3 ms·
If you're asking about why there's an upper limit to the spin, this Quora thread had some good info (Simmons-Duffin is a top notch expert on field theory): http
by miles7 10y ago
If you're asking about why there's an upper limit to the spin, this Quora thread had some good info (Simmons-Duffin is a top notch expert on field theory): https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-no-spin-3-2-or-higher-fundamental-particles-in-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-no-spin-3-2-or-higher-fu...
Short answer is that for too high a spin the theories become non-renormalizable and break down [i.e. require additional physics to enter] going to ever shorter length scales.
If you're asking why it goes in steps of 1/2 it's a group representation theory thing (guessing you probably already know about that).
- contravariant 10y agoI was mostly referring to the point in the talk where he claims that just relativity and quantum mechanics is enough to imply that there are no spins higher than 2, he kind of skips over that part. In that view I'm not convinced renormalizability is a strong enough property, since the graviton is famously non-renormalizeable (or so it seems, anyway). But I'll have a closer look at the quora thread; maybe someone has a more 'fundamental' argument.