The discovery of the microworld presented a serious trial for many systems of views held by mankind, including its logic. This world was found to lack the familiar solid bodies, the unchanging particles and interrelations between them, the reflection of which, in one way or another, is the logic of the macroscopic world. What elementary particle physics encountered in the microscopic world seemed illogical: the rest-mass of a particle equals zero; a part that is not smaller than the whole; a particle that in diffraction experiments moved like a wave; and much else that was unusual and strange in the properties of elementary particles. One of these properties was actually so named by physicists — "strangeness."
The discovery of the microworld presented a serious trial for many systems of views held by mankind, including its logic. This world was found to lack the familiar solid bodies, the unchanging particles and interrelations between them, the reflection of which, in one way or another, is the logic of the macroscopic world. What elementary particle physics encountered in the microscopic world seemed illogical: the rest-mass of a particle equals zero; a part that is not smaller than the whole; a particle that in diffraction experiments moved like a wave; and much else that was unusual and strange in the properties of elementary particles. One of these properties was actually so named by physicists — "strangeness."
It is difficult to venture into the world of the ultimately small, or even to talk about it, without a very good understanding of the laws of Nature that govern that world. The forces one finds there determine the way in which the tiny particles we wish to study move about, and also all their other properties. Whether, and how, we can actually observe them will also depend on these forces. And this is not easy, because the laws of Nature are complicated. More and more experts in this field seek refuge in a kind of mathematical gibberish no ‘normal’ person can follow, unless he or she belongs to the in-crowd. To really appreciate the rock-solid logic of the laws of physics, one actually cannot avoid math. Nonetheless, we physicists feel the need to share the joy of all our beautiful discoveries with whoever wants to listen. We are advised then to avoid all math. This then is what I shall reluctantly do. It is my intention to provide a narrative of twenty-five years of research on the very tiniest particles of matter. During those twenty-five years, I began to view Nature as an intelligence test to which humanity as a whole has been subjected, as a giant jigsaw puzzle given to us to play with. Time and again, we stumble upon new pieces, large or small, that fit beautifully with those we already have. I want to share with you the sense of triumph we feel at such moments.
The distinctive features of the properties and conditions of research into phenomena of the microworld relative to investigations into phenomena of the macroworld created so strong an impression in important circles that people have even begun to speak of a special logic of the microworld (a logic of microphysics, a logic of quantum mechanics) differing fundamentally from that familiar logic which came into being on the basis of the study of phenomena of the macroscopic world. The reader can find information about this in the works of Kuznetsov (1), Piatnitsyn (2), and the present author. (3)
The concept of the elementary particle, a small, cannon-ball-like component of matter is an abstraction. Many of the properties of one elementary particle, the electron, for example, can be visualised as if the electron really is a small bullet; it has properties of speed, momentum and mass. There are now nearly one hundred elementary particles each with different properties and each with some aspects of a small bullet and each with other complementary properties. Mind, machinery and matter are an indivisible whole in which we are forced by virtue of logic and reason to work. The physicist’s current view of nature is that mind is connected with matter; matter is composed largely of space with constant movements and change occurring in that space. Most of the work was based also on fiendishly difficult mathematics and not on supposition alone.
Abstract In the first quarter of this century physicists were slowly and somewhat reluctantly forced to realize that the view of the physical world, so painstakingly built up over the preceding four centuries, was in serious need of revision. In particular, the laws that governed the motion of particles on the atomic scale were not those of classical mechanics. Physics found itself catapulted into the strange new world of quantum theory in which the very notion of position or velocity of a particle became blurred and statistical laws dominated everything.
More than a hundred years ago, a series of discoveries, especially in physics, began to subtly (or maybe not) reveal some mysterious properties of matter, properties that in some fashion or other were not acceptable to our established way of perceiving Reality. Strangely enough, these properties were not taken seriously by science because they pointed to a reality that seemed too fantastical to be true, a reality that seemed to have no substance or permanence. These so called mysterious properties matter, for lack of a better word, turn out to be fundamentally related to the following discoveries: The ambiguous wave-particle duality. As in de Broglie matter-waves and the Compton properties of particles. The ubiquitous appearance of the cycle constant (τ=2π=C⁄r) in physical mathematical relations. The general applicability of the Fourier Transform to represent/model physical motion and other natural processes. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and its mysterious constraint between conjugate variables, momentum and position for example. Quantum Mechanics and its collapse of the wavefunction. The surprising mass-energy equivalence. As in Einstein’s E=mc^2. The perplexing isotropy of the speed of light. The mind boggling time dilation and length contraction of Einstein’s Special Relativity (SR). The contradictory fabric of SR/GR’s spacetime and its assignment of properties to the void. The surprisingly discrete nature of atomic properties. As in Quantum Mechanics (QM). Needless to say, no matter what science has tried in order to fit the above discoveries into our physical world, their implications continue to elude an intuitively acceptable explanation in material terms. This monograph, although not necessarily in chronological order, is a recapitulation of previous monographs written by the author in an attempt at a single-source theoretical explanation/clarification for the above mentioned list of “mysterious” properties of matter, in terms of one fundamental set of properties, the motional geometry of matter.
Those defile the purity of mathematical and philosophical truthy who confound real quantities with their relations and sensible measures. —ISAAC NEWTON, Principia Before we say anything about quantum mechanics, let us take a quick look at the Newtonian (or ‘classical’) view of the physical universe. According to that view, nature consists of an enormous number of particles. When Newtonian physics is combined with the theory of the electromagnetic field, it becomes convenient to think of these particles as dimensionless (even if there is a kind of conceptual strain involved in trying to think of something as having a mass but not any size ), and as possessing electrical properties – negative charge, or positive charge, or neutrality. This leads to the well-known ‘solar system’ view of the atom – with the electrons whirling around the nucleons (neutrons and protons) just as the planets whirl around the sun. Out of atoms are built molecules; out of molecules, macroscopic objects, scaling from dust motes to whole planets and stars. These latter also fall into larger groupings – solar systems and galaxies – but these larger structures differ from the ones previously mentioned in being held together exclusively by gravitational forces. At every level, however, one has trajectories (ultimately that means the possibility of continuously tracing the movements of the elementary particles) and one has causality (ultimately that means the possibility of extrapolating from the history of the universe up to a given time to its whole sequence of future states).