What exactly is "spin"?

Light is either a group of photons or a single photon, which do you mean?

Everything is energy, matter is energy in a different but analagous form.

I have an explanation of the model it’s called the standard model. It’s not twists and bends, it is just spin. Beyond that is purely philosophical atm. Ask Farsight it’s his “theory” but he goes beyond just light is energy and matter is equivalent. This we all understand and accept, we also except that the photon is the smallest quanta of energy that can exist as a whole “particle”. These are not revelations, these are what science agrees on atm.

Jakob: there are interpretational issues everywhere you look in physics. What tends to happen is that one particular interpretation becomes the consensus, and alternative interpretations are described as “wrong”. But it isn’t black and white, the consensus interpretation might not be wholly correct, and the “wrong” interpretation might not be wholly wrong. For example if you read about the standard model, you’ll be told that protons and neutrons are made of quarks. See for example springerlink.com/content/b121n578740ux17m/ and look at the free preview. Neutrinos muddy the water a little, but in essence, what you get, is light. Note that I’m not against the standard model. Instead I consider it to be incomplete, and burdened by some interpretational issues that have hampered its completion.

From the perspective of matter=light+mechanism, the quark seems to be part of the mechanism by which substance is kept together - by which light is trapped. It is not retrieved, only perceived, right? I mean it can’t be distilled, so to speak, from the nucleus, or can it? How can they even observe a quark, now that I really think about it?

Relativity is about to go out the window! …““There is a growing sense that the properties of the universe are best described not by the laws that govern matter but by the laws that govern information…”

“By exploiting the quantum energy fluctuations in entangled particles, physicists may be able to inject energy in one particle, and extract it in another particle located light-years away.” Re:: physorg.com/news184597481.html

How does one go about extracting energy from a particle light years away? Or does it only mean that this would in theory be possible because of entanglement?
What has changed in relation to what Anthem posted? Have there been successful expieriments?

entanglement and non-locality are a fact not a theory. Entanglement has worked for effecting the spin of a distant electrons and qubits are being sent and extracted -“Physicists have teleported quantum information between two atoms separated by a significant distance”…“Now researchers at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan have successfully teleported quantum information between two ytterbium ions separated by 1 m, reporting a 90% success rate”…RE: physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/37450

Quarks are observed by scattering experiments. There’s definitely three parts to a proton, see cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/41014. People talk about gluons keeping quarks together. Gluons are the QCD equivalent of the virtual photons in QED which are said to keep the electron and the proton together in a hydrogen atom. There’s a lot of people now talking about the evanescent wave as the physical thing underlying virtual photons, search google for details. The point is that the evanescent wave is light, light is essentially a wave of space in space, and at the subatomic level there isn’t really any substance. When you break a proton you don’t get three quarks flying out along with a host of gluons. See what I said earlier re pions and neutrinos, but in essence what you get is light.

God is great. Science is greater.

[list]spin
O.E. spinnan “draw out and twist fibers into thread,” from P.Gmc. *spenwanan (cf. O.N., O.Fris. spinna, Dan. spinde, Du. spinnen, O.H.G. spinnan, Ger. spinnen, Goth. spinnan), from PIE *(s)pen- “stretch” (cf. Armenian henum “I weave,” Gk. patos "garment, lit. “that which is spun,” Lith. pinu “I plait, braid,” spandau “I spin,” M.Welsh cy-ffiniden “spider;” see span (v.)). Sense of “to cause to turn rapidly” is from 1612; meaning “revolve, turn around rapidly” first recorded 1667. When Newton was 25!

It is a rotation, Jakob. The best way I can describe electron spin is rolling like a smoke ring and turning like a steering wheel.

If however you look at the Stern-Gerlach experiment on wiki, you can spot the non-sequitur:

"If this value arises as a result of the particles rotating the way a planet rotates, then the individual particles would have to be spinning impossibly fast. Even if the electron radius were as large as 14 nm (classical electron radius) then it would have to be rotating at 2.3×10^11 m/s. The speed of rotation would be in excess of the speed of light, 2.998×10^8 m/s, and is thus impossible. Thus, the spin angular momentum has nothing to do with rotation and is a purely quantum mechanical phenomenon. That is why it is sometimes known as the “intrinsic angular momentum.”

This is a trivial logical flaw. The electron isn’t rotating like a planet. But to then say that its angular momentum and magnetic moment is nothing to do with rotation just doesn’t follow.

