Quote from THHuxleynew
In (2) we have a charge rotating with no mechanism to make this happen. In the 1920s this was perfectly acceptable, when very little was understood. Now that we have very accurate predictive and coherent models for all the subatomic behaviour we can see you need a very large motivation to prefer a more complex model with a new magic force, no simple dynamics, no easy correspondence with QM. Spin as a spinor is beautifully simple. Spin as some composite object having not understood dynamics (why does the charge rotate, many other questions) even if identical behaviour can in the end be got from it is much more complex and therefore not attractive (sorry about the pun).
It isn't charge rotating. It's an electromagnetic wave rotating, in the guise of a "spinor". It looks like a standing wave, but there's angular momentum in there. A rotational Poynting vector.
GNUFDL spinor image by Slawkb, see Wikipedia.
As for you having a predictive model, it's all postdiction. As for magic force, messenger particles constitutes the magic force.
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In (3) we have a mechanism (clever) for the rotating charge - it is not charge, it is an e-m field with a twist. We then have a much worse complexity - how is this twisting and variable sized pocket of spacetime formed? How does it evolve? Why does it evolve. Why do we not see evidence of these spacetime pockets elsewhere? How can these low mass-energy high curvature regions so different from GR curvature relate to GR? Why do particle accelerator experiments, which bound electron size much lower than this, not detect the ring/torus? Or, if the ring is variable size, how does that work - yet more complexity.
Think of gamma-gamma pair production. You start with two electromagnetic field variations. You end up with two standing electromagnetic fields. Two "spinors". It isn't a "much worse complexity". A spinor is simply a wave going round and round, one that looks like a standing wave. Don't forget you can diffract the electron, and refract it. It has a crystal clear wave nature. Then in a magnetic field it goes round and round due to Larmor precession. That spin is real.
So is the high curvature, but I don't have hard scientific evidence for that. Just a pedigree that goes back to guys like Maxwell and Clifford. There's curvature because the photon is a wave in space. A gravitational field isn't a place where space is curved, it's a place where space is inhomogeneous. That's what Einstein said. Particle experiments don't detect a ring torus because the electron is a spindle-sphere torus. With a spherical symmetry. You inflate the flat strip to a ring torus, then you inflate that through the horn torus stage to the spindle-sphere stage.
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e-m fields, Maxwells eqns magic complexity ==> electron
Looks much more complex than what QFT does, which goes the other way:
electrons + virtual photons as force carriers ==> maxwells equations, e-m fields
Virtual particles don't exist. Charge is topological. Mass is resistance to change-in-motion for a wave in a closed path. it isn't complex. It just means the Standard Model is wrong on multiple counts. Which is why you're fighting shy of facing up to the electron.
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Especially because we get photons and electrons with their properties out of an "8-fold way" symmetry of particles all of which have now been discovered, and which have conserved quantities according to the symmetries. OK, there is quite a bit of complexity here because SU(2) is broken, but it is still a very very simple structure from which the properties of electrons and e-m fields can be derived.
Oh please, Huxley. The study of ephemera tells you nothing about the properties of photons and electrons and electromagnetic fields. You don't understand the first thing about the photon, or pair production, or the electron. Or the electromagnetic field. It has a "screw" nature you know. See Maxwell’s On Physical Lines of Force, and note this: “a motion of translation along an axis cannot produce a rotation about that axis unless it meets with some special mechanism, like that of a screw”.
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In addition - both (2) and (3) suffer from hand waving. They do not provide a precise, unique, calculable model of electron dynamics. If they did, a lot of precise checking could be done. They do not (AFAIK) even approximate the known QM wave packet properties - All that solid state physics stuff where electron orbitals can be calculated. I'll save the more specific and serious criticisms for later.
There's no hand waving in electron diffraction. Trying to dismiss the Davisson-Germer experiment and the Thomson and Reid diffraction experiment because they don't provide "a calculable model of electron dynamics" cuts no ice.
and their point-particle electron - that is more difficult, because point particle is simplest and works. No elaborate model makes different better predictions
It doesn't work because it flatly contradicts the hard scientific experiment.
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A mathematical technique can however enable understanding of physics through a rigorous mathematical model with calculable predictions.
No it can't. It obviously can't. Because the mathematical technique is based on a point-particle electron which is at odds with the evidence. Then you have to introduce virtual particles to fill the gap in your understanding with mysticism.
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And it is true that without mathematical understanding, you will never have complete physical understanding.
Sure. But the physics has to take priority. The experiment trumps the maths.
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You will never have a GUT. Not sure what is the point of that assertion?
You were waxing lyrical about GUTs. The point is that when you understand the forces you understand that they don't unify at high energy.
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That's not bad. Which means the electron isn't a point particle. N'est pas? Well it depends on what you mean by point particle. In QM - or QFT - all so-called point particles in finite space have indeterminate position, momentum. "Point particle" means that no internal structure can be observed - just the wave function. Sometimes particles that appear point particles reveal structure at higher energies than we have been able to probe of course. You can never rule that out.
I mean the wave nature of matter. The electron has a wave nature, not a point-particle nature. Its field is what it is. It isn't some speck that "has" a field, it is field. The diffractiona nd refraction experiments tell you it's a wave. It's structure is revealed the way it moves in a magnetic field. Something is going round and round. The g factor tells you it's going round twice. The lack of an electric dipole tells you is has a spherical geometry. And so on.