'Edge' of the Universe

[kcody] "How the hell did they pin that one down, short of actually separating the components and weighing them?"

(Weighing? Don't forget they measured the *size* of the charge components. The units they used [meters] remove all ambiguity associated with the word "size".)

It's an interesting question, isn't it? Since they didn't talk about this, I have no idea. Physics experiments are often indirect in nature - the quantity being measured is related to something else that is the actual quantity that they want to determine.

[kcody] "Aside from that, though, the statement insinuates that the "components" retain their charge when fused into a neutron, implying that the "charge" is somehow intrinsic to the particle, and not to the surrounding elysium."

Hmmm. An electron by itself isn't going to produce a force field, nor will elysium by itself. If my understanding of MM is correct, an intrinsic property (density) of electrons and protons interacts in various ways with gravitons and elysons to produce the force fields that are characteristic of the two charged particles.

In both the hydrogen atom and the neutron we are dealing with a pair of particles (with force fields) that can exist independently, or they can exist in association with each other. When electrons and protons become associated with each other their force fields appear to cancle out *if you are far enough away*. Much like the separate gravitational force fields of each star in a binary system appear to come from the center-of-mass of the two stars, *if you are far enough away*.

But both fields are still present (in both the electric and gravitational cases), and up close it becomes possible to tell them apart. The dividing line between "up close" and "far apart" depends on your measurement devices and on your measuring technique.

In the case of the hydrogen atom we have been able to resolve the two fields for some time. I guess measurement technology has now advanced to the point where we can resolve the two fields even when the particles are in physical contact.

LB

[kcody] " ... let's assume for the sake of discussion that the scale system I've been toying with is correct in its prediction of about 5 orders of magnitude between organizational scales, on the basis that it holds up for the scales that we can see. Following that, if elysons are at SI scale -20, and CG's are at SI scale -30, then there ought to be an intermediate organization beginning at about SI -25."

*) The scale range from 10^-10 meters (atoms) up to 10^11 meters (stars) is pretty much continuously populated with something of some size. And all of these things are clumps of atoms, the smallest thing in this scale range.

*) The scale range from 10^12 meters (solar systems) up to 10^20 meters (galaxies) is devoid of anything.

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As we look at (think about, actually) scale ranges that are far up-scale and at other scale ranges that are far down-scale, MM expects us to see things that are similar to what we see in our own scale range. So we ought eventually to see some other scale ranges that are heavily populated, and still other ranges that are lightly populated or even unpopulated. But these other scale ranges are too big/too small for us to detect yet.

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We do see some examples of what might be scale similarity within our own scale range (atoms vs galaxies?, atoms vs solar systems?). But we don't really know what atoms "look" like. Once we do we may find that they don't resemble solar systems at all.

LB

LB, If atoms looked like solar systems (that is a solid center with lots of electrons orbiting) how do all the electrons keep from hitting each other? All that motion,

[Jim] " ... how do all the electrons keep from hitting each other?"

I don't know - curb feelers, maybe?

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IF atoms look like solar systems (and that's a big if) then the electrons would all orbit in roughly the same direction and at different distances.

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Or (here is a really crazy idea), ... what if electrons repel each other?

LB

[Jim] "All that motion"

What if there isn't any? Motion, that is.

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What if the electrons in an atom don't orbit the nucleus of that atom?

LB

So, I see it is a "what if" thing. The atom could be modeled on a scale where one proton has a mass of the sun. Then a tiny speck of a billion atoms would fit into the inner solar system very nicely. The billion nuclii would each be about 10,000 meters in diameter and the 30 billion electrons each half the mass of Jupiter would be doing what ever electron do in real atoms. The total mass of the model at that scale is 60 billion solar masses. And all that in that little space. How is that anything like a real solar system. This model should show how silly all this model theory really is.