The Fourth Heresy: Stopping the use of Force

Physicists are, in general, a very forthright and open group (as the Heretics gratefully find) and physicists who deal with the atomic nucleus and its associated stuff say they are unhappy. Many have stated that the picture generally used to describe the nucleus and associated particles, the ‘Standard Model’, is a mess and needs a new angle to rethink things. But it is also agreed that it is far from clear where the new ideas are coming from.

A little background. By the early 1960s several atomic colliders had come on stream and started to generate new nucleus-sized ‘particles’ at an embarrassing rate. Over 200 of these things called ‘Mesons’, mostly short-lived, have now been listed. Physicists hate this kind of mess. Enrico Fermi, one of the most eminent, complained “If I could remember the names of all these particles, I would have been a botanist.” But a rescue arrived in the shape of a simple schema proposed by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig in 1964.

This arrangement of particles with an underlying pattern is referred to now as the ‘Standard Model’ and was seen at the time as both brilliant and bold – by which many at the time meant speculative. It was a simple scheme that reduced the mess of ‘fundamental particles’ to combinations of one type of ‘particle’, the quark, linked in either threes or twos to make the proton, neutron and all the mesons. Quarks were linked together by another particle, the gluon, carrying a new force they called the ‘color force’. The whole system could be presented, along with electrons and neutrinos in a way that pleasingly recalled the Periodic Table of Elements that had done so much to bring order and system to chemistry almost 100 years earlier.

The subsequent fifty years have not been kind to this scheme. More results meant that additional types of quarks and anti-quarks had to be added, so that now there are a minimum of 36 different types of quarks and anti-quarks with remarkably differing masses. To this you need to add 8 types of gluon. But, over the subsequent half-century neither quarks and gluons have been found. As a result, it was decided, after much searching had failed to find them, that there are reasons why they can never be found alone (except, possibly, the ‘top’ quark). The color force is still an arbitrary construct with no link to anything else. In a world of binary systems – positive/negative, north/south, etc. it is a three-way system, its three types called red, blue and green – although the observation of 3-way jets from collider experiments support some kind of 3-way internal structure for protons. To cap these problems, the math of this system, known as Quantum Chromodynamics, is too complex to solve with current methods, so that very few and rough predictions have been made and confirmed. Finally, the main problem this system was designed to solve, the ordering of the zoo of mesons no longer seems interesting. These short-lived fragments do not seem to be important and the fact that there are now over 200 of them diminishes their interest further – just the kind of random stuff that emerges when you smash things.

Despite this half-century of absence of evidence, the even more prominent absence of alternatives has set this pattern in stone, so much so that it has now often called the ’Standard Model’.

The Color Force, which holds the concentrated energy of protons and neutrons inside them must, it is felt, be linked to the Strong Nuclear Force, which sticks to each other together in atomic nucleii. But the way it is suggested that the Color force becomes the source of the Strong Nuclear Force (SNF) verges on the baroque, with escaping gluons in ‘flux tubes’ turning into mesons that act, a little unexpectedly, to convey the Strong Force. But then the SNF itself is little more than observations turned into a thing. We observe that particles behave this way so there must be a thing, a force, them makes them behave this way, like the ancient joke about the sleeping herbs that work because of their soporific power.

These observations are that, within a nucleus, protons and neutrons are ‘asymptotically’ free, they jiggle around easily, so the SNF has no effect on the very small scale. Then, because protons and neutrons stick together in the nucleus, despite the powerful repulsion between protons, the SNF becomes very powerful at the size of a medium nucleus. But then, because large atomic nuclei fall apart, the SNF power drops off almost entirely, having virtually no effect at distances of further than the diameter of a sphere of 100 protons and 100 neutrons. The Strong Nuclear Force is little more than a ‘Just So’ story: these things happen because the SNF is ‘just so’.

But all this is too simple, because a further set of observations needs yet another force, the ‘Weak Nuclear Force’ (WNF) to explain radioactivity. The effects of the WNF bear a distinct resemblance to the effects of thermodynamic or quantum variation – that is, its effects are individually random but collectively predictable, as though they were determined by a normal distribution of energy variation: things wriggle around and sometimes they wriggle right out of the nucleus.

