Splitting the electron?

[HarryW]

Okay, I don't know how many of you have noticed but there's a guy named Humphrey Maris who has brought up a situation which he claims implies that the electron is divisible.

Apparently it's to do with electron bubbles, and certain situations in which they can (or he thinks they can) be split in two, trapping a part of the waveform in each mini-bubble. This has now been used to explain some other previously unexplainable electron anomalies. If the electron is divisible it means big trouble for quantum theory. Many people have claimed that he must be wrong (Maris himself isn't entirely sure about it) but nobody seems to be able to put their finger on why exactly, or explain the phenomenon.

So what do you guys think? I know there's a lot of maths-heads and quantum physics enthusiasts around here, so let your opinions be known, I'd like to hear what you think.

[Guv]

This looks like cold fusion to me. Do you remember the chemists who claimed to have created nuclear fusion at room temperature? It happened ten years or so ago, and turned out to be utter nonsense.

I won $50.00 (total) from several people in my office that believed this one when it was first published.

There is no way quantum theory could be that wrong.

Some (all?)experts think that protons might decay at some time in the remote future, which would be catastrophic if it was happening now. Perhaps there is some similar theory that electrons might decay.

Aside from some such theory of decay trillions of years from now, I am willing to bet that Humphrey Maris is a charlatan, a practical joker, or that he just does not know what he is talking about.

I would be interested in reading more about this. Where did he publish? Is there a Site with more information? My lack of belief in many topics does not keep me from being interested in them. I read all sorts of ESP & UFO nonsense as well as watching various phoney "documentaries" on TV.

One of my pet peeves relates to intelligent people who know better passing nonsense off as valid science. If they make money by doing so, it should be viewed as fraud and prosecuted as such.

To paraphrase a famous quote: All that is required for ignorance to triumph is for intelligent people to suspend critical judgment.

[HarryW]

Are you in the UK Guv? I'm not sure if it's a British publication, but I'm fairly sure it's available worldwide - it was an article published in this week's New Scientist which is by no means a complex scholar's journal, it's more of a popular science magazine which reports on interesting things going on at the moment.

Handily, they have a website on which the articles are published; you can find the article in question here (http://www.newscientist.com/features/features.jsp?id=ns226015).

I can understand your scepticism, and I'm not saying it's unfounded, but I don't think he's a charlatan. Wrong perhaps, but not deliberately.

[Guv]

This looks far more plausible than cold fusion ever did. Those chemists went public without publishing in a legitimate journal, and had no supporting jargon that made sense. Their jargon sounded like chemistry, not nuclear physics. While not claiming to be an expert, I knew from day one that cold fusion was nonsense.

All the jargon on the site you mentioned seems sensible.
At least it makes as much (or more) sense than most Quantum babble, which is almost always mind-boggling and counter intuitive.
Neils Bohr once said (in all seriousness): "If you are not thoroughly confused by Quantum physics, you do not understand it." Previous is from memory and is not quite an exact quote.

Maris apparently got his thoughts past the editorial board of a legitimate (I think) journal. I do not recognize the names of any of those who made comments, but have no reason to assume they are not experts.

I still have serious doubts, but am no longer willing to dismiss Maris without seeing further commentary. He might be mistaken, but he seems legitimate.

[HarryW]

This thread's had lots of views but not many posts; doesn't anyone else have something to say? This seems like a pretty attention-grabbing subject to me, I would have thought people would have opinions.

[barrk]

I have found this thread very interesting to follow but I go by the theory that if you can't speak knowelegably you shouldn't speak at all. Therefore, my silence...up till now. (you asked for it though)

[Juan Carlos Rey]

I´ve split the electron myself, three parts:

e-lec-tron

ha, ha, ha

[Gen-X]

I noticed that there was no mention in the article (I only scanned it briefly) about the properties of these "half-electrons". Surely if it were possible to do then we would be able to quantify the properties that these items have.

If it requires some process that requires a large amount of energy to achieve and something constantly running to keep it alive (ie like Anti-Matter) then I always have to wonder where scientists draw the line between something that "exists" and something that we can "bend to exist".

I also noticed he said that it "mimiced" a half-charge... not that it actually was one. I would side with Guv in saying it needs far more facts.

