The Mystery Of Spin*

This has been added to the cosmology theory detailed in the compound posting on this blog, "The Theory Of Stationary Space". The cosmology theory has a neat explanation for the mystery of particle spin.

All particles comprising ordinary matter have spins of 1 / 2. Spin refers to the number of times that a particle must rotate to get back to the original configuration. This is the realm of quantum physics and cannot be explained by ordinary physics. A spin of 1 / 2 means that the particle must be rotated twice to get back to the original configuration.

Particles of ordinary matter consist of two families of particles, quarks and leptons. Electrons are leptons and the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei are both composed of three quarks each. Compound particles like protons and neutrons, each composed of quarks, are known as baryons.

Ordinary matter that is composed of quarks, the protons and neutrons, are made of an odd number of quarks. An up quark has a charge of + 2 / 3. A down quark has a charge of - 1 / 3. Two up quarks and a down quark make up a proton with a net charge of + 1. Two down quarks and an up quark make up a neutron with a net charge of zero.

Leptons and baryons together, the components of ordinary matter, are known as fermions. All composite particles made up of quarks are called hadrons which, aside from baryons also include mesons, which is a pair of a quark and an antimatter quark. But mesons are not stable.

Besides fermions, with their spin of 1 / 2, there are other particles that have a spin of 1, known as integral spin because 1 is an integer. These particles only have to rotate once to get back to their original configuration. But these are not matter particles, they are known as bosons and carry forces. The best-known boson is a photon.

The major difference in properties between fermions and bosons is exclusivity. Fermions are exclusive while bosons are not. If a particle has to spin twice to get back to it's original configuration that means it is exclusive. If a particle has to spin only once to get back to it's original configuration that means it is not exclusive.

Exclusive means that the particles, or the matter of which they are composed, cannot occupy the same space at the same time. That is why ordinary matter particles have a spin of 1 / 2. Electrons in an atom follow what is known as the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Each electron has an "address" consisting of a four-part quantum number. No two electrons in the atom can have exactly the same quantum numbers.

Particles that are not exclusive, bosons such as photons, follow the set of rules called "Bose-Einstein Statistics". Particles that are exclusive, fermions such as electrons and protons and neutrons composed of quarks, follow the set of rules called "Fermi-Dirac Statistics".

The spin is the fourth of an electron's quantum numbers. There are two possible spin directions, up and down. Electrons ordinarily exist in pairs, with the same quantum numbers but with opposite spin. Not all electrons are paired. In some materials, the orbitals of the unpaired electrons can be lined up with a magnetic field. Materials with the orbitals of unpaired electrons lined up are known as magnets.

Spin can be best seen in the following moving illustration. Or you can see it at the Wikipedia article, "Spin-1/2"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin-%C2%BD#/media/File:Spin_One-Half_(Slow).gif

If we attach cables to each side of a rotating cube, so that the cables won't tangle, the cube must rotate twice to get back to the same configuration. That is because the cables have two possible configurations, and will alternate between the two with each rotation. We can refer to the two configurations of the attached cables as "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". We could also say that the cables alternate between an "S" and a "Reverse S".

But since the two possible configurations are equal, there must be an alternation between the two, which requires that there be two rotations to get back to the original configuration.

But notice that we need the attachment of these cables to demonstrate 1 / 2 spin. We could not tell the spin of a particle just by looking at it, if we could look at it. "Getting back to the original configuration" means the configuration of the space around a spinning particle.

But how can the empty space around the particle have a configuration, and how can the configuration be affected by the spin of the particle? Empty space seems to be just nothingness, without any kind of configuration.

But remember my cosmology theory, detailed in the compound posting on this blog "The Theory Of Stationary Space". Everything, both space and matter, is composed of a near-infinity of infinitesimal electric charges. Empty space is a perfectly alternating checkerboard pattern of negative and positive charges in multiple dimensions.

This is the most logical configuration because the basic rules are that opposite charges attract and like charges repel. But there is energy in the universe and like charges can be held together by energy, and this is what matter is. Energy can also cross space as a wave displacement of the alternating checkerboard pattern of negative and positive charges, and this is what electromagnetic waves are.

An electron, for example, is, in my cosmology theory, a concentration of negative charges held together by energy. There is the well-known mass-energy equivalence, a certain amount of mass being equivalent to a certain amount of energy. The equivalence of mass and energy is what Einstein's famous formula, E = MC squared is about, the inter-convertibility of mass and energy. This is why concentrations of like charges, such as the electron, have mass but empty space doesn't.