All this structure is to explain what appears to be the very simple system of atomic nuclei: an atomic nucleus consists of protons and neutrons. It is true that, if you smash the nucleus hard enough, you get a load of short-lived fragments, the mesons, which show that protons and neutrons can be broken into bits. But this does not mean that they are made from smaller particles: only that they can be smashed into smaller bits: a wineglass is not made of glass shards, although it can turn into them.

The scheme has not had great predictive success either, with no clear, tested predictions outside its own pattern – the predicted ‘glueballs’, for example, have not been found. The scheme also has no ideas about the ‘dark matter’ that astronomers think accounts for most of the mass in our universe. It has been suggested to the Heretics that such evidence as there is for the quark/gluon model might be reassessed, if only there were another system that could be considered instead.

As we said, all this is known to the physics community and, although some might object to some of the specific remarks above, the need for original input is widely accepted. So, we are cut quite a lot of slack to speculate.

Many have looked for new ideas, perhaps most notably String theorists. They have sought to replace the Standard Model math, with its picture of ‘particles’ of zero size, with mathematical models based on one-dimensional ‘strings’ or two-dimensional membranes, a.k.a. ‘branes’. In these theories, different modes of vibration of the strings or branes replace the standard picture of different fundamental ‘particles’. This effort has now hit a quiet patch but some of its ideas – going back even to Theodor Kaluza in 1921 – have prompted the Heretics to new speculation.

Fewer than three spatial dimensions[1] is forbidden in physics because it leads to infinities – things in fewer dimensions must be infinitely thin, short or narrow. But more dimensions than three are not forbidden. Moreover, the ‘Totalitarian Rule’, which is that that everything that is not forbidden is compulsory, says that more dimensions must exist.

The idea of additional dimensions is not at all an original thought. It was considered in detail by mathematicians in the Nineteenth Century and regularly raised as a possibility by physicists in the Twentieth. The main objection to accepting that additional dimensions are real is that, if there were more, they would be obvious or, at least noticed, by now. The Heretics contend that the effects of at least a fourth and, likely, a fifth dimension are clear and everywhere.

It turns out that the existence of a fourth dimension, alone, neatly explains how the proton and neutron hold so much concentrated energy and why a couple of hundred can stick together, but larger nuclei fall apart. In short, we can replace the ‘color force’, the Strong Nuclear Force and Weak Nuclear Force with one idea that also explains why these pseudo-forces have the characteristics they do.

In a three-dimensional world, the behaviour of the ball-wave, how it much slows and accelerates, is related to the square of its distance from the centre. In four dimensions, the wavefront of the ball-wave expands as a hyper-sphere. This means that we would mathematically expect its movement to be related to the cube of its distance from the centre. To put this as a physical description, what pulls an expanding ball-wave back is the pull of divergent Field values immediately behind it and the opposite for a shrinking ball-wave. In 3-D, these pull on the wave’s spherical surface. The size of this is connected to the square of the distance from the centre, the radius. In 4-D, the same pull affects the volume of a sphere that is related to the cube of the radius[2]. As a result, a 4-D ball-wave is radically smaller than a similar ball-wave in 3-D. This ‘inverse cube rule’ is why we do not immediately see the effects of the fourth dimension; it can only apply to things on the scale of the atomic nucleus, to things much smaller than electrons. We see the effects of the fourth dimension only at that scale.

The next important effect is that, in the fourth dimension, ball-waves have an extra dimension of movement beyond the 3-D ball-wave. This extra freedom allows the energy to spread out more (increases their entropy, if you must). If a ball-wave is small enough to oscillate in four dimensions, not just three, it has this extra freedom. This means that the smaller ball-wave is stable, because oscillating in four dimensions, its energy can be less concentrated than a larger ball-wave oscillating in three-dimensions. How much extra freedom the fourth dimension provides for a ball-wave needs further work – for example, by looking at how much more volume a hypersphere has than a sphere with the same radius. But this requires a more professional approach to the math than the current Heretics can provide.

In the fourth dimension we would expect forces to be tri-polar not, as in three dimensions, bi-polar. Not positive/negative and north/south but (using random names) positive/alternative/negative and north/depth/south. In 4-D we would expect that three forces balanced together would be needed to get a neutral particle. This is the reason for the three-combination mathematical patterns of the ‘standard model’, without requiring any unobservable particles. The hypersphere the small ball-waves form would have three ‘lobes’ looked at from a 3-D perspective, suggesting that under some circumstances it will emit tripolar jets.

