In Table 4.1, electrons, quarks, and neutrinos have family generations, each like the last but heavier. An electron has a muon elder brother of the same charge but two hundred times heavier, and a tau eldest brother that is three and a half thousand times heavier. Up and down quarks also have heavier charm and strange quarks, and massive top and bottom quarks, but after three generations, no more. The standard model describes these generations but doesn’t explain:
1. Why do family generations occur?
2. Why are there only three generations, then no more?
3. Why are higher generations so heavy?
Figure 4.26. Electron generations as dimension repeats
In contrast, the matter structures proposed explain why family generations occur. If an electron fills the channels of one axis, a muon could be the same on two axes, and a taon on three (Figure 4.26). All are still point entities, and no more generations occur because space only has three dimensions.
Why then are muons and taons so heavy? The photons of an electron fill the channels of an axis on two quantum dimensions, as light can polarize in two orthogonal ways. Adding another collision at right angles is the same so the photons of a muon compete for channels, giving interference that increases its mass. A taon as three photon sets colliding on three axes at right angles causes even more interference, so it is massive because interference can cumulate, just as one traffic delay can cause another. In this family, each adds more interference so it is heavier than the last, and there are only three members because space has three dimensions.
Yet if a muon is an electron collision doubled, why doesn’t it have a minus two charge? It does, but we can only measure charge one axis at a time, and after each measurement the system resets. On any one axis, a muon’s charge is minus one because the other remainder is in an orthogonal dimension. In a processing model, the three family generations of electrons reflect the three dimensions of space, and neutrinos will be the same.
For quarks, the case is more complex, as their photons collide in a plane not an axis, so one can’t just repeat their structure in three dimensions. However, the planar triangles up two up quarks could form two sides of a pyramid, to give a charm quark of the same charge but more mass by interference. Two down quarks could do likewise for a strange quark pyramid. Top and bottom quarks could then fill three sides of a pyramid, to occupy all the channels of a point, with more interference and hence mass.
In conclusion, the three generations of electrons, neutrinos, and quarks could arise from the three dimensions of space, and their increased mass from the increased interference this produces.
Charge neutrality is that charge comes in equal positive and negative amounts. The earth is charge neutral, as is our galaxy, and the universe seems the same, but why? If matter arose as Venus did from the sea, complete and perfect, why are the two options of its charge accessory equal? It isn’t at all obvious why our universe has many electrons as protons, and twice as many down as up quarks, but it seems to be so. If matter just began, charge neutrality has no explanation.
Quantum events repeat at a fantastic rate, so any entity that isn’t fully stable will re-configure sooner or later. Our world tries every option until one sticks, i.e. is stable. After the initial chaos, electrons, neutrinos, and quarks survived by being stable, and the first atom formed because protons and electrons survive better together than apart. The electrons around a nucleus shield it from neutrino strikes that could turn a neutron into a proton, and the nucleus holds the electrons in orbit, so they don’t fly off. Other atoms then evolved with equal numbers of protons and electrons because that is stable.
It follows that our universe is charge neutral because matter is made of charge-neutral atoms, so it is charge neutral by evolution not by design. The evolution of matter explains charge neutrality better than assuming that matter just is as it is.
Atoms evolved by the law of all action, that whatever can happen eventually does, as quantum choices try every option, so our universe is evolving to discover what survives. Yet the standard model prefers determinism to quantum randomness, and has focused on transient particles, like the Higgs, that have no permanence. Physics needs a better model than one that denies both quantum theory and evolution.
A proton’s charge is one, the simple sum of its constituent quark charges, but it has a hundred times their mass. Charge adds when quarks combine but mass multiplies a hundredfold, so why? The standard model attributes the extra mass to the gluons it says bind them, but how do massless gluons make mass? And if they do, why don’t they increase charge as well? The mass problem is that the standard model can’t explain why its particles have the masses that they do:
“… though the actual value of the basic electric charge … remains a theoretical mystery … all other charges found in the universe are … multiples of this value. Nothing like this appears to be the case for rest-mass, and the underlying reason for the particular values of the rest-masses of … particle types is completely unknown.” (Penrose, 2010), p153.
A processing model suggests why mass varies radically but all charge is based on the electron. The charge of an electron is the processing left-over when one axis of a point of space overloads. Each channel can handle one Planck process, and the photons colliding contribute twice that, so the excess left over can’t exceed one Planck process. If all mass arises from similar collisions, all charge must be a multiple of the electron’s charge.
