[General] Reply to Chip on particle radius & spin

Mon Jan 16 06:08:40 PST 2017

Hi Chip (et al.),

Thanks for your response to my comments.  I've put my replies to your points within your text, in blue.

Grahame

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chip Akins 
  To: 'Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion' 
  Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2017 1:04 PM
  Subject: Re: [General] Reply to Chip on particle radius & spin

  Hi Dr Grahame Blackwell

  You have made some good points. 

  At one time I thought the electron was composed of a circulating photon which had its spin altered so that the negative portion of the electric field lines always point outward.

  It's my firm view that all of the features of an electron can be accounted for without introducing any special unexplained modifications to structure of a photon (Occam's razor applies here) - even its cyclic motion, once initiated by whatever circumstances (and I propose such in my first Kybernetes paper), can IMO be accounted for by self-interference in its electromagnetic fields.  Likewise the electric 'charge' on an electron is necessarily an artefact of its formative photon's electromagnetic charge; John W / Martin vdM and I agree that this requires that photon to be circularly polarised, I propose (they don't) that polarisation in the opposite sense gives a positron structure - I also explain in my papers, books and recorded presentations how this fully explains cosmic particle/antiparticle disparity of abundance.  'Having spin altered' isn't something I'd go for, for the simple reason that it the requires explanation, simply deferring the problem of charge rather than explaining it.

  I am no longer of that opinion. There are several reasons for the change of opinion. Just as there are several reasons I changed my opinion about SR.

  The energy configuration of the electron is different from that of a confined photon in several ways. There is no reason to hold onto the full energy configuration of the photon when modeling the electron, in fact it leads to difficulties and errors in my opinion.  It seems that the laws which govern the movement of energy in space support a few simple configurations.  The electron's rest mass/energy comes from the threshold which space imposed on this specific configuration of energy.

  I'm not sure what you're saying here.  The energy content of an electron is, of course, the same as the energy in its formative photon - conservation of energy requires this.  There are also various other considerations supporting this.  I fully agree that there are limited configurations of 'localised energy' - aka 'particles' - and the electron is one of these (again, my texts go into this in more detail).  I'd also agree that the rest mass of an electron (and also its effective mass at any speed) is a consequence of its energetic structure - in fact mass is the resistance to reconfiguring that structure into the helical form of a moving particle; this is the subject of my first published paper on this subject, it's also the basis on which I derive E = mc^2  quite independently of SR.

  Yes. The concept of radius is potentially misleading when discussing the electron simply because it consists of a set of fields with a finite focus point. But we are able to calculate the mean transport radius of the momentum density, which is confined and rotating, and which would yield a spin angular momentum of ½. If we assume the energy in the electron to display the same momentum as the energy in the photon of the same energy, then this is a pretty simple calculation.

  We need to be very careful here to distinguish between linear & angular momentum.  If a model glider is flying towards me and I throw a baseball at it, the linear momentum of the baseball can impart a combination of linear and angular momentum to that glider: it can be pushed onto a different trajectory and also put into a spin.

  At the formation of an electron from a photon - as in classical e+/e- pair production - linear momentum is conserved by that pair having the same net linear momentum as the two formative photons.  It's abundantly clear, though, that a static electron does NOT have the same linear momentum as the photon that it's formed from would have if it were moving linearly - the former is zero, the latter is not.  This is because the net momentum of that confined photon is in fact zero in that cyclic state: motion in opposite directions on opposite sides of the cycle balance out.  In a moving electron, by contrast, there IS non-zero momentum: the linear component of momentum in the helical photon motion precisely matches the linear momentum of the electron.  That's the message of the 'relativistic' energy-momentum relation

  I am not sure the idea that the momentum internal to the electron remains constant when the electron is accelerated is correct. When we accelerate the electron we add energy to the electron.  The energy we add is added directly to the energy which is already in the electron. The new momentum term with energy added is still Total Energy/c, so we now have more momentum, which means the radius must be smaller to yield spin ½.

  As I've just observed above, the energy, and hence momentum, of the photon increases with increasing electron speed - but (as I said previously) that increase is fully accounted for by the momentum of the moving electron itself; it doesn't ALSO increase the angular momentum (spin) of the electron - you can't have it both ways!