I realize that word play has no place in science, however I was quoting this because I find it interesting that matter seems to be weaved from light with the mechanism of spin, of rotation. It just makes so much sense even within the symbolism we have already.

Doesn’t it?
Pretty cool stuff!
Kind of threw my mind back for a moment in simplicity the first time I comprehended it all in definition.

I still can’t thank Farsight enough for doing, in that single little book, what would have taken me most of my life to figure out a way to articulate, or even conclude.
I had a notion of the concept, but nothing quite like he introduced.
I’m keeping it for my kids, that’s for sure!

Thanks Stumps, but remember that it’s mainly a synthesis drawn from papers that people just don’t get to hear about. Like arxiv.org/abs/physics/0512265. Physics is far more cutthroat than the public appreciates, with groups and collaborations trying to crowd competing theories and portray their own theory as the only viable option. Jakob, I don’t like to “spam” it, so I don’t mention it too much, but this is it:


amazon.co.uk/RELATIVITY-Theo … 0956097804

People reading this thread should be aware that Farsight is a notorious board spammer. All one has to do is search for threads with his name and whatever physics topic he is talking about to see that he constantly dodges questions about the details of his “synthesis.” Most of what he writes is not physics: he has a pseudo-science book to sell. Be aware.

Ah, a string theorist, I presume? I have an urgent question for you: can you indicate where his model is improbable? I don’t expect a material being to explain the occurrence of matter in perfect detail, but if there is a fatal flaw in the explanation offered, I’d like to know before I buy into it with extreme prejudice. You will have to retroactively render the synthesis of this knowledge illegal. Even then, F’s contributions made it possible to conceive of a substance prior to matter. Matter is caused by a mechanism that amplifies radiation to an extent where it amounts to the four dimension of space-time. The fifth is the literal dimension - the proportion of the reproduction of the primordial structure. The sixth is structure itself (the beehive)At the level of the seventh dimension breaking down of harmony into lower, more specific forms of it, secific-ness. The eight dimension is reproduction of specific-ness, which is the basis for self reference. The ninth dimension is impossible to construct, it only exists as ultimate consequence of substance. I have it almost all figured out. I’d hate to be wrong about this.

lol.

I’m a mod here man.
And I have a private email contact chain casually running with Farsight.
I think we’re good.

No, just someone who actually took the time to learn the science that Farsight seems to not be able to follow. (Indeed, I have serious doubts about string theory.) If you want to buy his book, go ahead.

Well, there are two good places to start.

  1. Farsight claims that the properties of the electron arise because of some special spin from a photon. Despite numerous requests from many people, Farsight has refused to explain how a particle without charge can produce the properties of charge. He has similarly refused to explain how and why a photon would take on such a spin.

  2. Farsight claims that General Relativity does away with the need for dark matter. Since all cosmologists working on measuring dark matter with gravitational lensing use GR, it seems that Farsight’s claims are simply wrong on their face. Again despite repeated requests from many people, Farsight has refused to run through an example with any galaxy to demonstrate how GR shows that there is no dark matter in a galaxy.

These are two claims Farsight makes with his theory that disagree with hundreds of physics papers (if not tens of thousands) that he has refused to defend.

Farsight says that if a particle is disbanded, it results in light.
Is that true or not?

I don’t know of the dark matter debate, but I’m interested. How would general relativity do away with the need for it?

Ah, PhysBang. My very own personal troll. I’ve missed you.

I never refuse explanations PhysBang, you know that. See the post below for an explanation.

I’ve explained it in very simple terms. It’s actually trivial. It’s fully in line with Einstein’s GR, and you have no counter-argument. Your demand for a fully-worked mathematical is merely a diversionary smokescreen. I won’t give it because it would take me too long and readers won’t understand it anyway.

Most people have heard of Minkowski’s Space and Time paper from 1908. They’re aware that it constituted an important development for special relativity. However very few people notice a little paragraph two pages from the back:

“Then in the description of the field produced by the electron we see that the separation of the field into electric and magnetic force is a relative one with regard to the underlying time axis; the most perspicuous way of describing the two forces together is on a certain analogy with the wrench in mechanics, though the analogy is not complete”.