In contrast mass, as the net processing done, isn’t limited like this because processing can interfere. Interference occurs on a network when processes try to access the same resource at the same time. Like two cars arriving at an intersection, they can’t both use the same space and if they try to, they collide. This wastes time, so interference slows down road networks as it does computer networks. Cities use traffic light controls to reduce collisions but on computer networks, this was found to be inefficient. Instead, protocols like Ethernet let processes access network resources freely, and if a collision is detected, they stop and retry after a random time to avoid a repeat. Most of our networks let processes compete freely for resources because it is ten times faster, so the quantum network is expected to be the same.
The quantum network is then a first-come-first-served system, where photons compete for channels as we compete for roads, but with no traffic lights, so when two photons try to access a channel that can only accept one, they interfere. One channel can’t accept two photons from the same side at the same time, so one must try again elsewhere. This is more work, or in this case more processing, which in this model is mass. The mass of a point entity then increases if its structure allows interference.
It follows that the mass increase caused by interference depends on how often photons try to access the same channel from the same direction. For an electron, two photon streams access the channels of a point from opposite directions, so there is no interference, but for a quark, photon streams intersecting in a plane sometimes access the same channel, and so interfere. Thus a quark’s mass, which is its net processing, is more than expected from adding just one quark and indeed it has about ten times the mass of an electron.
For a proton, the channel interference is even greater. Every time two photons compete for the same channel they interfere, which increases the processing that is mass. Interference then explains why a proton has more mass than its quark constituents better than gluons that don’t predict anything.
For example, in Table 4.1, down quarks have more than twice the mass of up quarks for no known reason. However, if an up quark is two photon tail sets colliding with a set of photon heads, the tails fill channels first, leaving one set of heads to compete for the remaining channels. In contrast, for a down quark, one tail set gets first access, leaving two sets of photon heads to fight over the rest, giving more interference, which increases its mass.
Also in Table 4.1, quark and neutrino masses vary over a range of values when observed, but shouldn’t identical elementary particles have identical masses? The idea that all mass comes from a universal Lego set of particles is again flawed. In contrast, this model lets quark masses vary because each observation is a new event that can unfold differently, just as the rush-hour traffic delay varies every day, even for the same number of cars. Processing interference could then explain not only the mass problem of physics but also why elementary particles have the the masses they do.
If the laws of physics varied with position, each new point would need new rules but, in our universe, gravity works on Mars as it does on earth. This spatial symmetry is basic to physics but neutrinos violate it because they always spin left-handed. This asymmetry isn’t reflected in the laws of physics, so as Pauli said:
“I cannot believe God is a weak left hander” (Lederma & Teresi, 2012), p256.
What is spin-handedness? If you point your left thumb forward, the fingers of your hand curl in a left-handed spin, but for your right thumb forward, the fingers curl in a right-handed spin. Figure 4.25 shows how left and right-handed screws differ, and particles also spin differently as they move.
Particles also change their spin when they reverse direction, so if both your hands move forward, they spin differently, but if one hand moves backwards, they spin the same. Reversing direction reverses spin, so reversing an electron’s direction should make it spin the other way, and electrons do indeed spin both ways.
By spatial symmetry, this rule should also apply to neutrinos but they always spin left, and anti-neutrinos always spin right. Electrons spin both ways but their brother neutrinos don’t, and the standard model can’t explain why. That neutrinos always spin left is a deep mystery that contradicts spatial symmetry.
Pauli couldn’t believe that God is a left-hander but what if the first event was left-handed? The first photon had to spin left or right, and apparently it went left, and made a universe of matter not anti-matter. Yet reversing an electron’s direction reverses its spin, so why aren’t neutrinos the same?
The mass of an electron is based on photons colliding from opposite directions, so in a physical event, it can spin either way, randomly. Changing its direction reverses both spins, so it still spins either way.
However, the mass of a neutrino comes from only one photon set, so it always spins left. Reversing its direction changes its phase, so its mass now comes from the other set of photons that also spin left. When an electron reverses direction, its mass origin doesn’t change, but when a neutrino reverses direction, another set of left-spin photons create its mass. Neutrinos then always spin left because when they reverse direction, the source of their tiny mass changes. The only way to change the spin of a neutrino is to make it an anti-neutrino.
