Time?

This is far too esoteric for this forum. It's 12:40 AM GMT and you think my brain is going to engage in electron theory.

You are correct go back in time for my answer!

Is the electron real? Sure, it's a particle. Or is it a wave? Well, it's probably a probability wave. Can athe electron, as a discrete particle, be smeared around a locus around an atom? Does an electron exist as a particular entity? If we collide a positron and an electron, we see that they were both just energy. Like the two atoms that were walking along, and one atom says to the other: "Oh, I just lost an electron!". The other atom asks: "Are you sure?" The 1st atom says: "Yes. I'm positive".

That may vary upon your point of view...

Electrons may not be only seen as a particle, but also as a wave... and as a wave they are in a region of space but not only a spot... also they can't be treated as if they were just in some point of that region... they are at the same time in all the region and in no part of it at all... it's a bit confusing... even more, unless you have an inifinite potential barrier, the electron could be anywhere in the universe and still belong to an atom of some Å of width...

Anyway, it's true that time can be tought from that point of view...

There are two ways of looking at this situation. Let's take the simplest interaction we know, the hydrogen atom.

If you agree with the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics (foisted on us by that rat-bastard, Neils Bohr), then you believe that the electron exists as a cloud of probability around the hydrogen nuclei. It's somewhere in that predicted region of space, but we don't know where until we go looking for it, which causes the probability wave to collapse and we find the electron at x,y, and z.

On the other hand, we can say that no particle exists exactly at point x, but, rather, it is spread over space because the electron has a "time-wave," which means it doesn't exist in an exact time and space. Instead, it exists in both the past and the future. Then, the more energy spent trying to locate the electron causes the electron to exist closer to what some might call "absolute now." This has the effect of shrinking the electron's time diffusion closer to the "now," and easier to find in one particular location.

Potato, patato... You decide.

Rat bastard?

milo

Neils Bohr was a tyrant and a bully of the worst kind, as exposed in an article a few years ago in Scientific America. If a student dared questioned the Copenhagen Interpretation, they could kiss their degree goodbye. He purposefully ruined colleges careers and got scientists thrown out of Universities all over the World. If you doubted, you died!

Some scientists believe that just in the last few years has science been able to start making new progress in quantum physics... Bohr had "high-priests" to carry on the cause after his death. Fortunately, these priests are going away, too.

I have one of those guys on my board of directors.

Absolutely no capacity to hear an alternative to his own thinking.

Rat Bastard he is!.

Thanks for sharing.

milo

Crikey, I think my head is about to explode. But i like the second explanation as I never did like the thought that we could exactly pinpoint the location of a single electron at a particular point in time. The first theory throws out the ultimate in random probability, which I always throught adds a certain spice to life.

One aspect of time theory:

Time is Mother Nature's method to keep everything from happening all at one time.

That is true for most things, but if we understand the nature of photons, every one in every place in the Universe, sees everything happening in a frozen field in an instant of frothing, frying now, and within a single spot! Has the Big Bang occurred according to photons? Maybe not!