A wrench turns a bolt which has a screw thread. You turn a screw and it moves forward. Or you can use a pump-action screwdriver to convert linear motion into rotational motion. This is why alternators and generators and electric motors work, and you can find a reference to a screw mechanism in Maxwell’s On Physical Lines of Force. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:On_Ph … _Force.pdf and note this line on the wikipedia page 53:

"A motion of translation along an axis cannot produce a rotation about that axis unless it meets with some special mechanism, like that of a screw "

Look at the page heading and see where it says The Theory of Molecular Vortices. Maxwell didn’t get this right, but it turns out he wasn’t far off. Once you understand the dualism of the electromagnetic field, it’s horribly simple: it’s a “twist/turn” field with an underlying curved spatial geometry.

Think about a vertical column of electrons and try to envisage the surrounding electromagnetic field. If you are motionless with respect to this, you’ll see the electric aspect of the field, with radial “electric field” lines and linear motion along them. If however you move downwards past the column of electrons, you’ll see the magnetic aspect of the field, with orbital “magnetic field” lines and rotational motion around them. Your downward motion is relative, so the magnetic aspect is visible if you are motionless and the electrons are moving upwards, as per a current in a wire and the right-hand-rule:

Note that it’s one field, it’s the electromagnetic field, not separate electric fields and magnetic fields. Jefimenko’s equations are a useful reminder in this respect. The electromagnetic field is a dual entity, there’s only one field there. Moving through an electric field doesn’t cause a magnetic field to be generated, because as Minkowski said, it’s the electromagnetic field, and it exerts force in two ways. It doesn’t actually look like anything, but iron filings on a piece of paper tells you that you can visualize a field. Note though that the iron filings only show you a slice through a “magnetic” field, and you need to see the electromagnetic twist/turn field in three dimensions. You can use a drill bit for this, but a reamer is better. This kind of thing:

Grasp a reamer in your right fist, place your left thumb on the bottom of it, and push upwards. It turns. The disposition of the electromagnetic field around a column of electrons is like a reamer. It has an innate twist, and motion through it causes turn. If you imagine a nested family of reamers all centred on the same vertical line, you can get an idea of how the field strength diminishes with distance. Then when you imagine a horizontal slice through the field, it would have a spatial twist like this:

This twist is however in three dimensions, which is why Minkowski said the analogy is not complete. Take a piece of wire and bend it to form a Fibonacci spiral. It is now curved, and resembles one of the lines in the picture above. Now lie the wire flat on your desk and bend in another Fibonacci spiral orthogonal to the first. Your wire is now “curled”. Hence magnetic curl. In Europe this is called rot, which is short for “rotor”. It’s caused by a frame-dragging effect by a central soliton or more properly “vorton” rotating in two dimensions, like this:

This is a depiction of the electron. It’'s a self-trapped photon. See arxiv.org/abs/physics/0512265 . Note the black line in the depiction, indicating a double-rotation, hence spin ½ . Again we see twist and turn. The electron is often called an elementary or fundamental particle, but it isn’t. You can create an electron via pair production:

It’s like throwing a wave at an obstruction and seeing two opposite eddies coming out. These affect the surrounding space - something like a rotating electric floor polisher on a thin rubber sheet, but in three dimensions. The result is an electromagnetic field. Conservation of charge is rather like conservation of angular momentum - if you were up in space in a spacesuit and you manhandled a satellite to give it a rotation, you’d find yourself counter-rotating.

The reason why the photon self-traps at 511keV is straighforward. An electromagnetic field is a twist/turn field, and it is a spatial geometry. A light wave is an electromagnetic field variation, which is actually a pulse of “twist/turn”. It’s best to think in terms of a pulse of spacewarp in a cubic lattice. Imagine a lemon-shaped extensional distortion of the lattice in the centre - a bulge like a swell wave on the ocean surface, but symmetrical top and bottom because this is in a bulk. The archetypal sinusoidal electromagnetic wave is telling you the slope of the horizontal lattice lines. Around a lemon-like shape, the slope rises to a maximum a quarter-way along the lemon, goes back to zero at the top of the lemon, then falls to a negative maximum three-quarters along, then goes to zero again. If this pulse of spacewarp encounters another pulse of spacewarp, it’s moving through warped space, and so its path changes. If this causes it to encounter more spacewarp, its path will change further. That black line in the depiction above is telling you that here we have spacewarp that is travelling entirely through itself. At 511keV, where the degree of spacewarp is just right. The path keeps changing, and as a result the photon energy/momentum is now travelling in a circular path. Hence angular momentum and magnetic dipole moment with a g-factor of 2.0023.

But we don’t call it a photon any more. We call it an electron.