If anti-neutrinos are neutrino-processing in reverse, then they always spin right. Spatial symmetry requires the mirror image of a particle to be the same particle but for a wave on a surface, this doesn’t apply. It follows that the asymmetry that made our universe matter not anti-matter is why neutrinos always spin left and anti-neutrinos always spin right.
All the elementary entities of quantum mechanics spin but matter only half spins. Spinning an object once in our space returns its original state but doing the same to an electron only half-turns it. It is said to half spin because it takes two turns to return it to its original state, and quarks are the same.
Yet if an electron is a dimensionless point, it shouldn’t spin at all, so particle physics gave up trying to understand how it does:
“We simply have to give up the idea that we can model an electron’s structure at all. How can something with no size have mass? How can something with no structure have spin?” (Oerter, 2006), p95.
However in this model, an electron is a point particle with a photon structure. To us, a photon is a ray in one dimension, but quantum theory lets it vibrate into a dimension outside space, so it has a two-dimensional structure, like a piece of paper that can spin on its movement axis (Note 1). A photon has one dimension in our space but in quantum space it has two, like a piece of paper, so its spin is one not half. The four dimensions of quantum space also let photons vibrate in directions at right angles to each other (Note 2), so a filter that blocks horizontally polarized light doesn’t block vertically polarized light (3.7.2).
Why then do electrons half spin? The photons of an electron fill the channels of an axis to vibrate in different directions at right angles, so only half of them will be visible for a line of view, as the others, like thin paper sheets, will be invisible edge-on. If one photon is 100% visible, another at right angles will be 0%, for one that projects 99%, another will project only 1%, and so on.
In our space, one rotation returns an object to its original state because it needs an axis and two dimensions to rotate, which adds up to three dimensions. But for electrons in four-dimensional quantum space, one rotation only turns half its photons, and another is needed to turn the other half. It takes two of our rotations to return them to their original state, so electrons only half spin in our terms, and all matter entities are the same.
Note 1. For a photon moving in direction X, its quantum amplitude Q vibrates in plane QX, so the structure QX can spin.
Note 2. The orthogonal directions X, Y, Z of space give three orthogonal planes XY, YZ and XZ. A fourth dimension Q adds three more orthogonal planes Q1X, Q2Y, Q2Z, where Q1, Q2 and Q3 are at right angles.
Aristotle saw an earth made mainly of matter, but today astronomers see a cosmos of mainly space and light, where matter is rare. Our universe is firstly space, then light, and matter is a distant third in the scheme of things. In matter terms, space is nothing at all, but for a network it is a big investment. Filling a universe with light also takes a lot of processing, but the cost of the specks of matter we call stars is tiny by comparison. For us, matter is primary, but for our universe, it is tertiary, after space and light. That matter is the exception not the rule lets us revisit what still puzzles us about it today.
The periodic table organizes the elements of matter based on electron shells. Each row of elements represents an electron shell that ends when it is full, with an inert atom like Neon. Neon doesn’t exchange electrons with other atoms because its outer shell is full, but other atoms do. In chemical reactions, from acidity to oxidation, atoms exchange electrons to complete their outer shell. Stable molecules form when atoms with extra electrons donate them to those with a deficit to complete their electron shells.
The current description of electron shells is based on two quantum numbers:
1.Shell n (1, 2, 3 …). Initially the orbit radius.
2.Sub-shelll(s, p, d …). Has no agreed meaning.
The shells and sub-shells, deduced from spectroscopic analysis, are shown in Table 4.7, where sub-shells s, p, d, f, g, and h contain 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, and 22 electrons respectively. Bigger shell orbits fit more electrons, so doubling the first orbit quadruples its area to allow eight electrons, tripling it allows eighteen, quadrupling it thirty-two, and so on. Electrons then add to atoms based first on shells, then on available sub-shells, in order. Hence, the first row of the periodic table has two elements, and the second has eight elements, Lithium to Neon, but then there is a problem.
The third row of the periodic table is still just eight elements, including the carbon and oxygen of life, and the expected eighteen elements only occur in the next row. Quantum numbers predicted periodic table rows of 2, 8, 18, 32, 50, and 72, but instead the rows were 2, 8, 8, 18, 18, 32, and 32. So in the by now well-established practice, theory was fitted to fact by tweaking the model so the sub-shells fill in this odd order:
Note that the third sub-shell 3d is pushed down to row 4, so generations of chemistry students had to learn that Argon completes the third shell without one of its sub-shells, which denies what a sub-shell is. But it had to do so because the model was fitted to the facts.