[kb244]

But.. spliting of electrons are done all the time in nuclear reactors, by usally shooting uranium molecules into a chamber of electrons, thus spliting them on impact, and causing a change reaction that releases energy, unfortunatly the spliting process also produces a huge ammount of radiation, this is all known as Fission. What scientist are hopeing to acheive is production of engery by combining eletroncs, call nuclear fusion ( I may have fusion and fission mixed up) but in any case, with the opposite, no spliting occurs, and creation of harmful radiation does not occur, also far as the cold fusion, the issue behind that, is by slowing down the particles close to 3 kelvin in temperature, you can get close to a good suply of engery, however, if it hit zero kelvin the particles would just hit the floor, there would be no movement at all, therefore all particles would go flat filling the empty space between the eletron cloud, for this reason, you couldnt contain a zero kelvin object, since anything conducted with would possibly chain react.

[kb244]

also a split eletrons, are split into Quark (the only proven part that can be smaller than an eletron)

[Gen-X]

kb244

When they say "split" in this context it means to break into halves and have the halves EXIST.

The type you are talking about destroys the halves.

Secondly, Quarks cannot exist on their own... if an electron is split into Quarks they simply cease to exist.

What the gentleman in the article is refering to is the ability to split an electron into 2 equal -1/2 charges that BOTH exist autonomous from the thing that created them.... something that would screw Quantum physics around something chronic.

[kb244]

You mean actual duplication of matter that remains to exist?

hmm I can see where big debate comes in now.

[kb244]

oh also there is one flaw in your response.

"if an electron is split into Quarks they simply cease to exist. "

according to physics, matter cannot be created, nor destroyed. it may change form, etc, but cannot be created out of nothing, and cannot be destroyed into nothing.

[Gen-X]

kb244

No I don't mean creating matter... I mean you end up with 2 "half" electrons each of -1/2 charge.

Secondly... Go read up on Quarks... They can only exist as either a special "pair" or as in the triplet we see as a proton, electron or neutron etc.

If you manage to pull apart the quarks of a particle they simply cease to exist. "Heat" is an excitement of particles... an energy if you will. While it is given off in these events the scientists say the quarks simply no longer exist.

This is my PERSONAL opinion... but I think all matter is a resonance of 3 quarks coming together... and that only when 3 quarks come together does this resonation exist in our dimension. When they are seperated there is no longer a harmonic that allows it to be seen in our universe and thus to us it would appear they cease to exist.

To add proof to this personal opinion it also explains why you get particles appearing in a vaccum spontaneously... A higher dimension to ours is full of single quarks and only when there is a specific collision of 3 of them to form a particle does it magically appear in a vaccum.

This is the ONLY thing that is ever known to be created out of nothing or destroyed into nothing... Go read up on "Particles in a vaccum"

[kb244]

I'll certainly give it a look over, but when you said cease to exist, I was refering that instead of into nothingness, they would be converted to energy, which cant always be seen by us. And I know the goal of most people studying this is to hope to convert matter directly to energy without any byproduct. would this thread be one of those ways?

[Gen-X]

What exactly do you mean by "byproduct"?

Energy = heat

[kb244]

by , Byproduct, I mean any excess material that cannot be used for our benefit, for example with nuclear reactors a byproduct would be radioactive waste , that we cant reprocess.

[Gen-X]

Actually we can reprocess that "byproduct".

The problem is that it costs more to reprocess it than we would gain from the results... People are not going to waste money only to get a little back.

BTW, you can actually turn lead into gold... but the cost is more than the gold you make, hence it is not done.

[kb244]

Yea I know about that alchemy to change lead to gold, kinda like adding an electron to the mix or something like that but the process like you said would be more effort than it's end result would pay off.

[Gen-X]

Exactly my point.

[Guv]

kb244, cold fusion was a fubar due to some chemists who apparently knew zilch about nuclear physics. Also, it referred to fusion at room temperature instead of temperatures of millions of degrees. It did not refer to temperatures any where near absolute zero.

Neither nuclear reactors nor particle accelerators split electrons. If they did, they would certainly not do it by hitting them with uranium nuclei, which are huge compared to an electron.

Gen-X & kb244, you should both read up on quarks. Quarks combine to produce protons & neutrons (baryons particles, I think these are called). Electrons are Lepton particles (I think), and are not believed to be composed of smaller particles, and certainly are not composed of quarks.

