Perspectives on the Atom
Introduction
The workings of atoms can be described by “classical” and “modern” models. The classical model, originated by
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), considered that atoms were knots of swirling
vortices in a fluid that was the æther. The swirling vortices were what we
recognize today as electron motion. This classical model is seen as inadequate
by contemporary mainstream physics, which has vanquished the aether and replaced the classical
model with a modern “Standard Model of Particle Physics” (SMPP) theory, which addresses not only
electrons (quantum electrodynamics QED) but also the contents of the atomic nucleus
(quantum chromodynamics QCD) in terms of “particles”.
There is
still some basis of support for the classical (vortex) model.
This paper looks briefly at
different perspectives on the electron and atom.
Classical Theory: The Vortex
Particle Model
“Vortex”
ideas of particles in natural philosophy were explored in the 17th century by
Kepler, Descartes, Leibniz, and Huygens, in the 18th by Swedenborg and Boeković, and in the 19th by Ampere, Fresnel, Kelvin, Rankine, Tait,
and many others.
Ampere visualized the ultimate particles
as tiny electrical circuits. [1]
In 1867,
after observing Scottish physicist Peter Tait’s experiments involving smoke
rings, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) concluded that atoms were knots of
swirling vortices in a fluid that was the æther, and developed a vortex theory of atoms.
Tait
subsequently began listing unique knots in the belief that he was creating a
table of elements. He formulated what are now known as the Tait conjectures on
alternating knots, which were proved in the 1990s. Tait's knot tables were subsequently
improved upon by C. N. Little and Thomas Kirkman.
Tait's
experiments were inspired by Helmholtz's work on vortex-rings
in incompressible fluids.
When the luminiferous
æther fluid was not
detected in the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887, vortex theory went out of
vogue. [2]
In 1915, an
English visiting graduate student at Harvard, Alfred L. Parson, presented a model
of the electron, the "magneton", as a toroidal magnetic circuit. Parson intended to
improve on Bohr's famous 1913 model of the atom, which depicted electrons as
circulating point charges, by "smearing" the charge around the entire
circuit. [3]
Since “Classical” atomic theory did not concern itself with the contents
of the atomic nucleus, in essence, Parson’s Magneton theory of an electron was
a theory in support of a vortex theory of atoms.
Modern Electron Theory: The Particle
Wave Model: our experience or reality?
Quantum
mechanics shows that small particles also exhibit wave characteristics.[4]
De Broglie's explanation of
the Bohr atom quantization rules, together with the accidental discovery of
electron diffraction scattering by Davisson and Germer, make a very convincing
case for the wave nature of the electron.
Yet the electron certainly
behaves at times like a particle.
It
appears to have a definite mass, is associated with a definite charge, and can
travel through a piece of apparatus from a gun to a screen where its effects
can be observed.
Experiments
suggest that the electron “is” a particle. In 1920, Otto Stern and Walter
Gerlach designed an experiment, which unintentionally led to the discovery that
electrons have their own individual, continuous spin even as they move along
their orbital of an atom. Silver was put in an oven and vaporized. The result
was that silver atoms formed a beam that passed through a magnetic field in
which it split in two. An explanation of this is that an electron has a
magnetic field due to its spin. [5]
However,
the electron is certainly
not a particle in the traditional sense, as it cannot be restricted to a geometric
point in space. It cannot be directly observed [6]
and is best defined spatially as most likely being in certain regions of space
called orbitals,[7] around
the central nucleus. [8]
The atomic
orbital model is also known as the electron cloud or wave mechanics model.
The fundamental orbitals
Image from:
http://www.chemcomp.com/journal/molorbs.htm
Where a quantum
mechanical particle is bound, it must be localized as a wave packet, and the
existence of the packet and its minimum size implies a spread and minimal value
in particle wavelength, and thus also momentum and energy. [9]
The
founders of quantum mechanics cautioned against thinking of the electron as
either a particle or wave. Bohr argued that wave particle duality is
conceptual; that it reflects a fundamental feature of human thinking, a limit
of our conceptual ability.
Modern
Theory: The SMPP
Bohr, Heisenberg, and Pauli argued
against Einstein, de Broglio and Viennese physicist Schroedinger, insisting
that the object of scientific knowledge is not reality, which is a metaphysical
concept, but experience. Earnst Mach is
the recognized founder of this view, and especially attacked the idea that the
atomic theory meant that atoms were “real.” Mainstream physics enthusiastically
ignored Mach as well as the founders of quantum mechanics in embracing the SMPP
as “reality”. [10]
Looking inside the atomic nucleus, the current SMPP finds many
“fundamental particles”, including various quarks, leptons, and gluons. The
exact number appears to depend upon who is consulted,[11]
and when.
