Guest author, Thomas Kennedy, features a twice-monthly series, Quantum Leap, wherein he guides readers through the fascinating world of quantum mechanics. This is issue 008.
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With all of the unverified hypotheses regarding black holes, dark matter, and dark energy permeating the general discussions regarding particle physics, I thought it might be good to step back and take a look at what is actually known and tested in the world of quantum mechanics. To do this, we need to take a look at The Standard Model.
When we seek to understand what is fundamental to life around us, it is a question of what exactly is the essence of our physical world. If you break matter and energy down to the smallest component what is it that we are dealing with?
To start the discussion, we begin with the first notion of what is fundamental, by looking at the atom from the historical perspective. At the start, around 400 BC, Democritus of Adbera made the profound statement that everything we could see and touch, all that was around us, were made up of atoms. “Nothing exists except atoms and empty space. Everything else is opinion”. This hypothesis was roundly rejected by the great thinkers of the day until the mid 1600s when Robert Boyle, a man considered the first modern chemist, came on the scene. A man after my own heart, his perspective as noted in Wiki was that “nothing was more alien to his mental temperament than the spinning of hypotheses” which is the sort of popular culture madness applied to the support of today’s particle physics run amok involving the topics mentioned at the top of this piece. Anyway, I digress…
Boyle’s various hypotheses, proven by experiments and thus converted to theories, revived Democritus’ view that there was an underlying structure of particles of varying sizes and structures.
In the next installment of QL, we’ll delve into the bane of high school chemistry students everywhere and talk about the next step in developing The Standard Model, that of the creation of matter known through the Periodic table.
Watch for Issue #9 of Thomas’ “Quantum Leap”, here on A Sky Full of Stars, on March 05, 2010.
You can access all previous issues of “Quantum Leap”, here.
Tags: atom, Democritus, periodic table, Robert Boyle, the standard model