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Continuing on this path of scientific enquiry, will we at some point finally understand what this is all about? Why there should be such a thing as a proton, an

Continuing on this path of scientific enquiry, will we at some point finally understand what this is all about? Why there should be such a thing as a proton, and why it has the properties it does?

drpossum 3y ago
If you feel like this article is pretty empty in terms of "answers" and "new directions" and the fact that research group has been pushing these ideas for years, again, without any breakthroughs or challenging present understanding, what do you think that means for the quality of the research? This is at best a "ok, neat" result with some science journalism overreaching of how relevant it is for gravity.
- devmor 3y ago
  Do you think that all science is useless if it does not produce some incredible feat overturning all understanding of the universe?
  - drpossum 3y ago
    No, but I did come from that field and I'm tired of seeing this exact article every few months
    - lostemptations5 3y ago
      Maybe I'm ignorant, but I follow this stuff abit and it's the first time I see something like it.
      - drpossum 3y ago
        This was the last one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39163447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39163447 and a paper from last year https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11568 https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11568 and basically the same paper from three years ago (you'll recognize one of the plots from the last article) https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.02031 https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.02031
        lostemptations5 3y ago
        Ok, fair enough
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
I think, in fact, that there might be more than one proton.
- fsmv 3y ago
  Maybe conceivable with electrons since they're fundamentally simple but protons are made of other things and can be broken while other protons remain so I don't think it's possible there could be only one.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    Imagine living in a universe where someone broke the one proton. Now we have to sit here for eleventy eternities all disincarnate waiting for new laws of physics to congeal. "Honestly, are you never going to let this go? I had goo reason to think there was more than one proton!"
wredue 3y ago
Some things just “are”. There is no “why”. There is a “how”, and we may never be able to answer that question.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- blueprint 3y ago
  You shouldn't say there is no why if you simply don't know. You should say I don't know what the why is yet. Otherwise, you might actually believe yourself. I can tell you the why for some of those things that you had no idea had an explanation before. it's like how doctors used to say, there is no cure for X for years and years until at last it turns out that there are multiple treatment pathways.
  - drdeca 3y ago
    > You should say I don't know what the why is yet. I think this seems to make the opposite assumption, which also seems questionable. Rather than “I don’t know the ‘why’ “, I think it would be better to say “I don’t know if there is a ‘why’, nor what it is if there is one.” . Though, really, I think the question of “why” in this context, is a little unclear as to what exactly it is asking? Like, what properties would a statement have to have in order to be a satisfactory answer to the question? Like, if something like color confinement is inevitable assuming SU(3) symmetry, would this answer “why” hadrons exist? Or, if the fact by itself wouldn’t, would this fact, along with a mathematical proof of it, arranged in a way reflecting the core ideas of the proof, constitute a “why hadrons exist”? Or, is the question asking something more, like, “why is there something rather than nothing?” ? Is it asking for the first cause?
    - blueprint 3y ago
      > Rather than “I don’t know the ‘why’ “, I think it would be better to say “I don’t know if there is a ‘why’, nor what it is if there is one.” . Yes, very nice! But I didn't want to go down that rabbithole as you actually need more correction factors... because a person who doesn't know, doesn't know if they know or not. ;) But functionally, they can't say they "know" - they are not conscious - so they don't know if they know or not, and they don't know what knowledge they have may contain a "why" or not, etc., i.e. there is great knowledge in history but people don't realize or have forgotten what resides in their own consciousness or history yet. > Though, really, I think the question of “why” in this context, is a little unclear as to what exactly it is asking? Also very good. 'how' and 'why' converge. That's why a person should make clear what they're asking. Just because 'why' and 'how' converge doesn't mean 'why' is meaningless or useless. In fact, why does something exist is different from how, since any "how" explanation is implicitly about a process of existence, yet a "why" sometimes explains mechanisms that do not "exist" yet cause what exists. That's why understanding this and enunciating it perfectly is a little beyond human eyesight for now. Philosophy exists for a reason and it's not just bullshit some thinkers made up (nor does it culminate with some semi-Wittgensteinian cop-out that words are the best we can do. What a nonsense self-contradiction). Why means many things. People should stop conflating them and ask one by one concretely what they want to know if they truly want to know. But many people can't even realize what their real questions are without some dialogue. Why there is something rather than nothing is that nothing can't exist. One little modern explanation: the moment you put boundary conditions on, you get virtual particles. QFT is clear about that. Without boundary conditions or a metric, there is no way to even consider the notion of a vacuum or nothingness. Answering your question involving SU(3) symmetry requires you understand why/how SU(3) is pre-determined. The place where "why" and "how" diverges is when involving a subject: "why am I alive" vs "how am I alive". The second one is a lot easier to answer if you consider only the biological. If you don't understand what the point of life is, it will be a lot harder to understand your distant past and a lot harder to understand your ultimate "why" i.e. your path and your purpose in this life. Consider what you know, for starters: you are like a child in this universe, growing up and learning through your life. When someone has to learn and grow, it means they're on the path to realization, mastery, and complete knowledge. I'll leave it at that for now.
innagadadavida 3y ago
Had there been any scientific studies into why the elements are perfect and there are are all apparent to perfect replicas with not defect rates? It’s hard to make perfect replicas at scales higher than the atomic scale but at the lowest levels, everything seems to be identical.
- cjameskeller 3y ago
  Couldn't one say that different isotopes of elements are exactly such "imperfect" replicas?
  - dexwiz 3y ago
    Isotopes and elements are human made labels based on nucleon and proton counts. Hydrogen and deuterium are both the same element, but are obviously different nuclear structures. Even at a chemical level deuterium is appreciably different. That difference between isotopes and elements diminishes but never disappears as atomic mass rises. Isotopes are only imperfect in the context of one labeling system. But not from a quantum viewpoint.
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    The isotopes are examples of why atoms are not really atomic at all. Once something that you thought was atomic actually shows variation you begin to suspect it is composed of smaller things.
- jmole 3y ago
  I'm not a physicist, but isn't this 'everything is identical' model fundamentally incompatible with quantum mechanics? There seems to be hidden quantum state encoded within the proton and other subatomic particles, although that state may not be relevant to the interactions that we care about on a day to day basis. Your comment does remind me of this though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe If we are not in a one-electron universe, every electron is unique in the sense that it has an entirely unique path though spacetime, and thus can't be identical. I think what you mean is that every one of these "particles" seems to obey the same set of laws, which is not something that's unique to atoms, subatomic particles, or even larger things like molecules.
vundercind 3y ago
Science doesn’t really answer “why”. It’s better at “how”.
- postalrat 3y ago
  I'd say science can't answer "how" but can answer "when".
joquarky 3y ago
I find Alan Watts to be informative in pondering these kind of questions, as "why" isn't really in the realm of science.
bmacho 3y ago
Probably we will at some point. It is possible that it will turn out that our whole world is, say an ever growing finite system with a simple rule. Say someone identifies some laws ruling the digits of pi, that's a physics, then they look more, and they observe that the CMWB pattern on the sky is in the pi too, and voila, we live in pi confirmed (or at least it would make it very plausible). Then protons exist, and protons are the way they are, because some properties of the circle.

