced inside an accelerator is entirely man-made and don't exist in the Cosmos any longer, they did more than 13.5 billion years ago, but not today.
Edited by Gene Vincent on Wednesday 29th August 10:43
I believe you were the chap that claimed that particle/anti-particle annihilation and produced 2 photons... so your position now is intriguing to me... if you hold to the idea in principle then surely you hold to the quarks being annihilated to form a proton?
Anyway, I pointed out that things are never annihilated, they undergo transfiguration, this happened to the quarks in the early Cosmos, 3 of them changed into a proton and just as if you apply enough energy and provide the conditions necessary, the transfiguration can be reversed.
But a proton is a proton, it is not 3 quarks, just as much as 2 pairs of photons are not particle/anti-particle.
It is handy you in particular might debate this point as hopefully i have killed two birds with one stone.
The entire absence of annihilation and the fallacy of constituent existence in particles.
Anyway, I pointed out that things are never annihilated, they undergo transfiguration, this happened to the quarks in the early Cosmos, 3 of them changed into a proton and just as if you apply enough energy and provide the conditions necessary, the transfiguration can be reversed.
But a proton is a proton, it is not 3 quarks, just as much as 2 pairs of photons are not particle/anti-particle.
It is handy you in particular might debate this point as hopefully i have killed two birds with one stone.
The entire absence of annihilation and the fallacy of constituent existence in particles.
To a certain extent, a proton is just a name for a structure which acts like two up quarks and a down. Someone with a sufficiently powerful accelerator can do a scattering experiment and observe three distinct deflection points - there are three quarks there for all intents and purposes.
Electron-positron annihilation is different. You can't probe the resulting photons and find an electron like thing stashed away in there. The photons don't have some internal structure which appears to be an electron and positron stuck together.
Electron-positron annihilation is different. You can't probe the resulting photons and find an electron like thing stashed away in there. The photons don't have some internal structure which appears to be an electron and positron stuck together.
hairykrishna said:
To a certain extent, a proton is just a name for a structure which acts like two up quarks and a down. Someone with a sufficiently powerful accelerator can do a scattering experiment and observe three distinct deflection points - there are three quarks there for all intents and purposes.
Electron-positron annihilation is different. You can't probe the resulting photons and find an electron like thing stashed away in there. The photons don't have some internal structure which appears to be an electron and positron stuck together.
How else could it behave, it has inherited properties given by what was transfigured.Electron-positron annihilation is different. You can't probe the resulting photons and find an electron like thing stashed away in there. The photons don't have some internal structure which appears to be an electron and positron stuck together.
To produce the quarks you have to re-create the conditions in the early universe, they cannot sustain themselves in this Cosmos.
Remove annihilation from your mind and think transfiguration instead.
There are three quarks only for the intent of the pursuance of understanding the early Cosmos, they are not there in any other circumstances.
The photon does have part of the attributes of both the electron and positron.
That is why transfiguration is so powerful a tool to understanding, whereas annihilation is both wrong and in essence valueless.
hairykrishna said:
I give up. Think of it however you like.
It's not a case of me thinking however I like or want, the plain fact is that unless we make them come into existence, there are no quarks in this Cosmos.Just as in a very very hot Cosmos, there would be no protons!
As was the case just after the BB, not a damned proton anywhere!
You may turn your nose up in disgust or incredulity, but the Cosmos doesn't give two hoots, it is this way, whether choose to accept or not.
hairykrishna said:
Gene Vincent said:
It's not a case of me thinking however I like or want, the plain fact is that unless we make them come into existence, there are no quarks in this Cosmos.
You better let the Nobel committee know. They'll probably want Friedman, Kendall, and Taylors prizes back.Their work was brilliant, but they would be the first to tell you exactly what I'm telling you now.
If you want to view a quark, then you have to collide a couple of protons in an accelerator, but short of that, there ain't none to be seen.
The three eminent Physicists didn't get a Nobel for telling the World look, 'there's billions of quarks here>>>>' they got it for conjuring conditions and interpreting the results to show that 13.5 billion years ago, there were lots of quarks and we think they made the model work this way, just as the Theoreticians told us 20 years ago!
(I added the bit at the end!)
Gene Vincent said:
I have to hand it to you, you are a tenacious Luddite.
Their work was brilliant, but they would be the first to tell you exactly what I'm telling you now.
If you want to view a quark, then you have to collide a couple of protons in an accelerator, but short of that, there ain't none to be seen.
The three eminent Physicists didn't get a Nobel for telling the World look, 'there's billions of quarks here>>>>' they got it for conjuring conditions and interpreting the results to show that 13.5 billion years ago, there were lots of quarks and we think they made the model work this way, just as the Theoreticians told us 20 years ago!
(I added the bit at the end!)
They weren't colliding a couple of protons, at least not for their Nobel prize work. They were scattering high energy electrons from protons and bound neutrons. Their results showed that the charge was not uniform over the volume of the proton but concentrated in three points - the quarks. Their work was brilliant, but they would be the first to tell you exactly what I'm telling you now.
If you want to view a quark, then you have to collide a couple of protons in an accelerator, but short of that, there ain't none to be seen.
The three eminent Physicists didn't get a Nobel for telling the World look, 'there's billions of quarks here>>>>' they got it for conjuring conditions and interpreting the results to show that 13.5 billion years ago, there were lots of quarks and we think they made the model work this way, just as the Theoreticians told us 20 years ago!
(I added the bit at the end!)
When protons and neutrons are bound in a nucleus do they stop being protons and neutrons?
hairykrishna said:
They weren't colliding a couple of protons, at least not for their Nobel prize work. They were scattering high energy electrons from protons and bound neutrons. Their results showed that the charge was not uniform over the volume of the proton but concentrated in three points - the quarks.
When protons and neutrons are bound in a nucleus do they stop being protons and neutrons?
The clue might be the word 'nucleus'... but whatever.When protons and neutrons are bound in a nucleus do they stop being protons and neutrons?
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