The wavelength of a proton or neutron ball-wave is around 1,000 times shorter than that of an electron, so they are around 1,000 times as energetic and around 1,000 times as massive. Their energy is derived originally from the primordial F-waves that formed them, starting from much heavier, charged ball-waves, such as the Tau and anti-Tau, that decay in steps down to the electron and proton. This leads to an issue, if the proton and electron are formed, as we propose, from the ‘peak’ and ‘trough’ of the same wave, how can they end up with such different energy contents? We know that the ball-wave energy content, and so mass, is reduced in the decay of Tau to Muon and Muon to electron, the ‘lost’ energy going into both F-waves and the kinetic energy of the decay products. We could say that the different hFv and lFv ‘decay paths’, one path ending with electrons the other with protons, is just the way the decay system works. The question then comes, ‘OK, so we know what the end product of these decay paths is but why does it happen this way?’ The Heretics do not know but have at least one suggestion.

Ball-waves originate from the expanding spherical wavefront of powerful F-waves that collapse at the right harmonic, like a bubble bursting into much smaller droplets, into small ball-waves. There are two types of ball-wave, one comes from the hFv part of the wave, exploding outward in a sphere, the other from the collapse inwards of the lFv part of the wave. The smaller, imploding, ball-wave from the collapse of the low-value part of the original F-waves, the one we speculate ends up as a proton, remains in 4-D, while the larger ball-wave from the other part of the original F-waves gets too large to fit 4-D and oscillates in 3-D only.

The proton is stable because the extra freedom it has in 4-D means that the energy is not more concentrated, as it looks in 3-D, but more evenly spread than it would be, even if it were as large as an electron. Presumably neutrons are a proton/electron combination also held in four-dimensional oscillation. We do not know how they form, although they have a positive centre and a more negative outside, which enables them to act a bit like proton glue in nuclei[3]. Once formed, neutrons are stable in the presence of nearby positive charges (like Cooper pairs), but the electron breaks out of the neutron into it full 3-D size if it is left on its own (after about 15 minutes on average). Presumably, the repulsive force of the hFv centre pushes the ball-wave beyond the scale of 4-D effectiveness when it is affected by some larger-than-usual turbulence of the Field. This kind of effect, the result of a normal distribution of energy levels is known at this scale as ‘quantum uncertainty’ and at larger scales as ‘thermodynamic randomness’. This effect might fail if the electron was constrained by hFv bubblets from nearby positive charges[4] . This effect, the result of the ‘jiggling’ of the Field pushing nucleons out of the scale of 4-D effectiveness, accounts for the so-called ‘Weak Nuclear Force’, the propensity of bit of large atomic nuclei to fall off in radioactivity.

There are many issues that need to be resolved with this idea – not least, that the precursors of electrons, the tau and muon, are certainly small enough to work in 4-D, even if the electron is not. If the electron bursts out of 4-D, how come it stays in 4-D when it is in a neutron with a proton at its centre?

If the possibility of 4-D is accepted, the additional possibility of 5-D and higher dimensions must also be accepted (in fact, Kaluza required 5-D to develop the linkages that impressed Einstein in 1919). Can we see effects of these further dimensions as well?

We think that almost all electrons and protons were created by energetic waves, soon after the Big Bang. As the universe cooled and expanded, so the waves got longer, until they hit the point where harmonic ball-waves could form and the alternating high-and-low Field values of the F-waves turn into ball-waves. These ball-waves, the energetic ‘heavy’ particles, the tau and anti-tau, oscillated in 4-D before they decayed down into the 3-D electrons and (still) 4-D protons we see today.

However, before this stage, the Big Bang F-waves were still more concentrated, and their wavelength was shorter.  But, long before they hit the point where 4-D waves form, they could have hit another harmonic point where 5-D or 6-D ball-waves could form. At that harmonic point, much of the energy would have turned into very tiny, very heavy 5-D or 6-D ball waves and, like the later ball-wave formation, the excess energy would also have given them momentum outwards. These 5-D or 6-D ball-waves would have a more compressed ball-wave, which would resist acceleration more than the larger ball-waves we are used to, so they would have to have (much) more mass than even the ‘heavy’ 4-D particles, such as the proton and neutron. However, they would be tiny and therefore unable to react with 4-D or 3-D things, just as protons cannot react with electrons, despite their opposing charges attracting. These 5-D/6-D ball waves would exist as massive but minute things, with no interaction with matter as we know it, except as a result of their gravitational effects (gravity comes with mass for reasons suggested in other Heresies). Being tiny and massive, they are less prone to ‘clumping’ than normal matter. Their high inertia would easily resist gravity, unless the gravitational attraction was continuous over the galaxy-sized distances needed to slow down escaping particles and cause them to return to or orbit the gravity source. This rather beautifully describes the observed distribution of ‘dark matter’ whose gravitational effect we see as coming from huge balls of invisible mass around galaxies.