Continuing on this path of scientific enquiry, will we at some point finally understand what this is all about? Why there should be such a thing as a proton, and why it has the properties it does?

drpossum 3y ago

If you feel like this article is pretty empty in terms of "answers" and "new directions" and the fact that research group has been pushing these ideas for years, again, without any breakthroughs or challenging present understanding, what do you think that means for the quality of the research? This is at best a "ok, neat" result with some science journalism overreaching of how relevant it is for gravity.

devmor 3y ago
Do you think that all science is useless if it does not produce some incredible feat overturning all understanding of the universe?
- drpossum 3y ago
  No, but I did come from that field and I'm tired of seeing this exact article every few months
  - lostemptations5 3y ago
    Maybe I'm ignorant, but I follow this stuff abit and it's the first time I see something like it.
    - drpossum 3y ago
      This was the last one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39163447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39163447 and a paper from last year https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11568 https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11568 and basically the same paper from three years ago (you'll recognize one of the plots from the last article) https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.02031 https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.02031
      - lostemptations5 3y ago
        Ok, fair enough

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

I think, in fact, that there might be more than one proton.

fsmv 3y ago
Maybe conceivable with electrons since they're fundamentally simple but protons are made of other things and can be broken while other protons remain so I don't think it's possible there could be only one.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Imagine living in a universe where someone broke the one proton. Now we have to sit here for eleventy eternities all disincarnate waiting for new laws of physics to congeal. "Honestly, are you never going to let this go? I had goo reason to think there was more than one proton!"

