SciContest! Why can't matter be made of photons?

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vkothii

You'll find some information here.

Hypercharge and Weak IsospinHis idea was that this group would explain a symmetry between protons and neutrons: both .... on this irrep, corresponding to weak isospin and hypercharge. ...
math.ucr.edu/home/baez/qg-spring2003/hypercharge/ - 64k - Cached - Similar pages
 
To clarify: I was under the impression the Majorana eqn. depicts (massive) neutrinos/antineutrinos as the same particle with different spins, i.e. a chiral particle. Weak isospin "appears" to be something else (since right-handed neutrinos have zero weak isospin).
wikipedia.org said:
Neutrinos are produced in weak interactions as chirality eigenstates. However, chirality of a massive particle is not a constant of motion; helicity is, but the chirality operator does not share eigenstates with the helicity operator. Free neutrinos propagate as mixtures of left- and right-handed helicity states
Click to expand...
--"Neutrinos: Handedness"

The bolded part is what I'm trying to understand. Helicity is aligned with momentum, as per the right-hand rule. Chirality isn't..?
 
Vkothii said:
To clarify: I was under the impression the Majorana eqn. depicts (massive) neutrinos/antineutrinos as the same particle with different spins, i.e. a chiral particle. Weak isospin "appears" to be something else (since right-handed neutrinos have zero weak isospin).
--"Neutrinos: Handedness"

The bolded part is what I'm trying to understand. Helicity is aligned with momentum, as per the right-hand rule. Chirality isn't..?
Click to expand...

From what i read, i suppose so.
 
Vern said:
You know you distorted the meaning of my posts.
Click to expand...
You claimed you were working on transistors at their initial development. Is this true or false? I can provide links to posts of yours where you made such claims.

I provided links to Wikipedia which put the date of the invention of transistors to be before you turned 18 and thus were not employed at said labs working on transistors.

How have I distorted the meaning of that? You claimed you worked on them. Your own DoB and history contradict that. I have asked you to clarify that, by giving the details of your work, such as dates and places you worked, and you've refused.

It's pretty hard for me to distort the meaning of you posts where you say "I was there, when they invented transistors!".
Guest254 said:
Hi AlphaNumeric,

I thought it might be nice to revert this thread back to some interesting physics. When you mention "Majorana fermion", what does this mean? I'm familiar with Majorana spinors, and it was my understanding that such creatures are a bi-product of an arbitrary choice of representation of the Lorentz group. I ask because the term "Majorana fermion" suggests that this is a definite type of particle with measurable properties, and as such can't be dependent on which representation of the Lorentz group we use.

Could you elaborate - slowly if possible!!!

Thanks. :)
Click to expand...
Given particular dimensions (I forget which and I don't have access to Polchinski at the moment), you have that a Dirac spinor can be written as a pair of Weyl spinors and a Majorana one is such that $$\Psi_{D} = \left( \begin{array}{c} \psi_{\alpha} \\ \bar{\psi}^{\dot{\alpha}} \end{array} \right)$$

It has half the number of degrees of freedom of a usual spinor and there's something special about 2 and 10 dimensions (basically 2 mod 8) which gives string theory it's very nice format given it works in 10 dimensions but it's worldsheet process are two dimensional. It's been a few years since I read that. Majorana fermion is just a way of saying that the fermion is its own antiparticle.
Reiku said:
Hypercharge and Weak IsospinHis idea was that this group would explain a symmetry between protons and neutrons: both .... on this irrep, corresponding to weak isospin and hypercharge. ...
math.ucr.edu/home/baez/qg-spring2003/hypercharge/
Click to expand...
Which I am certain is over your head too.
Reiku said:
From what i read, i suppose so.
Click to expand...
Which one of Wolf's books covers decomposing Dirac spinors into Weyl spinors?
 
AlphaNumeric said:
You claimed you were working on transistors at their initial development.
Click to expand...
I didn't mean transistors in the literal sense; I was thinking of transistor products; so, you're right; I was wrong to say that.
 
I don't think anyone should win a prize, for a faulty contest based on false assumptions. But if anyone should get it, i think Vern should.
 
He kind of deserves it, since he knew this theory forty years ago. And has held onto it, for so long.
 
catching matter/photon

BenTheMan said:
Ok, this is the first ever SciContest.

Matter cannot be made of photons. Why?
Click to expand...

Even if we could catch matter/photon so we can examine it – it would be utterly irrelevant because Modern Physics tells us absolutely that the OBSERVER always determines what he observes, particle or wave, photon. This means that what we observe – matter or photon – has nothing to do with the observation.

But the Uncertainty Principle tells us we can never catch matter to Observe it because the closer we get to it the more it has to vanish. And photons we can also never catch because Relativity tells us that we are ALWAYS standing still.

So Modern Physics seem to give us only one choice in this matter of matter and photons:
A -- we can exercise futility by trying to examine something we can never catch or examine. Or
B -- we can really-really exercise futility twice-over by fighting and arguing over what something would be – photon or matter -- if only we could do the impossible and catch it to examine it.

-- wreally reality
 
Reiku said:
And has held onto it, for so long.
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It's not so much that I held on; I just tried to find honest reasons why it is wrong.

I've already disqualified myself as a winner; I just picked up on a problem that BenTheMan stated; the hypothesis has a problem with neutrino's.
 
genep said:
So Modern Physics seem to give us only one choice in this matter of matter and photons:
A -- we can exercise futility by trying to examine something we can never catch or examine. Or
B -- we can really-really exercise futility twice-over by fighting and arguing over what something would be – photon or matter -- if only we could do the impossible and catch it to examine it.
Click to expand...

Is the really true of Modern Physics? It seems to me we are in danger of feeling that Modern Physics is itself futile.
 
genep said:
Even if we could catch matter/photon so we can examine it – it would be utterly irrelevant because Modern Physics tells us absolutely that the OBSERVER always determines what he observes, particle or wave, photon. This means that what we observe – matter or photon – has nothing to do with the observation.

But the Uncertainty Principle tells us we can never catch matter to Observe it because the closer we get to it the more it has to vanish. And photons we can also never catch because Relativity tells us that we are ALWAYS standing still.

So Modern Physics seem to give us only one choice in this matter of matter and photons:
A -- we can exercise futility by trying to examine something we can never catch or examine. Or
B -- we can really-really exercise futility twice-over by fighting and arguing over what something would be – photon or matter -- if only we could do the impossible and catch it to examine it.

-- wreally reality
Click to expand...

Funny. Your entry might have been considered on humorous grounds, but it's a bit too late.
 
No, Vern deserves the spoon of the month prize.

Considering he hasn't done anything except use a spoon, where a shovel is needed (or what I call "a spade").
 
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