  The fundamental issue here is conversion of linear momentum of the photon into angular momentum AND linear momentum of the electron.  If we allow for the electron diameter to be unchanged AND the cyclic component of the photon's linear momentum to also remain unchanged, then the spin factor for the electron is likewise unchanged.  What DOES change in line with the increased linear momentum of the photon is the linear momentum of the electron.  [Note that this is not a simple scalar addition: the cyclic motion component of the photon is orthogonal to the linear motion of the electron, so also to the linear-motion component of the higher-energy photon; it's a Pythagorean calculation.]

  Consider that space only allows electrons to exist at rest at a specific rest energy. Any electron with more energy than this is moving. In fact space requires an electron with a specific amount of energy (above the rest energy) to always move at the same speed. The law of inertia is built into the particle. The confined propagation pattern of the energy in the electron is altered from the rest condition by the addition of energy. Once energy is added the electron must move, it can no longer be at rest. So the added energy becomes part of the energy in the electron. Which in turn increases the momentum of the energy in the electron.

  Yes, it increases the total linear momentum of the electron - but NOT its angular momentum.  Back to that glider for a moment: if we threw a second baseball at it as it's now spinning through the air and we happen to hit it dead-centre so that we don't change its rate of spin, the momentum of that second baseball could be totally converted into increased LINEAR momentum of the spinning glider.

  It seems this increase in energy must therefore also do two things. 1) Increase the confinement force due to increased energy. 2) Reduce the radius to maintain a spin ½ configuration.

  I hope I've made it clear that the radius doesn't need to reduce in order to remain at spin-1/2 with increased photon momentum (since that increase is totally taken up in imparting LINEAR momentum to the electron - in fact, if the radius were decreased this would have the dual effect of (a) reducing spin below spin-1/2 and (b) increasing electron velocity disproportionately, in conflict with the well-verified energy-momentum relation.

  This issue of the confinement force seems to be of great importance.  For Planck's rule to hold, E=hv, there must be a force related to energy.  This force is simply the equal and opposite reaction of space which opposes the displacement which energy causes. Such a force clearly defines a particle confinement mechanism.

  I've previously proposed that the confinement mechanism is in fact internal self-interference by the electromagnetic fields of the photon itself.  If the frequency of that photon increases then that interference effect will also increase in direct proportion.  The nature of that confinement will also change by virtue of the fact that the photon trajectory is extended into a helix.  IMO these two factors are quite sufficient to deal with the situation.

  I could continue, but this email would become quite lengthy.

  We haven't yet discussed the impact of the angular momentum of the photon itself, that's clearly relevant.  I'll be addressing that issue in my response to Richard's latest email.

  Thank you for your thoughts and insight.  I have looked at this issue from so many different perspectives but still find it fascinating.  For now I still feel there are very many indications that the radius of the electron must contract with velocity. I am not yet able to see how the pieces could all fit any other way.

  And no, I do not think there is a photon inside an electron.  I think the energy of an electron can be released and become a photon. But you can't change the configuration of the energy of a photon, convert it to an electron, and have it still be a photon.

  I wouldn't disagree with you on that - mainly because it depends on how one uses the terminology.  It's certainly true that the energetic configuration of an electron is quite different from that of a free-flying photon.  [I note that Chandra also doesn't consider an electron to be a photonic structure, so you're in good company!]  But if one defines a photon simply as a packet of energy configured as a transverse electromagnetic waveform, and allows for the possibility of that waveform to be distorted by non-linear interference effects (as arguably it is in diffraction, refraction and even gravitational lensing), then an electron is simply another configuration of a photon defined in those terms.

  Thoughts?

  Chip

  From: General [mailto:general-bounces+chipakins=gmail.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of Dr Grahame Blackwell
  Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2017 5:41 PM
  To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion <general at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org>
  Subject: [General] Reply to Chip on particle radius & spin

  Chip et al.,

  With reference to your notes below on particle radius and spin: theyre's more to say on the whole radius thing, which I will hopefully add shortly, but I feel I should respond to your notes since I said "a few days" almost a week ago.

  It's been noted by others and myself before that a photon-formed electron will have spin (/ angular momentum) by virtue of (a) the momentum of the photon acting cyclically, and (b) the angular momentum of the photon itself.  One apparent anomaly is that, as the speed of the electron increases towards c, the formative photon becomes increasingly linear, being fully linear at that limiting speed (which can of course only be theoretical, a limiting state never reached); this creates the apparent anomaly that, in the limit, the electron will have at least the full spin-1 of its formative photon.  Even at much lesser electron speeds the photon's own spin component must be a consideration.

