The quandary of the quark

Rosalind Franklin Prize Lecture by Professor Christine Davies, The University of Glasgow. Professor Davies will describe how the properties of the quark are now being revealed, and the implications that this will have for our understanding of the physics of fundamental particles.

Filmed at 6.30pm -- 6.30pm on 06 December 2005 at The Royal Society, London

[carlkuss]

She talks like a good teacher. and by that I am giving high praise.

[pureenergy]

Wow, I like the way that the physicist Kenneth Ford describes quarks. He wrote in his book "The Quantum World" that "magically bursting forth are quarks spinning billions of times a second as 3 points of light, forming what are called protons and neutrons'.
I like points of light as quarks. In this way I can add the quarks in each atom. For instance, the hydrogen atom spins super fast as 7 points of light. The carbon atom spins as 42 points of light. The oxygen atom spins as 56 points of light. People consist 100% as light. Light is eternal.

[clearbrain]

really appreciate your effort to put up these wonderful lectures...thanks a ton..These are treats for present day and the future also...

[hindsight]

I have 3 daughters . the first 3 minutes made me a very happy man . im on track for 3 geologist at the moment but a physicist would be great at dinner time too..

[RicardoMarlowFlamenco]

Regarding the question towards the end…what is between the electron and the nucleus…my understanding is that where ever the electron “is not” there are virtual particles appearing and destroying each other, so, tons of stuff going on. This true outside of the realm of an atom as well.

[jasonwiley]

47:23 how do we know these properties of quarks are predictable if we can't solve the QCD equations in the first place.

[SpotterVideo]

Quantum Entangled Twisted Tubules:

When we draw a sine wave on a blackboard, we are representing spatial curvature. Does a photon transfer spatial curvature from one location to another? Wrap a piece of wire around a pencil and it can produce a 3D coil of wire, much like a spring. When viewed from the side it can look like a two-dimensional sine wave. You could coil the wire with either a right-hand twist, or with a left-hand twist. Could Planck's Constant be proportional to the twist cycles. A photon with a higher frequency has more energy. (More spatial curvature). What if gluons are actually made up of these twisted tubes which become entangled with other tubes to produce quarks. (In the same way twisted electrical extension cords can become entangled.) Therefore, the gluons are actually a part of the quarks. Mesons are made up of two entangled tubes (Quarks/Gluons), while protons and neutrons would be made up of three entangled tubes. (Quarks/Gluons) The "Color Force" would be related to the XYZ coordinates (orientation) of entanglement. "Asymptotic Freedom", and "flux tubes" make sense based on this concept. Neutrinos would be made up of a twisted torus (like a twisted donut) within this model. Gravity is a result of a very small curvature imbalance within atoms. (This is why the force of gravity is so small.) Instead of attempting to explain matter as "particles", this concept attempts to explain matter more in the manner of our current understanding of the space-time curvature of gravity. If an electron has qualities of both a particle and a wave, it cannot be either one. It must be something else. Therefore, a "particle" is actually a structure which stores spatial curvature. Can an electron-positron pair (which are made up of opposite directions of twist) annihilate each other by unwinding into each other producing Gamma Ray photons.

Alpha decay occurs when the two protons and two neutrons (which are bound together by entangled tubes), become un-entangled from the rest of the nucleons.

Beta decay occurs when the tube of a down quark/gluon in a neutron becomes overtwisted and breaks producing a twisted torus (neutrino) and an up quark, and the ejected electron. The phenomenon of Supercoiling involving twist and writhe cycles may reveal how overtwisted quarks can produce these new particles.

Gamma photons are produced when a tube unwinds producing electromagnetic waves.

[jasonwiley]

What is diffence between an up quark and a down quark? Is it just electric charge? Since they are constantly changing into each other there must be just small differences.

[dreamdiction]

5:00 Starts. The whole cannon of 'cosmology' and 'sub-atomic physics' (the very large and the very small) is conjecture presented as facts. Pieces of glass only exist when you smash the glass, the fictional sub-atomic particles only exist when you make them, a fraction of a second later they cease to exist, like positrons which only exist when you make them, all the so-called sub-atomic particles only exist by the most abstruse convoluted interpretations as described in this video, like the 12 types of quark which continuously morph into each other's "flavors" and "colors".

[TheMachian]

I highly recommend "The construction of quarks" by Andrew Pickering.

[bryankirk]

Why have some sort of children's picture taking up most of the screen at 15:00 etc.

[pizzacrusher]

Great presentation, but I don't think I have ever heard so much audience coughing and throat-clearing. I wonder if it was just a audio flub, and the audience should not have been in the audio mix as much as it was.

[markjohnson]

Gluon particles may be the representative quantified force that binds flavors of quarks together to create different atomic structure that change properties of atoms

[jopaki]

Excellent presentation. Thank you for sharing!

[alainclement]

thanks for posting this lecture, can someone give the title of the particle book she is carrying?

[RedSkyHorizon]

22:52 I hate to nitpick but that's a basketball not a football.

[jasonwiley]

But what is the difference physically between the + and - charges of charged particles? Can you predict charge from some underlying physical property or behavior? Same for magnetic "charges" n and s. What makes a positron+ and what makes an electron -?

[lifetheuniverse]

16:30 Electrons, easier to work with than slide controls...

[TomHendricksMusea]

QUARKS DO NOT MAKE SENSE - or the 3rd quark is REALLY weird.
Proton = 2 up, 1 down quarks. Neutron = 2 down, 1 up quarks.
So the difference between the two is the 3rd quark.

Both the proton and neutron, have one up and one down quark.

That leaves the difference between the proton and neutron as the 3rd quark.
So difference between a proton and neutron is due to whether the 3rd quark is up as in a proton, or down as in a neutron.

So, if that's true then:
The third quark determines these things:

If it has an up quark - proton, then the particle is immortal.
If it has a down quark - neutron, then the particle decays in 10 minutes. EXPLAIN

If it has an up quark - a proton, then the particle has less mass then the neutron.
If it has a down quark - a neutron, then the particle has .1% more mass than the proton.
So the down quark weighs .1% more than the up quark. EXPLAIN

Quarks have no measurable physical extension, and seem to exist at points. Yet that single point does all this and more. EXPLAIN

The proton has an up quark, and that magic third quark also determines half of the electromagnetic force in the universe. And it in no way is like the electron, the other half, except in being an opposite charge. EXPLAIN

The electron is one full charge, the magic third quark is 2/3+ charge, but somehow it determines all positive charge (and the 1/3- charge of the neutron's third quark determines all zero charge particles.) EXPLAIN.

When three quarks team up only a small part of the proton's mass comes from the masses of the quarks. Most is binding energy. So that third quark has virtually no mass but can do all these magic things. EXPLAIN.

Quarks interact strongly and link in twos or threes to make particles such as pions, protons, and neutrons. Yet the other half of the charge world, electrons, does none of these things. EXPLAIN

Physics is a science of pairs. For every particle there is an anti-particle. Virtual particles come in pairs. Spin, waves - destructive and constructive interference, etc. In these cases the pairs are virtually identical and or mirror images of each other. So why would electromagnetic charge have electrons and protons so different from each other, and in no way seem built on exact opposites, or mirror image opposites. EXPLAIN!

Particle wave duality includes atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks and gluons.
Now imagine a nucleus of deuterium, that has no particles only waves
that include in the nucleus of the atom, a proton wave, neutron wave,
6 quark waves, plus gluon waves. EXPLAIN.

Proton spin crisis. EXPLAIN.

[tmk]

The way Professor is looking at the screen, I am so sorry for her neck muscles of this prize winning lecture.