In contrast, instead of rules based on abstract numbers, let electrons be waves with the properties:
1. Shell. The circumference around the atom nucleus that allows the electron’s wavelength.
2. Sub-shell. The harmonicsthat the shell circumference allows.
3. Direction. The wave direction, where waves at right angles don’t interfere.
In music, a wave harmonic arises when a fundamental wave length lets other waves occur as well, so a fundamental and its harmonics can overlap. A given orbit circumference can then also host harmonics, or sub-shells. Figure 4.23 shows how a fundamental can accommodate other harmonics, where the number at the right is how many harmonics there are.
Figure 4.23. Wave harmonics for a length
Sub-shells as wave harmonics then explains the rows of the periodic table as follows:
1. The first shell is the circumference that lets a wave vibrate up and down on alternate cycles (Figure 4.23a). In this model, light has a minimum wavelength that can’t be reduced, so there is only one wave, called the 1s sub-shell. But a spherical orbit allows two directions at right angles, so it allows two waves at right angles that don’t interfere. The first shell then has one or two electron waves, so the first periodic table row is Hydrogen and the inert gas Helium.
2. The second shell circumference is double that of the first, and allows harmonics. The first is a fundamental that alternates up and down, giving a 2s sub-shell that can hold two electrons. The second harmonic (Figure 4.23b) allows two more waves at once, which for two directions is four electrons, and the complex harmonics of two-dimensional waves we see on a drum surface allow two more electrons, giving six in total for the 2p sub-shell. The second shell then allows eight electron waves, giving the second row of the periodic table, Lithium to Neon.
3. The third shell circumference is triple that of the first, so it hasa one and a half times the first wave-length. This again allows 3s and 3p sub-shells but a third harmonic can’t occur. A bipolar (up-down) wave can vibrate once on a string half its wavelength, and twice on a string of its wavelength, but a string one and a half times that gives nothing more, so there is no 3d sub-shell. Adding a half-wavelength adds no new harmonics, so the third shell, like the second, only accommodates eight electrons, giving eight elements in the periodic table third row, it has.
4. The fourth shell is a two-wavelength circumference that quadruples the first. This allows a new harmonic that accommodates four waves, which for two directions is eight electrons (Figure 4.23c), plus two complex harmonics is ten. The 4s,4p, and 4d sub-shells then give 18 elements in the periodic table fourth row, as observed.
5. The fifth shell, like the third, allows no new harmonic, so its 5s, 5p, and 5d sub-shells repeat the previous total of eighteen, giving the periodic table fifth row, again as observed.
6. The sixth shell allows a fourth f harmonic with six electrons (Figure 4.23d) which doubled is twelve, plus two complex harmonics is fourteen. This plus eighteen from the s, p, and d harmonics gives the thirty-two elements of the sixth periodic table row that include the Lanthanide series.
7. The seventh shell again has no new harmonic so it also has 32 elements, including the periodic table Actinide series.
An electron wave model based on sub-shell harmonics then fills the periodic table as follows:
Note that the third orbit has no 3d sub-shell and the fourth orbit has no 4f sub-shell, so electrons fill shells and sub-shells in a logical order. Compare this to the strange order implied by quantum numbers (Figure 4.24), where by Klechkowski’s rule, the 3d sub-shell fills after the 4s sub-shell.
Electrons then fill atomic shells based not on magic numbers but on how waves behave, where:
1. Shell. The first shell circumference is the minimum electron wavelength and larger shells multiply this.
2. Sub-shell. Sub-shells are wave harmonics, where s is the first, p is the second, and so on.
3. Direction. The great circle axis orientation, where orthogonal waves don’t interfere.
Electrons then fill in the order shown in the periodic table, based on:
1. Shell. Each shell is a bigger orbit, which for an electron with mass requires more processing and so more energy. Shells then fill in the order 1, 2, 3 … with smaller orbits first.
2. Harmonic. Each new sub-shell harmonic is a shorter wavelength, so it again needs more energy. Sub-shells then fill in the order s, p, d … with lower harmonics first.
Electron shells and sub-shells based on wave harmonics predict the periodic table better than quantum numbers, as a model that predicts is better than one that must be tweaked to work.
In 1909, Rutherford described the atom as a nucleus around which electrons orbit as planets do the sun, but while planets occasionally collide, electrons never do. A lead atom has 82 electrons whizzing around in close proximity but is stable for billions of years, so why don’t they ever collide?