I do not think there is enough data to be able to say much about the properties of the "split electrons." Perhaps the split is 1/3 & 2/3 instead of 1/2 & 1/2 charges. Note that quarks are supposed to have fractional charges (some with 1/3, some with 2/3). The combinations are weird. Eg: Two with charges of plus 2/3 & one with minus 1/3, combining to make a proton with a charge of one. I am not certain of the exact details, but I know that that some have 1/3 charge and others have 2/3 charge. The combinations always result in either no charge or a charge of one (minus one for antiprotons).

[Gen-X]

Guv

Actually the last time I did read up the electron was made up of 3 Quarks that were 2 x -2/3 charge and 1 x +1/3 charge leaving a total of -1 charge.

But if something happened since the last time I looked.

BTW, if an electron is made up of a single "Lepton" particles then why don't they just call them "Lepton" particle instead of "electrons"???

[Guv]

Gen-x, either you do not know how to read or you find your articles on physics in poorly written Sci-Fi stories.Actually the last time I did read up the electron was made up of 3 Quarks that were 2 x -2/3 charge and 1 x +1/3 charge leaving a total of -1 charge.

Electrons are not made of quarks! You should have read up, as I suggested instead of claiming that you read an article on the subject. This claim just makes you look foolish.

Electrons are not called "leptons" (if this is the correct name) because there is more than one type of particle referred to as a lepton, just as there is more than one type of baryon (protons, neutrons, antiprotons, & I am not sure what else). Aside from a positron, I do not know what the other leptons (if any) are.

By the way, did you really know that quark charges came in thirds, or did you get that idea from my post?

[Gen-X]

Guv

I'll go home tonight and get the book off my shelf and read up again. Its called "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" and is a recommended source book for a university subject I completed called "Information Technology and Society".

I admit it was years ago and my recollection could be fuzzy but that was what I believed the basic gist of it was.

I'm happy to admit I could be totally wrong... But that doesn't mean you have to be so haughty and snide...

Get off that high horse of yours Guv... you can see up your skirt and the view is quite disgusting.

[HarryW]

Maybe I can clear some of this up:

Electrons are leptons. Other leptons are positrons, neutrinos and antineutrinos of all kinds. These are thought to be fundamental particles ie. indivisible. There are thought to be 6 kinds of lepton: electron, electron neutrino, tau, tau neutrino, muon, muon neutrino. Each of these has an antiparticle bringing the set to a size of 12.

Protons and neutrons are part of a group called hadrons which are made up of 3 quarks. Baryons are made up of 2 quarks (one quark and one corresponding antiquark). There are hundreds of other subatomic particles that are members of these sets, such as kaons and other such strangely-named particles, but I don't remember which are which, except protons & neutrons are definitely hadrons (there is a difference of one quark between them, that's why a neutron can split into a proton and an electron).

Quarks make up baryons and hadrons. There are 6 colours of quark: up, down, strange, top, bottom, charm (I think). Each has different properties including charge, strangeness, topness & bottomness (I think), spin and charm. The sum of the properties of each quark in a particle must be an integer.

Fission: Generally this is done by firing neutrons into Uranium 238 nuclei, which split (in a number of ways) and release massive amounts of energy and another 3 neutrons. This causes a chain reaction if the quantity of neutrons flying around is right (ie if the critical mass is reached). In fission reactors this is controlled using boron and carbon rods to absorb some electrons / slow them down.

Fusion: This is where two isotopes of hydrogen (called deuterium - a hydrogen atom but with an extra neutron) are collided at very very high energies and the strong force between them bonds the nuclei together forming a helium atom, and releasing huge amounts of energy in the process.


Back to the thread topic, I think the article does speculate briefly on the applications of part-electrons, but the properties are not really predictable since as far as I can tell from the article there is no specific ratio in which the electrons might split. If you notice (I really think you ought to read the article properly, I think it's fascinating) experimental evidence has suggested that if this theory is true, the divided electrons can split again, and then again. The article didn't speculate on a limit to the number of divisions possible.

[PRIVATE1]

Oops I thought it was Split the Election

[HarryW]

Sorry, I was typing that out in a rush earlier - the leptons are electrons, electron neutrinos, muons, muon neutrinos, taus, tau neutrinos, and all of their antiparticles. 6 kinds of lepton with corresponding antiparticles.

I also said there are 6 kinds of quark: up, down, top, bottom, strange, charmed. I should also have said that there are the 6 corresponding antiquarks for each of these.

