Until recently there has been no consistent model of the physical world that covered both very small objects like the components of atomic nuclei and gravitation of very large objects.
This despite considerable effort to unite them. Quantum Mechanics has been extended to String Theory, which models quarks as vibrating strings with resonant frequencies that create the particles. Unfortunately, String Theory also didn’t extend to gravitation, which gave birth to a set of Superstring Theories. Unfortunately, there has been no evidence that this theory models reality. But it’s worse than that. Recall the measurement mentioned in an earlier post: if an electron were the size of the solar system, it would be round to the dimension of a human hair. This contradicts most Superstring Theories, which require the electron not to be perfectly round to this extent.
In any case, despite the effort to unite Quantum Mechanics with gravitation, it remains undone. But there has been some progress. Although the basic problem remains unsolved, a model called quantum electrodynamics goes a long way toward unifying electromagnetism with Quantum Mechanics.
The New Physics solves the long-standing problem right out of the gate. The New Physics suggests that a particle is a bubble in space that displaces the space it now occupies. The compressed space surrounding the bubble holds the quarks together in the proton and neutron. In the old physics this is role is played by the Strong Force. Recall that the energy required to create the particle depends directly on the electromagnetic properties of space: the permittivity and the permeability. This gave rise to our happy “meme” formula (see blog post 6 for details):
At the same time, The New Physics recognizes the fact that the nucleus of the hydrogen atom measures as the wavelength of the proton, suggesting (1) that the proton and its wave permanently coexist, and (2) that there are nuclear quantum levels created when the particle is created. Analogous to electron quantum levels, each nuclear quantum level has an integer number from 1 to infinity. Each nuclear quantum level’s radius has a “home position”: the radius of nuclear quantum level 1 times the square of the number of the level. When combined with the identical nuclear quantum level of another particle, the combined shape is no longer a sphere, but two intersecting spheres that both want to return to their original spherical “home position”. These combine with those of other particles to create the restoring force of gravitation. This makes it easy to have a unified model of gravitation and the strong force: at any given distance from the nucleus, the product of the strong force and the gravitational force is a constant depending only on the number of nucleons (protons & neutrons) in the nucleus:
A similar formula holds for the relationship between the Strong Force and the electrostatic (Coulomb) force between the nucleus and a single orbiting electron:
These two simple formulae unify the strong force of compressive space around the particle with both the gravitational force and the electrostatic force. Knowing any one of them at a given distance from the nucleus determines the other two. Now, there will be those who claim this does not completely unify the model since the probabilistic nature of Quantum Mechanics is not incorporated in this unified model. However as we have shown in a previous post, there is no reason to posit this probabilistic hypothesis since the particle is always accompanied by its wavelength of compressed space from the moment of its conception.
These formulae are in terms of nuclear quantum levels, which start at a radius of around 10-15 m. But they have an interesting relationship to the electron quantum levels which start at distances around 10-10 m. Although the nuclear quantum levels start out much closer to the nucleus, they do eventually overtake and very closely coincide with the electron quantum levels.
According to long-standing theory−well supported by data−photons are absorbed by electrons to jump out one or more electron quantum levels, and are emitted in some other direction (i.e., scattered) when they drop back down. For example, if an electron absorbs a red photon (a photon with the wavelength of red light) to jump up to another quantum level, it will emit a red photon when it jumps back down to the original level. This is why the object looks red to us. It’s not the original photon that hits our eye, it’s the scattered one. In this process, photons turn from particles back into pure energy, and then on the reverse trip from energy back into photon particles again.
The New Physics gives us a vehicle for incorporating this phenomenon into the rest of the model.
For Hydrogen, the radius of the 200th nuclear quantum level is very close (within 0.38% or 38/100ths of 1%) to the radius of the first electron quantum level. This provides another potential vehicle for tying the nuclear model of The New Physics to the classical model of electromagnetism. The number 200 and the coincidence of levels to 0.38% both depend on other physical constants such as the proton’s radius and the radius of the first electron quantum level of Hydrogen; as these constants are refined, we can expect these numbers to become more accurate.
The view of the electron quantum levels as concentric spheres applies to Hydrogen and other atoms when all but one of their electrons have been removed (called hydrogen-like atoms.) Due to the mathematics of Quantum Mechanics, electron orbitals take on much stranger shapes in more complicated cases. However, this is yet another case where physicists are attempting to mold reality to match their mathematics. How much of this complexity remains after The New Physics is fully integrated remains to be determined.
Another force that physicists want to include in a unified model is the weak force, also called the weak nuclear interaction. It is said to be responsible for the radioactive decay of nuclei. In The New Physics, this force simply does not exist. Instead, a nucleus will eventually decay because the Binding Energy bonds (collapsed spherical caps) do not mesh together perfectly, and eventually, due to internal stress in the nucleus things just fall apart. This is clear from the following cutaway of the Helium nucleus, with one of the protons hidden from view so you can see the bonds on the other nucleons clearly:
The bond near the crosshairs is clearly not a perfect match. You can imagine as the nuclei get larger, flaws like this will cascade until the larger nuclei simply become unstable. So there is no need to posit a weak force: radioactivity is due to just imperfect nuclear binding.
At least, according to now unified The New Physics model….