Somewhere beyond 5-D or 6-D, the increasingly tiny size of higher-dimensional effects getting towards the Planck size will prevent further dimensions from having any physical effect except, perhaps, in extreme environments, such as black hole singularities.

All this is a highly speculative heresy but, the Heretics argue, no less speculative than the normal pictures of the ‘Standard Model’ and much simpler. A huge number of particles, many said to be unobservable, are replaced by the three ball-waves we can observe, the proton, neutron and electron, allowing that they can be smashed into all kinds of mesons – that are also ball-waves but short-lived. Two or three mysterious forces (color, SNF, WNF) and many speculative interactions are replaced by the simple introduction of additional dimensions that are required by the Totalitarian Rule anyway. The question arises as to whether this idea – or a development of it – can be made to fit the same math as the current zero-size ‘particles’ in the Standard Model. For now, it looks like the math can fit the heretical picture, but we’d be surprised if adjustments are not required in future.

So what observed things are we saying do not exist? We have suggested that the SNF, the WNF do not exist and, elsewhere, that the origin of mass is not the Higgs field but a simple consequence of ball-waves. This means we are suggesting that the observations of W+, W- and Z bosons, the mediators of the WNF and Higgs Boson, the wave of the Higgs field that gives (a small part of their) mass to particles, are mistaken. We have no such issue with the SNF since none of the speculative Quarks and Gluons has ever been observed.

How well do we know the Higgs exists? There is little doubt that a ‘particle’ of around 126 GeV/c² has been found which fit the requirements of the Higgs model but such is the complexity of the model, the variety of the decay paths and the sheer complexity of the experimental analysis that the idea that it could be something other than the excitation of the Higgs field would not be a total shock.

As for the W and Z bosons, their astonishing size; they are said to weigh more than an iron atom at 80-91 GeV/c², the incredible brevity of their existence; a half-life of about 3×10⁻²⁵s. and the limit of their effect; smaller than the diameter of a proton, means that the evidence for their existence is always limited and, if one is being cynical, would not stand up, were it not that they fitted a prediction of theory. After all, we have a zoo of 200 mesons so far, going from 140 MeV/c² to 9 GeV/c² and we know that it is very likely that there are heavier mesons yet to be identified and no reason to suppose that the Tau/Anti-tau are the heaviest ‘form of electron/positron’.

These then are the only observations that the Heretics speculations are challenging, which is not so great a set of hurdles that we cannot continue with these lines of thought. We believe this description fits the established math of quantum mechanics and at the same time two or three whole forces are no longer needed and, 36 quarks and 8 gluons, none of which has been observed, can vanish. This model is not finalised and is very speculative but may, after it is kicked into shape, provide a basis for the next steps in research.

[1] In future the term ‘dimension’ will be used to mean ‘spatial dimension’. Time is sometimes referred to as a dimension but, for obvious reasons, as well as some discussed in other heresies, time is a beast of a different type to spatial dimensions.

[2] It is impossible for most people – maybe all – to get any kind of visual grip on what things would look like in four-plus dimensions and you are encouraged not to try. Even if you personally can imagine it, trying to explain it to anyone else is like trying to teach a frog to speak: it doesn’t work and it annoys the frog.

[3] The electron, formed from the hFv part of an F-wave initially expanding out in a sphere, is like a 3-D doughnut ring. The comparatively minute proton comes from the lFv part collapsing inwards, so it seems that the proton would fit into the ‘hole’ in the middle of the electron easily. The question is: what initially compresses the electron so that it fits the 4-D scale?

[4] Normally an electron would be surrounded by lFv bubblets which would be attracted by the hFV bubblets of nearby positive charges but, in this case the electron is neutralised by its companion proton to form a neutron and so is ‘bare’ of its normal lFv bubblet surround, exposing its hFv surface directly to repulsion by nearby hFv bubblets, keeping it in its 4-D scale.