A particle in orbit is also accelerating, so it should lose energy and spiral inwards, but again electrons never do. Why don’t the laws of physics apply to electrons in atoms? The standard model lets virtual photons shield electrons from the nuclear attraction, but how then do they stay in orbit? It also allows the miracle of wave-particle duality that lets electrons be particles in space but waves in atoms. A particle isn’t a wave, nor is a wave a particle, but this allows physicists to use the correct equations. Yet one wonders, how does the electron know to be like a particle in one place but a wave in another?
Apparently, electrons know Pauli’s exclusion principle, that they can overlap like waves if they have different quantum numbers. Quantum numbers let electrons co-exist in atomic orbits, but they aren’t based on or compatible with any other physical laws, as they were invented after the fact.
In contrast in this model, electrons are one-dimensional matter, and so are matter-like on one dimension but like light on the other two. Their matter dimension explains why they move slower than light in space, and can collide like particles, but on the two-dimensional surface of an atomic orbit, an electron can be like light, entirely wavelike. The “miracle” of wave-particle duality then arises from the matter-light duality of electrons. Hence, while a particle orbiting a center needs an agent to stop it falling in, a wave can pulse forever on a circumference that fits its wavelength. It follows that if electrons around an atom vibrate at different wavelengths, they will never collide (see next module).
Electrons as matter-light hybrids can be particles in space but waves in atoms without miracles, so they move slower than light in space but pulsate in atoms at the speed of light.
The first atom, Hydrogen, is one proton and one electron, and the next, Helium, has two protons and two electrons, but it also has two neutrons in its nucleus, and no-one knows why. Each higher element has not only another proton and electron, but also one or more neutrons, so:
“… all the stable nuclei have more neutrons than protons (or equal numbers), and the heavier nuclei are increasingly neutron-rich.” (Marburger, 2011), p254.
Current theories don’t explain why heavier nuclei need more neutrons to be stable (Figure 4.22). The shell model of electrons doesn’t work, because some nuclei aren’t spherical. The standard model doesn’t help either because if gluons hold the protons together, why are neutrons needed, and how do the gluons know how many neutrons to add to a heavy nucleus? That the nucleus is protons and neutrons sitting side-by-side, like fruits in a bowl, stuck together by gluon glue, predicts nothing.
However now suppose that the proton nucleus of a Hydrogen atom is a closed string of three quarks in a triangle, held together by photon sharing, as proposed earlier. This allows the triangle to open up and recombine in longer quark strings that satisfy the same rules, namely a closed string with the internal angles of an equilateral triangle.
That the Helium nucleus, of two protons and two neutrons, is one quark string held together by photon sharing, gives it a unity that particles in a bowl don’t have. In the fruit-bowl model, a Helium nucleus is four proton and neutron particles glued together but in this model it is one unified string of quarks, given only that each link bends the string 60º, so quarks must rotate to connect. Higher nuclei can then form in the same way.
Neutrons are then needed because positive protons repel, so they can’t come side-by-side to share photons, but neutrons can act as buffers. When the nuclear quark string forms, neutrons sit between same-charge protons that repel, which needs at least as many neutrons as protons, as observed (Figure 4.22). For example, a Helium nucleus of two protons needs two neutron buffers between the protons in the closed string.
Closed quark strings will also be compact and nearly spheres, as observed, and large nuclei may need more neutrons to avoid fold-back loci that happen to make protons adjacent. This evolution also explains why some shapes more stable:
“Nuclei with either protons or neutron equal to certain “magic” numbers (2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, 126) are particularly stable.” (Marburger, 2011), p253.
Atomic nuclei as closed quark strings will fold in space to form shapes as proteins do, and symmetric shapes are more stable, so the nuclei magic numbers are just those that produce symmetric shapes.
A quark string model then explains what the fruit bowl particle model doesn’t, namely why nuclei need as many neutrons as protons, why some need more, and why nuclei with a “magic” number of nucleons and more stable.
It was once thought that we were always as we are now, until science discovered that we evolved from animals over millions of years. Likewise, the particle model assumes that matter always was, but we now know that complex atoms came from simpler ones by the process of nucleosynthesis, that occurs in stars. The elements of the periodic table (Figure 4.21) wouldn’t exist without it, and neither would we, and just as life evolved based on survival, matter evolved based on stability.