But if the electron, or any other matter particle, is composed of concentrated electric charge, and the space around it is composed of an alternating checkerboard pattern of the same charges, then shouldn't a change in the particle, such as it's spin, also have an effect on the arrangement of the electric charges in the space around it?

Imagine the electron in space. The electron is a concentration of negative charges, held together by energy against like-charge repulsion which is why the electron has mass. The space adjoining it is alternating negative and positive charges. The negatively-charged electron affects those charges in that it pulls the positive charges in space somewhat toward it, and pushes the negative charges in space somewhat away from it.

Now suppose the electron begins to spin, as it does. It's effect on the charges around it will be pulled along with the spin just like the cables attached to the spinning cube in the illustration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin-%C2%BD#/media/File:Spin_One-Half_(Slow).gif

There has to be two possible configurations of the space around it simply because there are two electric charges of which the space is composed, negative and positive. A line of electric charges in space that adjoin the electron might be negative-positive-negative-positive... or it might be positive-negative-positive-negative... Since the two arrangements are equal, the space around the spinning electron must alternate between the two.

That means that the electron must spin twice before the original configuration of electric charges is restored, and that is why we say that the electron, and all other matter particles composed of a concentration of electric charges, have a spin of 1 / 2.

This is what the two opposing spins, up and down, really means. One is negative-positive-negative... and the other is positive-negative-positive... There are only two possible spins because there are only two electric charges.

This makes sense but then how can there be other particles with a spin of 1?

The answer involves the exclusivity of a concentration of like electric charges that are held together by energy, such as electrons. If we bring two electrons close together, they will repel each other because like electric charges repel. That is what makes them exclusive, and no two electrons in the same atom can have the same four quantum numbers for the same reason.

The reason that matter doesn't just pass through other matter is electron repulsion. As the atoms of the two pieces of matter come in contact, the negative charges in the electrons of each repel each other. This is why you can stand on the floor without passing right into the floor, since the interior of an atom is by far mostly empty space.

Suppose that there was an electron of concentrated positive charges, instead of negative. What if we brought that together with the usual electron?

There actually is a positively-charged electron. It is called a positron. But it is the antimatter version of an electron. Antimatter is the same as ordinary matter except that the electric charges are reversed. If we brought the two together, both would vanish in a great burst of energy as the negative and positive charges composing each react and rearrange themselves back into the alternating negative and positive charges of empty space, and the energy that was holding the like charges of each together is released.

So if everything, space and matter, is composed of electric charges and if particles that are "exclusive" are composed of concentrated like charges, held together by the energy of the mass-energy equivalence, then the only remaining source of any other kind of particle is the electromagnetic waves that can carry energy across space. These waves are a displacement of the alternating negative and positive electric charges that make up space, but not a concentration of the charges in the same way as matter.

Such a wave would have to be two-dimensional because they have two specific components, wavelength and amplitude. Since we are composed of atoms, which have electrons in their orbitals, the only way that we can sense or see things must involve electrons. But, in my cosmology theory, electrons are one-dimensional strings in four-dimensional space that we perceive as particles because we can only see three of these dimensions, the other we perceive as time.

But if waves are two-dimensional, and the electrons by which we must receive the waves are one-dimensional, that means that there must be one dimension of the wave remaining after the electrons in our eyes or measuring equipment absorb the energy of one of the two dimensions of the wave, which is the only way that we can see or sense anything.

Since particles, such as electrons, are really one-dimensional strings, and since one dimension of a two-dimensional wave must remain after our electrons have absorbed the energy of the other dimension of the wave, that means there must be one-dimensional remnants of waves that would seem to us to be particles, such as photons. This explains why light is said to have both a wave and a particle nature.

However, unlike particles of matter such as electrons, these "particles" of electromagnetic waves are not concentrations of either negative or positive charge. They are a displacement of the usual checkerboard pattern of alternating charges but there is no reason for them to have more negative or more positive charge.

These are just mass-less and charge-less one-dimensional packets of energy. But that would mean that they would not have the same effect on the electric charges of the surrounding space, as the electron described above. This also means that they would not be exclusive, many of them could pass through the same space with minimal effect on one another. Without this effect, there would be no reason for them to have to spin twice to get back to the same configuration of surrounding electric charges.

This is why they have a spin of 1, and this mystery of spin is explained so neatly by the cosmology theory.