Sure we can idealize the concept of a perfect circle in our mind, a good 360 degrees.
But is there really such a thing as a perfect circle?
Even on computer monitors we will use pixels to create a circular formation which, the pixels are not perfectly circular themselves. When you keep going down to a next level you reach atoms and even atoms are not a sphere or a circle.
They are more of a geometrical shape that is three dimensional with edges, but not a smooth round shape.
in mathematics, there exists such a thing as a perfect circle. Consider the unit circle of radius 1, x^2 + y^2 = 1. In our minds, this is a very real object.
However in reality (ie. not our minds), nothing is a perfect circle. Particularly when you get down to the atomic level.
Or are there atoms that are actually circular? How can one actually be sure that it is spherical?
By your rationale, there is no perfect triangle, square, pentagon, etc. either. There’s no such thing as a perfect straight line, or a perfect right angle. There’s no such thing as a perfect flat plane, since there must be some minimal surface roughness on at least the scale of the atoms involved.
There’s not even a perfect point, since a theoretical point has zero length in any dimension, and any real representation of a point (e.g. ink on paper) must have some non-zero width and height.
A representation of a thing is not the thing itself. Even setting aside the “perfect” criterion, a drawing of a circle is not a circle. Circles, triangles, points, lines, and so on are all mathematical objects, not arrangements of graphite on paper. And as mathematical objects, perfect circles have just as much reality and existence as imperfect ones.
Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t say it’s a little billiard ball :).
But what does shape even mean? Heck, take a real billiard ball–why do we say it’s round? Well, it’s because when we poke it from different angles, our finger always stops at a fixed distance from a center point. So what stops our finger? As it turns out–the electromagnetic field pushes our finger back when it gets too close.
The electron is no different. It’s safe to say that an electron’s “purpose in life” is as a pure manifestation of the electric field. Therefore, it’s no stretch to say that an electron’s shape is defined by this field.
So we can say that an electron’s shape is that surface where the electric field is constant. Size is a bit trickier since there’s no obvious choice for the value of the electric field, but shape is easy–and the answer is that it’s spherical.
Unless you are using the word “solid” in some special, personal, technical sense (and a useless one, because, by your own stipulation, it has no referent), that is manifestly false. In both colloquial and standard scientific usage, there are solids all over the place.
As for the original question, it was long ago answered in the negative by Plato, and, as such, might, without too much exaggeration, be said to lie at the foundations of Western culture and science. (Sadly, REDEYZZ is well over two millennia too late to take the credit.)
