3 ms·

Technically, the charge of a proton can be derived from its constituent 2 up quarks and 1 down quark, which have charges 2/3 and -1/3 respectively. I'm not awar

Technically, the charge of a proton can be derived from its constituent 2 up quarks and 1 down quark, which have charges 2/3 and -1/3 respectively. I'm not aware of any deeper reason why these should be simple fractional ratios of the charge of the electron, however, I'm not sure there needs to be one. If you believe the stack of turtles ends somewhere, you have to accept there will eventually be (hopefully simple) coincidences between certain fundamental values, no?

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> you have to accept there will eventually be (hopefully simple) coincidences between certain fundamental values, no? No. It’s almost certainly not a coïncidence that these charges are symmetric like that (in stable particles that like to hang out together).
- hackyhacky 8mo ago
  > coïncidence Nïce
- Paracompact 8mo ago
  Whence your confidence? As they say in math, "There aren't enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them." If we assume the turtle stack ends, and it ends simply (i.e. with small numbers), some of those numbers may wind up looking alike. Even more so if you find anthropic arguments convincing, or if you consider sampling bias (which may be what you mean by, "in stable particles that like to hang out together").
  - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    > if you find anthropic arguments convincing Which makes every constant fair game. Currently, we don’t have a good process for explaining multiple universes beyond divine preference. Hence the notion that a random number settled on mirror whole sums.
tasty_freeze 8mo ago
I'm aware of the charge coming from quarks, but my point remains. > you have to accept there will eventually be (hopefully simple) coincidences between certain fundamental values, no? When the probability of coincidence is epsilon, then, no. Right now they are the same to 12 digits, but that undersells it, because that is just the trailing digits. There is nothing which says the leading digits must be the same, eg, one could be 10^30 times bigger than the other. Are you still going to just shrug and say "coincidence?" That there are 26 fundamental constants and this one is just exactly the same is untenable.
- Paracompact 8mo ago
  If you imagine the universe is made of random real fundamental constants rather than random integer fundamental constants, then indeed there's no reason to expect such collisions. But if our universe starts from discrete foundations, then there may be no more satisfying explanation to this than there is to the question of, say, why the survival threshold and the reproduction threshold in Conway's Game of Life both involve the number 3. That's just how that universe is defined.
  - tasty_freeze 8mo ago
    Why do you assume the two have to be small integers? There is nothing currently in physics which would disallow the electron to be -1 and the proton to be +1234567891011213141516171819. The fact they are both of magnitude 1 is a huge coincidence.
    - Paracompact 8mo ago
      I'm not assuming they have to be small integers—I'm saying that if the universe is built on discrete rather than continuous foundations, then small integers and coincidences at the bottom-turtle theory-of-everything become much less surprising. You're treating the space of possible charge values as if it's the reals, or at least some enormous range, but I consider that unlikely. Consider: in every known case where we have found a deeper layer of explanation for a "coincidence" in physics, the explanation involved some symmetry or conservation law that constrained the values to a small discrete set. The quark model took seemingly arbitrary coincidences and revealed them as consequences of a restrictive structure. auntienomen's point about anomaly cancellation is also exactly this kind of thing. The smallness of the set in question isn't forced, but it is plausible. But I actually think we're agreeing more than you realize. You're saying "this can't be a coincidence, there must be a deeper reason." I'm saying the deeper reason might bottom out at "the consistent discrete structures are sparse and this is one of them," which is a real explanation, but it might not have the form of yet another dynamical layer underneath.
idiotsecant 8mo ago
Shrugging and calling it a coincidence is generally not an end state when figuring out how something works.
auntienomen 8mo ago
There does appear to be a deeper reason, but it's really not well understood. Consistent quantum field theories involving chiral fermions (such as the Standard Model) are relatively rare: the charges have to satisfy a set of polynomial relationships with the inspiring name "gauge anomaly cancellation conditions". If these conditions aren't satisfied, the mathematical model will fail pretty spectacularly. It won't be unitary, can't couple consistently to gravity, won't allow high and low energy behavior to decouple,.. For the Standard Model, the anomaly cancellation conditions imply that the sum of electric charges within a generation must vanish, which they do: 3 colors of quark * ( up charge 2/3 - down charge 1/3) + electron charge -1 + neutrino charge 0 = 0. So, there's something quite special about the charge assignments in the Standard Model. They're nowhere near as arbitrary as they could be a priori. Historically, this has been taken as a hint that the standard model should come from a simpler "grand unified" model. Particle accelerators and cosmology hace turned up at best circumstantial evidence for these so far. To me, it's one of the great mysteries.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
  So they have to cancel, or we don't have a universe? ("Have to" not because we need electrical neutrality for large-scale matter - though we do need that - but because you can't build a quantum field that doesn't explode in various ways without it.)
  - auntienomen 8mo ago
    There's always some risk of confusing the model with the reality, but yeah, if you have chiral fermions interacting through gauge fields and gravity, the charges have to say satisfy all of the anomaly cancellation conditions (there's about half a dozen) or the model will be inconsistent.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
elfly 8mo ago
Well yes, but the coincidence that Quarks have charges of multiples of another particle, that is not made up of quarks, should rise your brow, shouldn't it? Like we could accept coincidences if at the bottom is all turtles, but here we see a stack of turtles and a stack of crocodiles and we are asking why they have similar characteristics even if they are so different.