Classification is an issue in science in general and in particle physics
in particular. In the 1960s, particle accelerators had created in their
collisions 200 “elementary particles”. [12]
How do you classify them? Murray Gell-Mann and Yuval Ne’eman: organized
particles into 8 families (the 8 fold way). This was replaced by quantum
chromo-dymanics, where all particles are described by assuming six quarks and anti-quarks. Is the 8 fold way
artificial or natural? Are quarks artificial or natural, or are they both just
a way to classify? [13]
One instructor at the
It was already recognized in the 1930s that if we make an observation of
an elementary particle at Fermilab, using special highly technical equipment
[made for seeing particles], and we are making a scientific observation that
will go towards making a scientific explanation, that explanation is infected by the theory we are using to
generate the observation. [put anther way: we have a theory that matter is
particles, so we construct a machine that can see particles, which goes a long way
towards confirming our theory that we will see particles] [15]
Andrew Pickering [16]
is a very knowledgeable PhD in Physics who followed the history of elementary particle physics since World
War II. In his book Constructing Quarks:
A Sociological History of Particle Physics (1984)[17]
he argues that the experimental data
supporting the notion of “quarks” is intrinsically equivocal, and that theory dominates the data. When you look at
the outcome of an experiment with a particle accelerator to get data on which
to build your theory of elementary particles, you are already using a theory
that tells you what the data means, so there is a kind of circularity
associated with the experiment.
When researchers at Fermilab particle accelerator at
Further, since it has been experimentally proven that the observer’s
consciousness necessarily effects the results of an experimental outcome, one
cannot dis-prove that the “discovered” particles, Quarks, Higgs, etc were created
by the multiple observers consciousness.
D.L.
Hotson argues against the credibility of the SMPP: [19]
According
to him, the principle
criteria for a successful scientific theory would seem to include:
It should embody as few “entities”
as possible;
It should have few adjustable
parameters;
It should be mathematically
consistent;
It should satisfy all of the known
data;
It should obey causality: every
effect should have a proximate cause, with no “action at a distance.”;
It should
be falsifiable, making testable predictions;
The
author holds that all 6 criteria are violated by the current SMPP. The major problems are that:
SMPP
is not simple: by the
end of the 20th century, the SMPP called for
around thirty-six “fundamental” particles, most with an
antiparticle, and each with its very own “field”: again almost one hundred separate entities, to generate three
entities; the electron, proton, and neutron, which are the building blocks of
the 92 elements. (ibid)
SMPP requires
19 adjustable parameters (ibid)
SMPP is not
mathematically consistent: (ibid)
The SM
calculations of many ordinary values come out to be infinite. To get rid of this “impossible
result, “renormalization” is invoked: the positive infinity is, in effect,
divided by a negative infinity. Richard Feynman, who
originated the “renormalization” process (with Schwinger and Tomonaga), himself
called it a “. . . a dippy process!” [20]Asked
for what he had won the Nobel Prize, Feynman replied, “For sweeping them [the
infinities] under the rug.” [21](ibid)
Gordon Kane
[22] notes: “In its basic form, the
Standard Theory is a theory for massless particles. All the leptons, quarks,
and bosons must be particles without mass, or the mathematical consistency of
the theory is destroyed. The photon and the gluons indeed have no mass, but the
others do.” If values for mass are just inserted into the equations, then
calculations start to give infinite values for many ordinary measurements.
(ibid)
Rather than account for the mass directly, the SMPP
model dredges up yet another subatomic particle, the Higgs Boson, and a new
“Higgs” theory, to account for the mass. [23]
The modern view to the problem of the electron mass
is that pioneered by Wheeler and Feynman according to which it is not of
electromagnetic origin but entirely mechanical. [24]
Cardone et al have their theory of the cause of electron mass. [25]
Alternative Physics Returns to the Vortex
Electron Model
Now, in the early years of the 21st century, some physicists have developed an interest in
modeling of the electron as a vortex, and returned to Tait’s concept of a table
of the elements based on vortices.
There appear to be several reasons for doing so. One reason is that
particle electrons appear to accelerate without radiating energy. According to
the known laws of physics, accelerating charge must radiate, yet in Bohr's
famous 1913 model, as in all point particle models, electrons mysteriously
accelerate without radiation. According to “worldsci.org/topics/structure”, the
non-radiation of moving point charge electrons has been swept under the rug by
the entrenched authoritarian physics community, or “big physics”, with the
mantra that quantum physics behaves by a different set of rules than classical
physics. A circular, or vortex model of electrons would explain why they
normally do not radiate energy.
