chap.3 

The inconsistencies of the particle physics theory

Beginning with the hypothesis held by the Greek philosopher describing a matter constituted by indivisible particles, the effort to understand the makeup of its inner substance evolved through the years in today science of particle physics.

 Every atom of each element was classified and found its place in Mendeleev's periodic tables according to the munber of its electrons and protons its atomic weight and periodic physical properties. To the list of the 92 natural elements discovered a number of atoms created in laboratories were added, all of them possessing radioactive properties and a relatively short half-life span. With the advent of the cloud chamber and the particle accelerator scientists were able to reach into the atom inner nucleus itself. The atomic nucleus was found to be constituted by other particles, each possessing a particular value in the type of charge, energy, mass and in the length of their life span. By accelerating Electrons Protons and others charged particles at a velocity close to the speed of light and crashing them into each other or into selected targets it was possible to brake their nuclei into the smaller particles constituting them. With the cloud chamber and subsequently with even more sophisticated devises, the tracks of the trajectories generated in space by the speeding particles could be visibly detected and analyzed.

 In order to have an idea of how this was possible, a short description of the cloud chamber and the particle accelerator may be in order. Thomas Wilson devised a chamber fitted with a piston, in it he put dust free air, saturated with water vapor. When the piston is pulled, the air expands and the temperature in the chamber drops. In absence of dust or ions, the air becomes supersaturated, but no water drops are forming in the air. When a charged particle enters the chamber, droplets of water are forming around it indicating the tracks of its trajectories in the vapor supersaturated air (in a way like a high-flying airplane displaying a contrail). The particle's physical properties can be deduced by analyzing their tracks in the Wilson chamber. The length and size of the tracks indicate the mass and the life span of a particle. By placing the chamber between the poles of a magnet the tracks of the charged particles curve one way or another with more or less sharpness in the acquired curve of their trajectory revealing this way the type of charge possessed and the dimension of the masses involved. The interactions of the colliding particles indicate through the particular lengths and ramification of their tracks and the splitting and subdividing of their trajectories, the physical makeup of their inner structure and the properties acquired through the energy of collision. The particle accelerator was devised in order to subjects charged particles, like Electrons and Protons to the influence of electric fields so arranged that they would accelerate the particle forward. The greater the electric potential to which the charged particle is subjected, the greater the acceleration and the energy gained by the particle. The particle accelerators are therefore devices used to build up electric potentials to a very high level and to organize the particles into beams that can be directed toward specific targets like atoms and molecules. In analyzing the tracks generated by the collisions between atoms in the cloud chamber more than one hundred different particles were identified as part of the nucleus, each possessing different characteristics in their charge and mass. From these experiments it became apparent that the atoms of the ninety-two elements by then discovered were not the ultimate indivisible particles envisioned by the Greek philosophers, but that instead, each atomic nucleus was indeed composed by other particles that could be separated again into even smaller ones, in a continuing proliferation that seamed to be unending.

The ultimate smallest particles now envisioned seams to recede into entities called quarks. Eighteen types of quarks were theorized to exist, each exhibiting the particular properties necessary for them to become in addition with other quarks, one or the other of the various different particles constituting the atomic substance. These particles with the properties attributed to them remind us of Democritus five specs of substance that he conceived were constituting our universe. If quarks indeed are existing, they would come closer to the infinitesimal indivisible particle envisioned by him, unless of course it is found that even quarks can be ulteriorly subdivided. Some of the particles, found to be theoretically necessary for a viable quantum theory and whose existence was subsequently discovered in experimenting with particle accelerators, possess no mass at all. The most common example of massless particles described in quantum physics are the Photons of light and the Neutrinos. It is difficult to imagine a particle without mass, unless we recognize it, as conceived by Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity, where it is described as energy speeding through the universe at the velocity of light. If mass can be equated to a form of energy, as described in Einstein theory of relativity, energy can be recognized as a particle just by possessing a momentum. (What is momentum without mass?) The quantum theory and its mathematical implications later applied to the development of elementary particle physics, was very successful in advancing our knowledge of the physical world, but in many cases mathematical consideration had to precede experimentation; as a result, when we try to interpret these fonnulas in the light of our common sense knowledge in a four dimensional model of classical physics, we find it impossible, because we have to abandon our previously established logical concepts and enter into an incomprehensible multidimensional world.

