In my earlier posts on the subject of electrostatics, I spelt out the logic behind my conclusion that the basic concept of an ‘electric charge’ was at best flawed, at worst, just nonsense. Put simply, nothing in reality has perpetual energy and nothing can travel forever in straight lines.
But the challenge that was quickly raised with me was: “what replaces it?” And just as importantly, what other physical phenomenon, such as particle ‘tunnelling’ and ‘entanglement’ would it explain.
There is but one choice for the role of replacing electrostatics and that is magnetism or more strictly ‘magnetostatics’. ‘Electrostatics’ and its magnetic namesake, ‘Magnetostatics’ have two things in common. They both can attract and repel and the magnitude of the force they apply, falls off as the square of the distance from the source. But that’s it.
Whereas electrostatics is a very simplistic concept, ‘magnetostatics’ is much more complex and versatile. For example, each line of force in a magnetic field is quantised, having travelled a finite ‘circular’ distance before returning to its source. In addition, unlike the electrostatic charge which requires a ‘perpetual’ source of energy, the flux from a magnetic charge follows a finite loop and, as it experiences no resistance to movement, it never expends any energy in this way.
Unlike the lines of electrostatic force fields, magnetic lines of force can never cross, which means that, besides attraction and repulsion, they have the unique capability of being able to deflect one another when their force lines meet at right angles or more oblique angles.
Magnetic theory summarises this in the following way. Magnetic lines of force generated by two separate magnets, whose force lines run in the same clockwise or anti-clockwise direction will repel, whereas those that run in opposite directions, clockwise and anti-clockwise, will attract. This clockwise, anti-clockwise functionality and the ‘exclusion principle’ for magnetic lines of force, are the fundamental conceptual requirements for the functioning of a ‘magnetic model of the atom’.
Returning back to my most recent post, which the moderator sensibly felt obliged to stop, I have re-named it as: “The particle stairway to the nucleus”. Its structure is completely based upon ‘magnetism and magnetic forces’. There is no ‘electric charge’ or ‘spark of electricity’ involved in it. Hence readers assessing it from the electrostatic perspective were completely misguided and an apology is needed for this oversight made in my introduction to the topic.
What is new about this ‘particle stairway’ is that it uniquely predicts that the electron is constructed from the neutrino and its partner the anti-neutrino, locked together by magnetic forces. It further predicts that the key particle behind the construction of the proton and neutron is the up-quark and its partner, the anti-up-quark, again magnetically bound together. There are four in the proton and five in the neutron.
This first step in the transition from the ‘electrostatic model of the atom’ to the ‘magnetic model of the atom’ is for me a natural progression, but I fully appreciate that for some, it is a ‘seismic shift’ in the discipline of particle physics and moves them right out of their ‘comfort zone’. But for that, I have no need to apologise.
But for those of you who have a creative flair, the first task ahead is to explain how the individual particles get their mass, spin and magnetic moments. But if you wish to stay with the electrostatic model of the atom, that is your choice.