  The only possiblility by which this could be nullified (since I think we're all agreed that a static electron will have spin-1/2 just by virtue of the photon's linear momentum) is that the formation of the electron must surely cancel out that photon spin component, either by the cyclic motion of the photon acting in the opposite sense or by a rotation (spinning motion), in the opposite sense, of the electron itself.  This has to be left for further thought (I have some thoughts on it) - but it clearly doesn't add to the spin of the electron which, as agreed, is 1/2 just from photon linear momentum.

  Back to that momentum-induced spin: the static electron has spin-1/2 due to photon linear momentum.  As the electron moves, progressively faster, the momentum of that photon increases due to increasing electron speed (and so increasing photon frequency).  BUT - and this is the absolutely crucial point - the motion of that photon is now helical, a combination of cyclic and linear.  ONLY the cyclic component of that photon momentum will contribute to electron spin (/ angular momentum) - the linear component manifests as the linear momentum of the electron itself, gamma m v (where m is rest-mass); that cyclic component is Eo/c - WHATEVER the speed of the electron - this is quite apparent from the 'relativistic' energy-momentum relation.  In other words, in order to maintain that spin-1/2 for the electron, the radius of the electron also has to be kept constant, as the cyclic linear-momentum component of the formative photon is similarly constant.  If the radius of the electron is reduced then its angular momentum (/ spin) will be reduced in direct proportion.  This analysis totally supports the view that electron diameter remains invariant (which is also supported by other considerations - more on that later).

  [In brief: to regard the full increased momentum of the higher-frequency photon as contributing to electron angular momentum is an over-simplification.]

  As Albrecht and others have observed in recent posts, experimental evidence interpreted as electron diameter is at best an indication of cross-section of effective consequences; diameter inferred from such experimental readings cannot be taken as a definitive statement of particle size - there is clearly a lot of 'wiggle room' (literally!) in this.  The observations above on invariant electron spin would appear to be rather more precisely definitive.

  With regard to the 'relativistic' effective total mass of the moving particle, I'd wholly agree that this is gamma m (where m is again rest-mass) - but we don't need to go via spin considerations to get to that, it's implicit in the raised frequency of that formative photon, in line with E = mc^2 {which again is not at all dependent on SR - but that's another story].

  Best regards,

  Grahame

  ----- Original Message ----- 

  From: Dr Grahame Blackwell 

  To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion 

  Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2017 10:10 PM

  Subject: Re: [General] On particle radius

  Hi Chip,

  Many thanks indeed for your succinct and well-presented case ('succinct' is clearly a useful word in this discussion - as well as a good strategy!).

  I need to go through this carefully and thoroughly and see how it relates to my own understanding of the situation.  As we're all agreed, we all have things to learn from each other and (here I DO agree with Vivian's metaphor) each have some aspect of the elephant (in the room?) to contribute.  I'm really looking forward to considering what you've said below and hopefully assimilating it into a fuller understanding on my own part of the issues that need to be taken into consideration.

  I'll come back to you when I've processed it thoroughly (may take a few days) and have some thoughts to offer.

  Thanks again,

  Grahame

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Chip Akins 

    To: 'Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion' 

    Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2017 9:22 PM

    Subject: Re: [General] On particle radius

    Hi Dr Graham Blackwell

    I like the way you clearly and succinctly write.

    Let me explain some of the reasons why I feel the radius of the electron decreases with velocity.

    In order to accelerate the electron at rest, we must apply energy (force through distance).

    The only way to apply energy to the electron, when we get down to the basis, is to add energy to its existing confined wave structure.  Planck's rule suggests that this confined wave structure with energy added has a wavelength which is (h c)/E. If this is the case and the momentum of this wave remains p=E/c, then in order to be a spin ½ hbar particle, it seems the electron must have a radius which is r = (h c)/(4 pi E). Where E is the new total energy with velocity throughout this paragraph.

    Then when we calculate the mass of this particle from its confined momentum (as Richard has pointed out) we get the expected relativistic (total) mass of the moving particle. m = E/(r w c) = E/c^2= E Eo Uo. Which is exactly equivalent to m = y m. [where w = c/r (angular frequency)].

    This is the only scenario I have found where all of the expected parameters are accommodated, and I have searched extensively for other possibilities.

    We also note that the scattering cross-section of an electron at relativistic velocities is very small, and agrees with these assumptions quite well.

    In order for the electron radius to remain the same size with velocity I think we have to ignore things which seem quite important, and these specific things appear to be required in order to tie several of the pieces of the puzzle together. It seems the picture is just not complete unless the radius of the electron is reduced with velocity.

    Thoughts?

    Chip

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