The nature of force

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Until then, all the particles which compose the "field" can be tied up in a bag and ... I should just examine the bag itself as the primary existential element.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Your point seems reasonable. For the time being, we can consider the "field" as a black box yet to be defined. Then, without attacking any paradigm, one can leave the "field" as an undefined mediator between forms, and I don't think that this hurts the MM in any way.

The particle collision issue is something that I find particulary difficult to grasp, since we do not know what a boundary really is in the physical world. When I view forms as open sets, then the field seems to be a reasonable tradeoff to get closure and somehow have the "physical" description of a collision.

In any event, the episode "Field" is to be continued...

Doing the old "blackbox" trick here is a good idea because the two views of how force moves from one particle to another is not going to be resolved. And both views are probibly wrong anyway. Fields or smaller and smaller particles both have merit and both views are as equally inconsistant as the other. So, anyway we know force does move from place to place or object to object-right?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Thomas</i>
<br />I do not need to postulate that inelastic collisions are fundamentally different from elastic collisions as it is self-evident (inelastic collisions do not exist in Classical Mechanics).<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Yes, they don't exist in classical mechanics because they don't exist, period. We use inelastic collisions as an approximation description for processes where we are unable to observe the details. We do that sometimes even in classical mechanics. Often, pool shots can be modeled as having inelastic collisions. But obviously, that does not mean that they are inelastic because that would mean "uncomposed", a state that leads quickly to unresolvable paradoxes.

Therefore, you (collectively, not personally) are indeed postulating new physics in asserting that events modeled as inelastic collisions are fundamentally different from elastic ones.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">On the contrary, it would be a (rather unreasonable) postulate if you assume that the principles of Classical Mechanics apply identically also in Quantum 'Mechanics'.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You said that before. Please explain. Since puberty, I've shaved with Occam's Razor. We can explain everything in QM with the same laws as in CM (which is what MM does), so why invent new hypotheses unnecessarily?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This has nothing to do as such with the scale (as elastic collisions occur also on the atomic scale) but with the completely different nature of the physical processes involved.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Sure, charge interactions are field interactions, and that is a different physical process, akin to playing pool with tennis balls or playing horseshoes with magnets. But where is the justification for denying that quantum particles without charge (e.g., neutrons) can have classical collisions? That is a leap over a cliff that I'm not inclined to take with you.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">[transfer of momentum]: The existence of a resonant physical mechanism that enables certain kind of particles with a certain kinetic energy to excite atomic transitions (and lose their kinetic energy in the process).<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">It is always surprising to me when a statistical average of innumerable processes is treated as a single process. Electrons make ~ 10^15 revolutions per second. If we modeled planetary orbits by averaging over 10^15 revolutions, most of what we know about such orbits would be invisible and they would appear to obey strange "quantum" laws of sudden change. We would be totally unable to model the details of classical collisions or close encounters of any kind. But inability to observe is not a good-enough reason to abandon logic. Someday, when we can invent the graviton microscope, we will see the interactions in detail, and not just the statistical average results that look to us like jumping orbitals without intermediate stages.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I am not very familiar with nuclear physics and don't know what kind of inelastic collisions (or elastic collisions for that matter) exist here, but if the collision is truly inelastic (in the sense described by me above), then a neutron would simply be stopped and its energy converted into a non-mechanical 'energy'-form (e.g. radiation). In this case no momentum (and hence no force) would be transferred as there is no mechanical contact like for elastic collisions (which are due to the static force field).<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">So you do assert that a single neutron would change the direction of motion of a massive neutron star rather than collide with it in a classical way because neither body has a field? And when two neutron stars head toward one another at high speed, what happens then? Total annihilation of both?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">For truly inelastic collisions there is obviously no rebound (like for elastic collisions) because the relative speed of the two particles is zero after the 'collision'.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">And what happened to the pre-collision momentum of the particles? In classical physics, one can only get zero relative speed after collision for a highly elastic collision because momentum must be conserved.

My impression is that you have never thought through the consequences of the model you espouse in this much detail (most physicists haven't), and are therefore being painted into corners from which there is no reasonable escape route except the standard QM answer: Follow the equations and don't ask why! -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by EBTX</i>
<br />I don't see the field concept as divorced from experience<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Nor do I. I accept that fields exist. In MM, the major fields are made of elysium and shaped by gravitons. My objections are focussed in two areas: (1) the postulate that fields are required for classical collisions to exist; and (2) the postulate that fields are uncomposed or in any way intangible or immaterial.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">when looking at the less common charged (or magnetic) body experience there is no obvious collision element. So Faraday invented the field concept.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">We don't need QM to see that charged or magnetized macroscopic bodies don't "collide" in the classical way. So that is hardly a basis for either postulate above.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">It is not that the field cannot, in principle, be reduced to particles as MM suggests ... it's that it is logically unnecessary to do so ... unless ... one can detect (directly and unambiguously) the particles of which it is composed.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Here is where we part company. Without making *a priori* assumptions lacking a logical justification, it is most definitely necessary to postulate particles that are undetectable because logical analysis of Zeno's extended paradox for matter shows that it is resolvable if and only if matter is infinitely composed. After all, quarks are postulated, unseen entities, as were many other quantum particles before their discovery, and as the Higgs particle remains today.

And if postulating gravitons and elysons can bring about the long-sought unification of gravitation and electrodynamics, should we ignore that until someday when they are discovered by accident? Or should we predict their properties to aid in their possible detection?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Our difference is that you have only particles in your model. I have fields as well but they are limited to experimental properties.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">MM's elysium has all the properties of your fields.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I say that you do not have enough stuff to build the observed universe. You say that I have too much. But my view is no more open-ended than yours. I can't in principle add anything more either. ;o)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">The irony here is that MM maintains that everything is infinitely composed, and somehow you see that as "not enough stuff". [] -|Tom|-

EBTX,
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This concept has no meaning (qua "collision") independent of constituents. If a collision between two particles is to occur ... the particles must offer a cross-section to be hit ... or, to hit with ... or both. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

We could define collision events as existence at the same location in space and time. Put differently, collision occurs when substance tries to occupy space that is already occupied at some time "t".

By infinite divisibility, collision events are then defined at single points, lines or surfaces. In this way, force is the manifestation of such events, thus when substance attempts to "share" locations in space.

How is the infinity defence any different than the old time religion where the really big question was how many angels dance on pins? If you just keep dividing by 2 forever are you not asking the same question that was asked way back?