According to “world science.org”, most structuralists now claim that the
known properties of “elementary particles” can be determined by the manner in
which the various circuits, or vortices, that is, electrons comprising
particles, intertwine; that is, by their "knottedness". By applying a
set of rules consistently, some structuralists have reproduced not only
properties of particles, but hundreds of characteristics throughout the
periodic table. [26]
However, according to Cardone et al, classical
electron theory (represented by the work of by Abraham, Lorentz and Poincaré) considered
the mass of the electron as of purely electromagnetic origin, and the basic
flaw of this theory is that it violates the Ernshaw theorem, which states that
it is impossible to have a stationary nonneutral charge distribution held
together by purely electric forces.
Cardone also argues that a purely electromagnetic
model of the electron implies the occurrence of infinities, but then points out
that such infinities can be “removed” by means of the renormalization procedure,
which is what was done in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) in support of the SMPP.
[27]
Several
recent 3-D vortex electron models capture some but not
all of the electron’s known physical characteristics:
The
Spinning Charged Ring model [28]
is based on classical electrodynamics, and is consistent with the electron’s
spin and its magnetic moment (to the second order approximation). This extremely
thin charged ring (its main radius is the Compton wavelength divided by 2 pi
and its ring radius is about 10 –200 meters [29]
spins at the speed of light. This model is missing a major characteristic of
the electron–its experimentally observed deBroglie wavelength.
The
Compton Radius Vortex model [30]
describes the electron as a relativistic vortex rotating at the speed of light,
whose radius is the
The
Space Resonance model [32]
is also related to the
The resurgence of an interest in “knottedness” and vortex theory is
based in part on a new way of thinking about
potentials and the “aether”.
The Dirac
Model of Particle Physics
Hotson notes that the Dirac Particle Model, ie the Dirac Relativistic
Wave Equation, may be interpreted such
that the entire table of elements can be accounted for by four distinct types
of electrons: positive energy electron-positron pairs, and negative energy
electron-positron pairs. He
argues that the conventional positive energy electron and positron do not
collide and annihilate one another, but rather orbit one another and fall into a “sea” of
negative-energy, neutral, spin-zero bosons.
Starting with the simplest mathematically represented quantum
field, particles emerge as
quanta of that field,
consistent with Gribbin’s comment: “In the quantum
world a field must give rise to particles.” This simplest quantum field describes
as its quanta neutral, spin-zero bosons, exactly what is called for in the
Dirac sea of negative energy.
Hotson
states that Heisenberg rejected the idea of negative energy, on Machian
grounds, and asserts that the Dirac Equation resolves all of the problems with the SMPP,
and provides simple, logical, and natural models of the electromagnetic field,
the “photon,” the “strong nuclear” force, the Y wave, inertia, and gravitation. The
“photon” is an electromagnetic wave, carried by electron-positron pairs, which
have emerged from the sea of negative energy. [33]
Since Dirac’s particle electron and positron orbit one another, It seems
that Dirac’s Particle Model is incompatible with the Vortex Ring Model.
The Aether
The notion of a static Aether, a mechanical, jelly-like substance, finds
its classical origins in
At first
aether theories were attempts to explain mechanically various optical laws and
optical phenomena. Later, with the development of Maxwell’s electromagnetic
theory of light, some scientists tried to formulate these theories to explain
Maxwell’s theory and how this theory could be reconciled with Newtonian
mechanics.
Since light exhibited wave properties, the waves were thought to travel
in a "signal-carrying medium" (just as waves of sound or waves in
water require a molecular medium).
However, physicists today ask: if light is
propagated as a wave in the aether, how does quantization of light and
absorption spectra occur? [34]
The aether
approach was embraced by highly regarded scientists, such as Young, Maxwell, Kelvin, Lodge, and Lorentz,
and
offered a
means of applying Lagrangian and later Hamiltonian forms of mechanics to optics
and electromagnetism, as a sort of unified field theory. [35]
The aether
also played a significant role in the evolution of ideas about time and space.
Serious
difficulties arose in developing a consistent aether theory to account for
stellar aberration; the partial dragging of light waves by moving transparent
media, and the null result of the 1887 Case Western Michaelson Morley interferometer
experiment. To accommodate this null result, Fitzgerald and Lorentz proposed a
contraction hypothesis in which the length of an object depended on its
velocity through the aether. Soon after, Lorentz and Larmor developed other
compensating effects, including an alteration in time, all of which succeeded
in accounting for the absence of any aether wind effects.
Einstein,
knowing of the null effects of the aether drift experiments, and being aware of
Lorentz’ transformation ideas, took the revolutionary step of elimination of
the notion of an aether rest frame, resulting in a simple and consistent EM
theory. [36]
Schaffner
writes that the tasks of the 19th century aether are adequately fulfilled
by fields, which transform in complete accord with Lorentz’ transformations. [37]
So, could fields then be aether like?
