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  4. Does an Electron Spin?
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Does an Electron Spin?

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Offline talanum1 (OP)

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Does an Electron Spin?
« on: 28/08/2021 15:12:36 »
It does.

The objection is that it has to rotate faster than the speed of light to produce the observed angular momentum. In my model this is no problem since only space points need to go faster than light.

The other objection that an electron is a point of zero size and therefore can not have spin, is based on a belief and our inability to measure its size.
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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #1 on: 28/08/2021 15:36:05 »
Quote from: talanum1 on 28/08/2021 15:12:36
In my model this is no problem since only space points need to go faster than light.
You have yet to tell us what that means.
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Offline Origin

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #2 on: 28/08/2021 16:02:45 »
Quote from: talanum1 on 28/08/2021 15:12:36
The objection is that it has to rotate faster than the speed of light to produce the observed angular momentum.
Please supply the mathematics that show this.  You clearly must have an equation since you know the rotational velocity must exceed c.
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Offline BilboGrabbins

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #3 on: 28/08/2021 17:38:12 »
I would say yes. There is a natural cut off for small enough systems that they will always behave pointlije from experiments. If an electron did not have a tine radius, its self energy would blow up due to electrorepulsive forces inside of them. Some quantum theories attempt to do away with these clasdical divergences, but its been argued, from Dirac to Krauss and many more that these applications of patchwork really isn't appealing. There was a time, and still is in a way, a lot of reasons to think when a singularity arises in our equations to be an indication we've done something wrong. There's also a stupendous bias, with other contending theories to pointlike particles. Strimgs for instance, even though they are very small, are still treated as spayially extended objects and they argue a rescalling of energy to explain why they behave pointlike, when they're actually not. On top of this, a fairly recent experiment attempted to measure the shape of electrons. While we cannot see an electron, as opposed these days to atoms, from scattering experiments, they measured the shape of electrons indirectly. Their conclusion was amazing because their experiments seems to suggest it had a charge distribution that was (perfectly) spherical. Anyone will know from basic geometry, to have shape it must have a volume. So what's this gotta do with spin? Well everything. Because of a misinterpretation of a pointlike particle, the classical model abandoned rotational spin for an intrinsic property. And then we understood from this viewpoint that electrons couldm't physically spin because even though points in theory can spin, it would have an unusual spin in which it would take an electron 720 degrees to return to its original orientation, opposed to the usual 360 degrees for an ordinary sphere.

So while the prevailing veiw held on like a religion, even though we cannit directly see the electron, is that they may be pointlike and the effects of spin, as something intrinsic. So it had all the effectsof spin, without spin. But with measuring its shape, dipole moments and diverhence problems, something rings not so true about this model and I hope oneday we return to the origin classic equations bevause while they were at the face of it the same as we deal today, it does miss aspects of volume including some numerical coefficients. For instance, for sphere model of homodeneous distribution of electric charge, it differs for the magnetic moment by 1/5.
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Offline BilboGrabbins

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #4 on: 28/08/2021 17:40:07 »
Quote from: talanum1 on 28/08/2021 15:12:36
It does.

The objection is that it has to rotate faster than the speed of light to produce the observed angular momentum. In my model this is no problem since only space points need to go faster than light.

The other objection that an electron is a point of zero size and therefore can not have spin, is based on a belief and our inability to measure its size.

No it doesn't need to rotate faster than light as Origin and Bored have explained, but feel free to read my last post on these properties.
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Offline Origin

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #5 on: 28/08/2021 22:25:50 »
Quote from: BilboGrabbins on 28/08/2021 17:38:12
I hope oneday we return to the origin classic equations
Why would you want to embrace a inferior model that cannot explain the quantifiable and real effects of QM?
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Offline BilboGrabbins

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #6 on: 29/08/2021 00:31:45 »
Quote from: Origin on 28/08/2021 22:25:50
Quote from: BilboGrabbins on 28/08/2021 17:38:12
I hope oneday we return to the origin classic equations
Why would you want to embrace a inferior model that cannot explain the quantifiable and real effects of QM?

The equations differ only slightly and I wouldn't call the classical equations inferior. In fact they're more intuitive.
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Offline Origin

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #7 on: 29/08/2021 00:44:42 »
Quote from: BilboGrabbins on 29/08/2021 00:31:45
The equations differ only slightly and I wouldn't call the classical equations inferior.
They give the wrong answers and QM gives the right answers, so I would definitely call them inferior.
Quote from: BilboGrabbins on 29/08/2021 00:31:45
In fact they're more intuitive.
They are more intuitive, unfortunately our intuition is wrong when dealing with the very small.
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Offline Bored chemist

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Re: Does an Electron Spin?
« Reply #8 on: 29/08/2021 11:04:15 »
Quote from: BilboGrabbins on 28/08/2021 17:40:07
No it doesn't need to rotate faster than light as Origin and Bored have explained
I didn't say that.
What I said was that the post simply made no sense because the OP has yet (still) to explain what "space points " are.

It is unfortunate that a strange quantum property of the electron (etc) was labelled as "spin".
It's not due to rotation- it has (at least some of) the wrong properties to be a rotation.

So, do electrons have "spin"; yes.
Do they spin; no.

If you look at the magnetic moment of an electron, its charge,  and any plausible guess at the radius you can do the calculation for the tangential velocity.
If you do, you get a value greater than the speed of light.
You can do the same with the angular momentum; and get the same problem.

That's only a problem  if you think the classical equations are better.
If you use the QM ones, (which include the fact that "spin" isn't actually rotation) there's no problem.

The calculations are presented nicely on page 4 here
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.01121.pdf
 but I'm not commenting on the rest of the ideas in that work.
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