wredue 3y ago

Some things just “are”. There is no “why”. There is a “how”, and we may never be able to answer that question.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
blueprint 3y ago
You shouldn't say there is no why if you simply don't know. You should say I don't know what the why is yet. Otherwise, you might actually believe yourself. I can tell you the why for some of those things that you had no idea had an explanation before. it's like how doctors used to say, there is no cure for X for years and years until at last it turns out that there are multiple treatment pathways.
- drdeca 3y ago
  > You should say I don't know what the why is yet. I think this seems to make the opposite assumption, which also seems questionable. Rather than “I don’t know the ‘why’ “, I think it would be better to say “I don’t know if there is a ‘why’, nor what it is if there is one.” . Though, really, I think the question of “why” in this context, is a little unclear as to what exactly it is asking? Like, what properties would a statement have to have in order to be a satisfactory answer to the question? Like, if something like color confinement is inevitable assuming SU(3) symmetry, would this answer “why” hadrons exist? Or, if the fact by itself wouldn’t, would this fact, along with a mathematical proof of it, arranged in a way reflecting the core ideas of the proof, constitute a “why hadrons exist”? Or, is the question asking something more, like, “why is there something rather than nothing?” ? Is it asking for the first cause?
  - blueprint 3y ago
    > Rather than “I don’t know the ‘why’ “, I think it would be better to say “I don’t know if there is a ‘why’, nor what it is if there is one.” . Yes, very nice! But I didn't want to go down that rabbithole as you actually need more correction factors... because a person who doesn't know, doesn't know if they know or not. ;) But functionally, they can't say they "know" - they are not conscious - so they don't know if they know or not, and they don't know what knowledge they have may contain a "why" or not, etc., i.e. there is great knowledge in history but people don't realize or have forgotten what resides in their own consciousness or history yet. > Though, really, I think the question of “why” in this context, is a little unclear as to what exactly it is asking? Also very good. 'how' and 'why' converge. That's why a person should make clear what they're asking. Just because 'why' and 'how' converge doesn't mean 'why' is meaningless or useless. In fact, why does something exist is different from how, since any "how" explanation is implicitly about a process of existence, yet a "why" sometimes explains mechanisms that do not "exist" yet cause what exists. That's why understanding this and enunciating it perfectly is a little beyond human eyesight for now. Philosophy exists for a reason and it's not just bullshit some thinkers made up (nor does it culminate with some semi-Wittgensteinian cop-out that words are the best we can do. What a nonsense self-contradiction). Why means many things. People should stop conflating them and ask one by one concretely what they want to know if they truly want to know. But many people can't even realize what their real questions are without some dialogue. Why there is something rather than nothing is that nothing can't exist. One little modern explanation: the moment you put boundary conditions on, you get virtual particles. QFT is clear about that. Without boundary conditions or a metric, there is no way to even consider the notion of a vacuum or nothingness. Answering your question involving SU(3) symmetry requires you understand why/how SU(3) is pre-determined. The place where "why" and "how" diverges is when involving a subject: "why am I alive" vs "how am I alive". The second one is a lot easier to answer if you consider only the biological. If you don't understand what the point of life is, it will be a lot harder to understand your distant past and a lot harder to understand your ultimate "why" i.e. your path and your purpose in this life. Consider what you know, for starters: you are like a child in this universe, growing up and learning through your life. When someone has to learn and grow, it means they're on the path to realization, mastery, and complete knowledge. I'll leave it at that for now.

innagadadavida 3y ago

Had there been any scientific studies into why the elements are perfect and there are are all apparent to perfect replicas with not defect rates? It’s hard to make perfect replicas at scales higher than the atomic scale but at the lowest levels, everything seems to be identical.

cjameskeller 3y ago
Couldn't one say that different isotopes of elements are exactly such "imperfect" replicas?
- dexwiz 3y ago
  Isotopes and elements are human made labels based on nucleon and proton counts. Hydrogen and deuterium are both the same element, but are obviously different nuclear structures. Even at a chemical level deuterium is appreciably different. That difference between isotopes and elements diminishes but never disappears as atomic mass rises. Isotopes are only imperfect in the context of one labeling system. But not from a quantum viewpoint.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  The isotopes are examples of why atoms are not really atomic at all. Once something that you thought was atomic actually shows variation you begin to suspect it is composed of smaller things.
jmole 3y ago
I'm not a physicist, but isn't this 'everything is identical' model fundamentally incompatible with quantum mechanics? There seems to be hidden quantum state encoded within the proton and other subatomic particles, although that state may not be relevant to the interactions that we care about on a day to day basis. Your comment does remind me of this though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe If we are not in a one-electron universe, every electron is unique in the sense that it has an entirely unique path though spacetime, and thus can't be identical. I think what you mean is that every one of these "particles" seems to obey the same set of laws, which is not something that's unique to atoms, subatomic particles, or even larger things like molecules.

vundercind 3y ago

Science doesn’t really answer “why”. It’s better at “how”.

postalrat 3y ago
I'd say science can't answer "how" but can answer "when".

joquarky 3y ago

I find Alan Watts to be informative in pondering these kind of questions, as "why" isn't really in the realm of science.

bmacho 3y ago

Probably we will at some point. It is possible that it will turn out that our whole world is, say an ever growing finite system with a simple rule. Say someone identifies some laws ruling the digits of pi, that's a physics, then they look more, and they observe that the CMWB pattern on the sky is in the pi too, and voila, we live in pi confirmed (or at least it would make it very plausible). Then protons exist, and protons are the way they are, because some properties of the circle.