The vacuum itself has apparently been found to contain energy. The Dirac Equation, foundation for Quantum Electro
Dynamics (QED), predicted what is called the
Schaffner
confirms that PAM Dirac proposed that this sea of negative energy state
electrons might well be considered an aether.
In QED this invisible sea of energy has been identified as the
Zero-Point Field, (ZPF) which is packed with virtual particles.
This vacuum energy, either negative or virtual, has become for some the
“New Aether”.
Schaffner
observes that in the preface to his monolog, ET Whittaker [40]
argued on QED grounds that the aether was a viable concept: “with the
development of QED, the vacuum has come to be regarded as the seat of the
’zero-point’ oscillations of the EM
field, of the ‘zero-point’ fluctuations of electric charge and current, and of
a ‘polarization’ corresponding to a non-unity dielectric constant… It seems
absurd to retain the name “vacuum” for an entity so rich in physical properties.”
[41]
Glenn Starkman,
ironically from Case Western, and colleagues Tom Zlosnik and Pedro Ferreira of
the University of Oxford have resurrected the aether concept in a new form in an attempt to solve the
puzzle of dark matter, the mysterious substance that was proposed to explain
why galaxies seem to contain much more mass than can be accounted for by
visible matter. They posit an aether that is a field, rather than a substance, and which
pervades space-time. "If you removed everything else in the universe, the aether [as the zero point field] would still be there," says
Zlosnik. (However, issues have
developed in
assuming the Zero Point Field, also known as the cosmological
constant, in accounting for dark matter [42])
It has been shown that the magnetic vector
potential, A, and electrostatic potential, J, are more fundamental than the
electric and magnetic fields, since these fields can be mathematically derived
from the potentials. [43]
The website Montalk.net alleges that since there is
only one fundamental EM field; the magnetic vector potential field A, an
“aether” medium is indeed needed for the electromagnetic field to propagate. [44]
ANU
Interestingly, in the esoteric tradition, as represented by Charles
Leadbeater, Annie Besant, and the Theosophists in the book Occult Chemistry
(1919), the most fundamental particles were described as positive and negative
stringed vortices of energy, called “Anu”; the “ultimate atom”. The word is
Sanskrit for atom or molecule, and a title of Brahma. Needless to say, this
concept of stringed vortices was not the product of advanced mathematics, as
was string theory.
“Anu”;
the “ultimate atom” [45]
These purported structures would
correspond to the hypothetical constituents of quarks, given the “Russian doll”
nature of matter. [46]
In 1974, physicists Jogesh Pati and Abdus Salam speculated that a small
family of particles they called preons could explain the proliferation of
quarks and leptons. Although not
currently in favor with many physicists, the preon idea has not been ruled out.
In 1999, Johan Hansson and his coworkers proposed that three types of preons
would suffice to build all the known quarks and leptons. [47]
B.G. Sidharth, of the Centre for Applicable Mathematics & Computer
Sciences in India, and developer of the Compton Radius Vortex model of the
electron writes: “The physical picture is now clear: A particle can be pictured
as a [quantum black hole] fluid vortex which is steadily circulating along a
ring (or in three dimensions, a spherical shell) with radius equal to the
Compton wavelength and with velocity equal to that of light.”
Alternative physicist Frank D. (Tony) Smith, Jr. has used precisely the
Leadbeater Theosophist figure of Anu to portray the Compton Radius Vortex. [48]
Appendix 1
Toroid,
Vortex, and Knot
An important set of interrelated geometric figures are the toroid,
vortex, and knot.
ß-----|-----à
2R
|-r-|
Image from http://www.harmonicresolution.com/Toroidal%20Space.htm
A “Torus” is simply a donut shape,
which may be of several types, including ring, horn, or spindle.
As the distance 2R between the two circular “donut” cross sections of
radius r decreases, the ring torus becomes a spindle
torus, and when the distance 2R becomes zero, degenerates into a sphere of
radius r. When the circular cross section of radius r is zero, the torus devolves
into the circle of radius R, or a vortex. [49]
In precise mathematical language, a knot is an embedding of a circle in
3-dimensional Euclidean space. A circle is a trivial knot. [50]
A vortex ring, also called a toroidal vortex,
is a region of rotating fluid (or energy) moving through the
same or different fluid where the flow pattern takes on a toroidal shape. The
movement of the fluid is about the poloidal or circular axis of the doughnut, in
a twisting vortex motion. For example, a smoke ring.
Vortex rings were first mathematically analysed by the
German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz,
in his paper of 1867 On Integrals of the Hydrodynamical Equations which
Express Vortex-motion.[51]