Physical Axioms and Attractive Forces

Gregg, this is a great example. I would agree with you concerning the mass of the proton having little variation. Particle mass is well understood in my opinion. All work leading to the creation of the modern periodic table from Mendeleev to Seaborg corroborate the masses of the elements and hence the proton. Another angle of support comes from the classical experiments by Rutherford's gold foil experiment.

Mark Vitrone

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gregg</i>
<br />The subject is whether the mass of a proton can vary, and if so, how much.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Is the mass ever measured separate from charge? I have the impression that only the charge-to-mass ratio is measured for things as small as single protons. If so, then that opens the possibility that mass varies greatly but the ratio does not. My article hints at why that might be true.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If the mass of a proton varied by more than about 10 percent, it would be impossible to separate propane and propylene by distillation.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Same question. What is really required to be invariant by this test? For that matter, why? You did not really explain why separation requires mass invariance. -|Tom|-

What is really required to be invariant by this test? For that matter, why? You did not really explain why separation requires mass invariance. -|Tom|-

[/quote]

With all due respect, are we talking past one another?

What does charge have to do with propane and propylene? Neither has a charge. They do not conduct electricity. Any attempt to ionize them would result in disintegration to carbon and hydrogen. Any "electrostatic charge" at a distillation column would be an open invitation for disaster. Such columns are carefully grounded to allow electrical charge to be conducted to the ground (or from the ground).

I will introduce "charge" in my next example and the restriction of mass variance gets much more narrow.

Gregg Wilson

Gregg,

Whether or not propane is charged, the particles that comprise it are. I believe that is the point of Tom's question.

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Tom,

If propane minus two protons equals propylene, then a mechanical process that uses mass differences for separation would seem to require that the mass of any two randomly chosen protons has to be fairly constant.

Particles in general don't have to have property values that are "tightly quantized", but that does not mean that specific particle types cannot have such propety values.

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Gregg (or anyone else),

Do you know of another example of mechanical separation by mass? Especially one that involves a single proton. Perhaps from the world of mass spectroscopy?

LB

<i>Originally posted by Larry Burford</i>
<br />Gregg,

Whether or not propane is charged, the particles that comprise it are. I believe that is the point of Tom's question.

***





OK, I will give an example where mass and charge are the two factors. The extraction and purification of U-235 from uranium in general. The first successful method was conceived and demonstrated by Professor Lawrence at the Livermore Laboratory at Berkeley, California. His thesis was that a particle of given mass and charge will be accelerated into a circular arc by an electromagnetic field. He demonstrated this at Berkely with his "Calutron" in the Summer of 1942. The calculations were made which would quantify the circular arc made by U-238 and U-235. The arcs were calculated to be different in size. His machine successfully separated the two isotopes to a high efficiency but with exremely low capacity.

Monstrous size "Calutrons" were built at Oak Ridge in 1943. To give some appreciation of their size, they consumed 15,000 tons of silver to make the electrical wiring around the magnets. Receivers were built at the predicted positon for collecting U-238 and U-235 separately. The process continued to have high efficiency but low capacity because the uranium had to be vaporized and then ionized as distinct molecules of uranium tetrafluoride. It was a batch process.

The operation was run throughout 1944, finally making enough U-235 at 90%+ purity to be "weapons grade". The uranium isotopes have the same charge and their only difference is the mass of 238 versus 235.

I do believe that this brings into focus the properties of mass and charge. And it was successful. It passed the Reality test.


Gregg Wilson

Gregg, that is a good example. I was thinking the exact same thing listening to the radio talking about Iran today. I would point out though that I am not sure Uranium is great test subject because 90%(or even 99.9%) is probably not precise enough to make a judgement. How about heavy water separation by steam centrifugation, we can approach several decimal places precision (although I have not done or witnessed this myself since many folks of the governmental nature disapprove of heavy water experimentation).

Mark Vitrone