What exactly is "spin"?

Because the overall state of an atom is linked to it’s electrons and protons/neutrons therefore, hence the energy is absorbed by the whole atom.

It isn’t like that, Mr Anderson. Typically the electron and positron fly away from the atom with some considerable velocity. See for example iop.org/activity/education/P … _5442.html which talks about particle tracks:

Thanks. That’s a bit of information I’ve been looking for for some time. What is so interesting about string theory that keeps this out of circulation? Do you think stringtheory is viable, or valuable to the field of physics?

I read that quarks consist of some kind of color shifting. Is that comparable in any way with the light trapped in an electron? I mean in the sense of being trapped my some mechanism, and by collision released?

No I think it’s valuable to modelling chaotic systems but not directly to physics.

Colour really has no direct corelation with light as such it’s just the same with flavour of quark ie up, down, charm, strange, top, bottom, it’s just a term to denote they come in varieties, in the case of colour it is commonly denoted by red green and blue and the anti particles being anti each respectively. They also have different charges and share the same 1/2 integer spin as other fermions. Colours can shift and mediate the strong force that binds the particle together, the colours always remain neutral or white within a fermion or baryon, hence red/green/blue.

Light isn’t trapped in an electron nor does it exist as anything but energy emission or absorption. the mechanism is explained by electromagnetism although obviously the strong force takes part in all other force interactions although to a very limited extent in gravity.

I wouldn’t say it was string theory per se, Jakob. It’s more of a ongoing conflict between mathematical physics and experimental physics. If you look at say New Scientist and compare it with the Institute of Physics website physicsworld.com/cws/home, it’s as if they’re talking about two different subjects. New Scientist says “string theory is the only game in town”, but string theory is hardly mentioned on the IOP website. I think string theory has been a disaster for physics.

No, it’s something different. See hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HB … adron.html.

Mr Anderson: the electron is quite literally made from light via pair production. It really is. Annihilate it, and the result is light. So whilst you don’t currently read that it’s made of “trapped light” in textbooks or on the internet, I’m confident that one day you will. You have to look to the scientific evidence. And when you look at proton/antiproton annihilation, you can say the same for the proton. I mean, it’s hardly made of cheese, now is it? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(cheese) .

Not a disaster there a just a hell of a lot of physicists twiddling their thumbs atm. String theory is used in materials science and various environmental systems, so it isn’t useless except to physics itself or in what it claims to be: a theory of everything. it’s what happens when you give a pure mathemetician too much wiggle room and start believing imaginative fiction is science.

New Scientist aims to sell copies, it is like SciAm a popularist science mag, so it goes with what is popular or interesting to its mostly lay audience. As you can see though science is turning on string theory and slowly people are getting that message, as they do NS will start to publish more and more articles that attack string theory, being as they are a follower of trends in science. It is the nature of the beast, as you say if you want rigorous science rather that imaginative and entertaining fluff then read physics world et al. You have to remember that the cover story sells issues, so saying something like the universe is a computer programme on the cover sells copies, there are more rigorous articles in there too. It appeals to the widest possible audience which also happens to contain the happy clapper string theorist adherents.

Noted, Mr Anderson. But shucks, I still think they’re pushing too much snake oil and woo.

Thanks for the insights, Farsight. This is well beyond what I expected when I started the thread.

Spin then seems to be the mechanism by which matter exists, and light the essential nature of existence.

Could be? Frankly we’re at kind of an impasse atm, because we can’t experimentally see light as it is. So Farsight might be right, anyone could be atm; it’s a very exciting time to be alive in science. There are some things we can discount string theory for example, but others more background dependant appear to carry at least an outside chance of being true. Watch this space.

Now I’ll go on record saying in my opinion Farsight’s wrong, but what I can’t do is prove it. And likewise atm all interpretational issues are pretty much philososophical. I’ve talked to Farsight in PM and he agrees, his views are atm not theory. So I have no problem with looking at things on the level of the philosophical. This is after all a philosophy forum.

The thing is Mr Anderson, that in pair production we really do make electrons out of light. And electrons really do have angular momentum. Plus, they don’t zip past you at c. Whilst that might not constitute a theory, I’d say it’s not so much philosophical as cut and dried.

What views? He only communicated certain facts.
In this case the facts are so far reaching that they seem to make elaborate theory somewhat redundant. Especially striking when this is seen to the background of string theory.

I posted on a physics subforum because I only wanted to know how things work, not why. If you see a philosophical angle, what is it?

" what exactly is " spin " ?

is the confinement of energy within mass

for if energy is not confined then there is no rotation , the energy would move straight ahead

Interpretational issues.

We both agree energy is the fundamental unit of all matter in the universe, his ideas go a little further than that though.

It’s not hard to make string theory redundant, it’s name does that, it is not a theory.

Which interpretational issues? Be concrete please.

What we are discussing here is light, not energy.

Energy is a broader term. Everyone knows by now that matter is made of it, we know it by Einsteis definition of E, for example. But the mechanism of translation is not explained. That mechanism is what is being addressed. If you have any knowledge about it (I dont mean knowledge of which magazine sells and why, but of physics - and by that I dont mean writing a post full of names and references, but explanations of mechanisms) you are invited to share it.

Not rather the confinement of energy as mass?

I am wondering in which terms this straight-moving energy can be defined, besides light.

Light is either a group of photons or a single photon, which do you mean?

Everything is energy, matter is energy in a different but analagous form.

I have an explanation of the model it’s called the standard model. It’s not twists and bends, it is just spin. Beyond that is purely philosophical atm. Ask Farsight it’s his “theory” but he goes beyond just light is energy and matter is equivalent. This we all understand and accept, we also except that the photon is the smallest quanta of energy that can exist as a whole “particle”. These are not revelations, these are what science agrees on atm.

Jakob: there are interpretational issues everywhere you look in physics. What tends to happen is that one particular interpretation becomes the consensus, and alternative interpretations are described as “wrong”. But it isn’t black and white, the consensus interpretation might not be wholly correct, and the “wrong” interpretation might not be wholly wrong. For example if you read about the standard model, you’ll be told that protons and neutrons are made of quarks. See for example springerlink.com/content/b121n578740ux17m/ and look at the free preview. Neutrinos muddy the water a little, but in essence, what you get, is light. Note that I’m not against the standard model. Instead I consider it to be incomplete, and burdened by some interpretational issues that have hampered its completion.

From the perspective of matter=light+mechanism, the quark seems to be part of the mechanism by which substance is kept together - by which light is trapped. It is not retrieved, only perceived, right? I mean it can’t be distilled, so to speak, from the nucleus, or can it? How can they even observe a quark, now that I really think about it?

Relativity is about to go out the window! …““There is a growing sense that the properties of the universe are best described not by the laws that govern matter but by the laws that govern information…”

“By exploiting the quantum energy fluctuations in entangled particles, physicists may be able to inject energy in one particle, and extract it in another particle located light-years away.” Re:: physorg.com/news184597481.html

How does one go about extracting energy from a particle light years away? Or does it only mean that this would in theory be possible because of entanglement?
What has changed in relation to what Anthem posted? Have there been successful expieriments?