Quantum mechanic for instance requires that observations made on a particle at one point in space will affect what will be observed at another place at the same instant, contradicting Emstein principle of relativity that no signal can travel faster then the speed of light. Other concepts derived by the application of the quantum theory involve the existence of parallel universes, worm holes through space-time and I0-dimensional super strings. The phenomenon of the rainbow colors appearing from a beam of white light when refracted through a prism was easily explained when we were thinking of waves acting into a medium. Waves of the transverse type when slowing in entering at an angle a denser medium, would bend from their original direction at a degree that is a function of their wavelength,  It is hard to understand logically how this could happen with photons of light differing from each other only in their energy level.

Interference is another phenomenon that could easily be explained if we imagine that the crest of a wave can be canceled by the valley of another. The bands of light and darkness forming on a screen in Young experiment, can be understood in the frame of a wave theory. If we think instead of light as a stream of particles differing only in their energy level, an explanation of that phenomenon does not appear to be easily advanced. If matter is understood to be made of particles acting on each other in an otherwise empty space, and we try to explain every phenomenon observed through these interactions alone (since nothing else is presumed to exist), we are faced with great difficulties. With the notion of particIes as the only substantial component of an otherwise empty universe, the quantum mechanic's theory had to go to mathematical acrobatics in order to explain the phenomenon of gravity or electromagnetism or in trying to resolve the problem of action at a distance and in doing so lost on its way anybody trying to grasp its reality through comprehensive common sense logical thinking. The problem of action at a distance in an empty space was taken care in the quantum mechanics' theory by the action of certain exchanged interacting virtual particles. But is the quantum explanation of the mechanical dynamics asking for a mass to attract another through the action of other particles intellectually satisfying? Or is the seemingly contradicting theory of a curvature created by the masses in an empty space, as understood by Albert Einstein? How can we imagine that Electrons and Positrons exercise a continuous magnetic attraction or repulsion on each other through the emission of other particles and in doing so continue to exist seemingly for ever? How can an Electron be considered an infinitesimal point while possessing a mass, a charge and a spin? In quantum theory an electron was also described as a wiggling string in a ten dimensional space, this notion being comprehensible only in mathematical terms. How can the phenomenon of light be considered both as a wave and a particle? But then what is It that makes these mathematical formulas explain so elegantly the worlds of subatomic physics when that same worlds become an absurdity when we are trying to visualize it from a classical point of view?

 It is true that a mathematician can devise a system that in that language explains just about anything he set himself to, but since the world of mathematics is a logical world, how can it become illogical when we analyze it with rational traditional thinking? I have come to the conclusion that our conventional atomic model and our original hypothesis around which we have built an understanding of the constitution of matter, are not representing a true picture of reality. We think that this Universal stuff has a different aspect than originally imagmed and that the idea of particles created from each other in a big bang, like star dust in an otherwise empty space is not the complete truth after all.

If the hypothesis of matter constituted by particles traveling in an empty space appears not to have a complete and satisfactory explanation to the physical phenomena observed, is it possible to think that this idea itself may not be the aspect of a complete reality? When the hypothesis of an electric field needed for the interpretation of the electromagnetic forces, was conceived by Faradey and developed mathematically by Maxwell, we were left through the quantum physics interpretation, with two entities, matter and the field, one with a substance and the other without one. When we try to describe matter as a world of particles in an empty field, acting on each other through other particles, that's when the inconsistencies begin. Without denying the marvelous findings in the field of quantum mechanics, or contradicting its achievements, we believe that a new model of the atom can be developed following a more classical approach, that could reconcile these points of view and possibly at the same time resolve the problem of gravity that has eluded our understanding for so long. Our efforts will be than to modify the notion of a universal substance composed by particles, with a new concept of matter, defining a new understanding of its intrinsic being and applying it to explain and resolve the scientific experimental knowledge acquired through the centuries, hoping that through this new hypothesis we can return to a better and clearer understanding of this subject matter.The best way to undersiad why the different rays of light are refracted as a different angle is by looking at a drowing on a book on electric by George Isamoft  fhat I show on this paper.