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago

> you have to accept there will eventually be (hopefully simple) coincidences between certain fundamental values, no? No. It’s almost certainly not a coïncidence that these charges are symmetric like that (in stable particles that like to hang out together).

hackyhacky 8mo ago
> coïncidence Nïce
Paracompact 8mo ago
Whence your confidence? As they say in math, "There aren't enough small numbers to meet the many demands made of them." If we assume the turtle stack ends, and it ends simply (i.e. with small numbers), some of those numbers may wind up looking alike. Even more so if you find anthropic arguments convincing, or if you consider sampling bias (which may be what you mean by, "in stable particles that like to hang out together").
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > if you find anthropic arguments convincing Which makes every constant fair game. Currently, we don’t have a good process for explaining multiple universes beyond divine preference. Hence the notion that a random number settled on mirror whole sums.

tasty_freeze 8mo ago

I'm aware of the charge coming from quarks, but my point remains. > you have to accept there will eventually be (hopefully simple) coincidences between certain fundamental values, no? When the probability of coincidence is epsilon, then, no. Right now they are the same to 12 digits, but that undersells it, because that is just the trailing digits. There is nothing which says the leading digits must be the same, eg, one could be 10^30 times bigger than the other. Are you still going to just shrug and say "coincidence?" That there are 26 fundamental constants and this one is just exactly the same is untenable.

Paracompact 8mo ago
If you imagine the universe is made of random real fundamental constants rather than random integer fundamental constants, then indeed there's no reason to expect such collisions. But if our universe starts from discrete foundations, then there may be no more satisfying explanation to this than there is to the question of, say, why the survival threshold and the reproduction threshold in Conway's Game of Life both involve the number 3. That's just how that universe is defined.
- tasty_freeze 8mo ago
  Why do you assume the two have to be small integers? There is nothing currently in physics which would disallow the electron to be -1 and the proton to be +1234567891011213141516171819. The fact they are both of magnitude 1 is a huge coincidence.
  - Paracompact 8mo ago
    I'm not assuming they have to be small integers—I'm saying that if the universe is built on discrete rather than continuous foundations, then small integers and coincidences at the bottom-turtle theory-of-everything become much less surprising. You're treating the space of possible charge values as if it's the reals, or at least some enormous range, but I consider that unlikely. Consider: in every known case where we have found a deeper layer of explanation for a "coincidence" in physics, the explanation involved some symmetry or conservation law that constrained the values to a small discrete set. The quark model took seemingly arbitrary coincidences and revealed them as consequences of a restrictive structure. auntienomen's point about anomaly cancellation is also exactly this kind of thing. The smallness of the set in question isn't forced, but it is plausible. But I actually think we're agreeing more than you realize. You're saying "this can't be a coincidence, there must be a deeper reason." I'm saying the deeper reason might bottom out at "the consistent discrete structures are sparse and this is one of them," which is a real explanation, but it might not have the form of yet another dynamical layer underneath.

idiotsecant 8mo ago

Shrugging and calling it a coincidence is generally not an end state when figuring out how something works.

auntienomen 8mo ago

There does appear to be a deeper reason, but it's really not well understood. Consistent quantum field theories involving chiral fermions (such as the Standard Model) are relatively rare: the charges have to satisfy a set of polynomial relationships with the inspiring name "gauge anomaly cancellation conditions". If these conditions aren't satisfied, the mathematical model will fail pretty spectacularly. It won't be unitary, can't couple consistently to gravity, won't allow high and low energy behavior to decouple,.. For the Standard Model, the anomaly cancellation conditions imply that the sum of electric charges within a generation must vanish, which they do: 3 colors of quark * ( up charge 2/3 - down charge 1/3) + electron charge -1 + neutrino charge 0 = 0. So, there's something quite special about the charge assignments in the Standard Model. They're nowhere near as arbitrary as they could be a priori. Historically, this has been taken as a hint that the standard model should come from a simpler "grand unified" model. Particle accelerators and cosmology hace turned up at best circumstantial evidence for these so far. To me, it's one of the great mysteries.

AnimalMuppet 8mo ago
So they have to cancel, or we don't have a universe? ("Have to" not because we need electrical neutrality for large-scale matter - though we do need that - but because you can't build a quantum field that doesn't explode in various ways without it.)
- auntienomen 8mo ago
  There's always some risk of confusing the model with the reality, but yeah, if you have chiral fermions interacting through gauge fields and gravity, the charges have to say satisfy all of the anomaly cancellation conditions (there's about half a dozen) or the model will be inconsistent.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

elfly 8mo ago

Well yes, but the coincidence that Quarks have charges of multiples of another particle, that is not made up of quarks, should rise your brow, shouldn't it? Like we could accept coincidences if at the bottom is all turtles, but here we see a stack of turtles and a stack of crocodiles and we are asking why they have similar characteristics even if they are so different.