Notice that there are 6 colours of quark, and 6 kinds of lepton. When particle physicists first discovered the tau and the tau neutrino, they had only discovered the up, down, strange and charmed quarks. Upon discovery of the tau and its neutrino they actually hypothesised that top and bottom quarks existed too, then looked for them in experiments, and lo and behold found them (although physicists usually find whatever they're looking for). T

This relationship between the leptons and the quarks (thought to be fundamental particles), to me and others, suggests that perhaps there is an underlying fundamental particle or set of particles that leptons and quarks are constructed from. I am not well versed in quantum theory, perhaps it could be adapted to accomodate a new set of quanta?

[Arbiter]

As far as I'm concerned, the universe is made up of eeny weeny tiny little things, that when you listen very, very carefully make little noises like "meep meep meep meep".

Anyone got any scientific proof to dispute this?

[HarryW]

No, but those three burly men behind you in white coats carrying the funny looking anorak with straps on the sleeves might want to dispute it :)

[parksie]

So what are bosons then?

[Guv]

HarryW, you seem to know a lot about nuclear particles.

I said that protons & neutrons are baryons. You say they are hadrons. I assume that you are right and I am wrong without checking any reference material. What are baryons? Subatomic particles or something else?

[Guv]

Gen-X, the omission in your book not all that strange. A book that covers many subjects does not cover any of them in great depth. I assume that your book is like many that I read on the subject: Explanations for non-experts. For that readership, quantum randomness is not as fascinating as topics like uncertainty, tunneling, the two slit experiment, bose-Einstein condensates, super fluids, Schrodinger Cat discussions, and other far out quantum phenomena.

By the way, what is the name of the book?

[Gen-X]

The book is specific for scientific-like people but of course not for die-hard physicists.

The book was called "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" by someone Ferris.

It did actually mention alot of what you were talking about in here, though it didn't include anything like quantum entanglement etc, etc.

The reference section was highly supported so it wasn't specifically for "laymen", you had to have at least high school (Not sure what you call it in other countries, A-levels? Graduate school?) level understanding of chemistry and physics and possibly even some mathematics or else you were lost.

[kb244]

I agree with you about how much you would have to know, also it's just my opinion, but I think schools in general around here in the US (especially North Carolina schools) lack the same level as the rest of the world, most of what I know, I taught myself, or read extra just because they were out of my interests, and what not, I had chemistry as a favorite, and also biology, and math, but now it's computers, (the math really lead into that one). hehe but I think there is another thread about the whole "can desire help increase one's ability to learn, or are they bound to genetic flaws" elsewhere in this forum.

[Gen-X]

Its a shame when the resources are not available at school...

Then again I am thinking some schools in America.. especially those with heavy religious connotations wouldn't be too happy to have science books as much as they would theology books.

But on the one about learning, someone tried to tell me that given enough time anyone could learn anything... He just couldn't see that just as our bodies come in all different shapes and sizes with differnet benefits and detriments so do brains and some people just couldn't learn certain levels of things no matter what they did or how long they did it.

[HarryW]

Guv, my sincere apologies, you are right that protons and neutrons are baryons. I got confused between baryons and mesons. Mesons are quark-antiquark pairs, baryons are made up of three quarks. Both sets of particles are the two subsets of the set of particles called hadrons.

All particles are either bosons or fermions. Bosons are particles that have integer spin. Particles with non integer (odd-half) spin are called fermions. All the fundamental particles are fermions. Protons and neutrons are fermions. All fermions are subject to the Pauli exclusion principle, which I believe is something to do with the reason you get electron bubbles in supercooled Helium, because there are no free states for the electron to exist in.

Guage bosons are the particles that carry the 4 forces of the universe - photons for the EM force, gluons for the strong force, intermediate vector bosons (W+, W- and Zo)for the weak force, and for the gravitational force it is hypothesised that the graviton is its guage boson, although as far as I am aware the graviton is just a hypothesis.

[Guv]

HarryW, no need to apologize. When I did a little research I got the impression we were both incomplete in our classification. I get the impression that both baryon & hadron refer to protons & neutrons. That seems to be what you are saying.

There really is a particle zoo beneath the atomic level. It certainly was a lot simpler when they thought that protons, neutrons, & electrons were the complete basis for everything. That was one less than the fire, water, earth, & air that some ancient Greeks hypothesized.

There were other Greeks who thought that there were 50-100 basic elements, which combined to make everything. They pictured the elements as having hook-like & eye-like appendages which allowed them to connect up and form combinations. Pretty good guess or damn smart analysis after observing various substances. They did not have much in the way of chemistry to help them.

