Re: AKICIF: Full moon on Friday the 13th

Keith F. Lynch wrote: 
Robert Shaw <Robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The vacuum isn't empty; it is full of photons, with a black body
spectrum, and an associated temperature.



This temperature is only meaningful on a macroscale.  Alpha is a
microscale number.  I might believe a single very violent particle
collision might change it.  I cannot believe that such a collision is
somehow outvoted by the mean temperature of all the microwaves within,
say, one meter of the collision.


Nonetheless, that's the way it is.

There is no way of excluding black body radiation from a vacuum.
E.g, enclose the vacuum is a box and it will be filled with
radiation of the same temperature as the box. You'd have to get
the box to absolute zero to elimate the radiation, and that's
impossible.

This makes the black body radiation, and its temperature, an
integral part of the vacuum.

Now, if a collision has high enough energy, more than the
electron rest mass, then it will experience an higher alpha,
but that increase is a part of QED, unconnected with symmetry
breaking.


How constant is alpha, anyway?  Could it fluctuate up and down
slightly every day, like currency exchange rates?


Not according to current theories. 


Perhaps they just need to measure it to a few more digits of
precision.  Who knows?



Perhaps. It would mean a substantial rewrite of particle physics,
so the tests are done every time the measurements improve.



How do we know there are no negative mass particles?  They would move
exactly like positive mass particles.  If you had one in the middle
of the room, it would be repelled by the earth, and therefor, having
negative inertia, would move towards it.


Quantum physics would then permit the negative mass particles to
condense from the vacuum, with consequences

A glance at the world around us show this is not so.

Diatomic molecules can be done. 


Can they?  Last I heard, monatomic hydrogen could be, but neither
diatomic hydrogen nor monatomic helium could be.  Is there a formula
for the spectral lines of helium?



Done numerically/computationally, which, while not a full solution,
is rather more than can be done analytically.

--
Matter is fundamentally lazy:- It always takes the path of least effort
Matter is fundamentally stupid:- It tries every other path first.
That is the heart of physics - The rest is details.- Robert Shaw
.

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