When particle accelerators (the popular press called them atom smashers) first started finding more particles, one far out speculation was the possibility of triplets of fundamental particles at the lowest level. A could split into B & C, B could split into A & C, C could split into A & B. E = m*c*2 was invoked to balance the books for this weird idea.

[HarryW]

You're right about that, there certainly are a myriad of subatomic particles around.

What do you think about the quark-lepton 'duality'? The two sets seem to display a sort of symmetry, perhaps this infers a smaller set of fundamental particles that make up quarks and leptons? It is really just an idea, but I know others have had the same thoughts. I've never come across any kind of experimental or theoretical evidence for it though - except for this electron splitting story.

[HarryW]

Been a while since this thread was active. Anybody hear any more about the electron-splitting story? I haven't heard anything more about it, which I suppose means it lacks credibility and isn't really discussed much in the field? Was there any kind of conclusion?

Just wondering if there's been any progress on this.

[Cuallito]

from what I understand, this guys trying to split the wave function of an electron into 2 parts. Even if he manages to do this, he would have just made it where the probable location of finding the electron would be in 2 unconnected parts of space.

[skimboarder]

my science teacher told me about that. The little pievces are named quirks.

[Guv]

SkimBoarder: Quarks, not quirks. Also, if you check with your teacher, you will discover that protons and neutrons (not electrons) are made up from particles called quarks.

Electrons are not composed of quarks. I think they are fundamental particles and have no substructure.

[HarryW]

That's the popular opinion, although this article was questioning their fundamental-ness..... err I don't think that's a word but you get the idea.

[simonm]

Could anybody please explain for my benefit (somewhat less scientif than some) in exactly what way this supposed splitting of an electron impacts upon quantum mechanics. It's not quite clear to me how this theory could affect quantum mechanics so I would be very interested to hear more about that.

[HarryW]

Well quantum mechanics is completely based on fundamental particles - quanta. There are only certain quantities of things such as charge which can be exchanged. Every quantity of electrical charge you can measure is a multiple of 1.6 * 10-19 Coulombs, which is the charge on an electron.

If the electron is not a fundamental particle, then the quantum of charge is not 1.6 * 10-19, it's something smaller which we don't know (yet). I'm not sure myself if the models we have at the moment could be adapted to this (I did ask early in the thread) but I imagine it would make a significant impact.

[simonm]

But, how would the splitting of an electron effect things like the uncertainty principle and quantum randomness?

Are the principles of quantum mechanics dependant on their being any fundamental quantity of charge or does it have to be 1.6 * 10^19 ?

Does the splitting of an electron imply that there are 'underlying' patterns that explain the behaviour of what was previously thought of as 'random'? Does it imply that a sub-atomic particle has a definite state before it is 'measured'?

What I'm trying to assertain here is whether this could merely re-structure quantum mechanics (as we know it) or does it completely blow it out of the water? :confused:

[HarryW]

You're looking for the same answers as I was =)

[Guv]

I only have a vague understanding of quantum theory, so do not bet the ranch on what I say.

I do not think that quantum theory would be significantly hurt if the electron were dicovered to have some underlying structure. The discovery of quarks as building blocks for protons & neutrons did not undermine the uncertainty princliple or any other fundamental concept of quatum theory.

What would hurt quantum theory would be the discovery that an electron could be cut in half rather than decomposed into more fundamental particles. If you could cut it in half, there would be an implication that you could cut it into 1/3 & 2/3 or other fractions.

There is a fundamental difference between breaking an electron into two equal pieces (or two equivalent sub-particles) and breaking it into two or more different sub-particles. If it could be decomposed into a neutral particle and a charged particle, I do not think quantum theory would be seriously upset.

The decompostion of protons & neutrons into quarks almost implies structure to the electron. Quarks have charges which are 1/3 and 2/3 of the charge on the electron or proton. You get combinations like two charges of 2/3 and one of -1/3 to get a proton with a charge of one.

The above implies that the fundamental unit of charge is 1/3 not one, which suggest that maybe the elcetron is made of of particles with charge in multiples of 1/3 the electron charge.

[simonm]

Even if you could split an electron in half, does this imply that there are underlying patterns that govern the behaviour of an electron when they were previously thought to be random?

Does it mean that you can now measure two complementary properties of an electron with good accuracy?

Besides, even if you can somehow force and electron to splt 50/50, it doesn't mean that you can't assume that, in normal circumstances, it will always behave as if an electron is in-divisible, does it?