Are Electrons Real?

How can this thread be real if our eyes aren't real.

All evidence points to there being discrete packets of electric charge that can behave like particles and waves. We are pretty goddamn sure about the discrete part

http://m.phys.org/news/2014-02-precise-electron-mass.html

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>>8392640
>pop sci """news"""

doesn't say anything about what they did or how they did it, or the theory behind what they did, so it's not really anything

Any generic introductory chemistry textbook should have 5-10 pages dedicated to the discovery of the nature of electrons and the atom itself.

>>8392692
And? Textbooks teach accepted theory, and are often 20+ years out of date. Not really relevant to the question.

You can view the electron cloud with a powerful enough microscope. Yes they're real.

>fitting the evidence but not necessarily physical reality

What is a physical reality? I think we are past the point where we can group everything into two categories. Is a photon a physical real?

>>8392749
if you genuinely believe there isn't a reality to be discovered then science is over

>>8392746
that doesn't make any sense, if you see a cloud rather than a collapsed particle in a direct observation doesn't that go against the theory? any articles on that?

>>8392763
I didn't say that. I just meant that the line between something 'real' and concepts we create to describe what we are seeing is very blurred, Our usually definition of 'reality' only really applies at a macroscopic level.

>>8392766
the definition of reality doesn't change with scale
>muh quantum magic
>>>/out/

>>8392767
>implying the laws of physics at the microscopic and microscopic levels aren't vastly different
>implying the concept of reality wasn't developed by macroscopic beings to describe a macroscopic world

stay pleb

>>8392765
Electrons are EXTREMELY small. They also move so fast that you can only approximate their locations. Didn't you take Chemistry I ?

>>8392632

You can fire them, one a a time, and they behave exactly how you'd expect tiny gobs of negative charge to behave, and not at all how you'd expect something that doesn't exist to behave.

>>8392783
> they behave exactly how you'd expect tiny gobs of negative charge to behave

Not really. The first time they did the double slit experiment with electrons science was turned on its head.

>>8392783
But muh incredulity surely is an argument? Isn't it anon?

>>8392788
no it didn't

>>8392788
you can obtain the same result with complex molecules now, do you also object atoms and molecules existences?

>>8392789

What? Electrons are predicted by the standard model, and experiments specifically designed to investigate them have had the results you would expect to find if the standard model is accurate. You can't "see" one because they're the size of photons, but you can't "see" gravity either, do you go around asking for proof that there is gravity?

>>8392791
But it did. Before that experiment electrons were considered to be purely a particle. When it emerged it exhibited wavelike behavior, an entirely new field of science, quantum, had to be developed to explain it.
Half of the reason that that experiment was so famous was because, actually, electrons behaved completely differently to how you'd expect tiny globs of negative charge to.

>>8392794
Ready my post again. When did I say I objected to their existence?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGHugzpxgW0

Scientists develop models and theories that explain and describe reality. In a way electrons aren't real, but they, their behavior, interactions, etc. are very well described these theories.

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>>8392632
How do you explain the direct application of annihilation e+/e- in Gamma-ray used in PET-scanning ?

>>8392822
>Gamma-ray used in PET-scanning
wat. aren't gamma rays like incredibly dangerous to organisms because they rip DNA to pieces ?

>>8392826
>Rip my DNA to pieces
This is my last replication

>>8392826
Same with x-ray, that's why dont do a PET-scan everyday.

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>>8392826
>The pet-scan didnt show any tumor.
>So it create a real tumor instead.

>>8392632
>Tesla managed to invent radio and AC and all that stuff without invoking electrons. He didn't even believe they were real.

He was able to do that because all those things rely upon moving sufficiently large numbers of electrons through sufficiently large channels that the quantization is inconsequential and can thus be described well enough by classical E&M using a continuous charge distribution because of the Ehrenfest theorem.

>So it seems possible to me that electrons are just some kind of phlogiston, fitting the evidence but not necessarily physical reality.

But phlogiston never really fit the evidence, it was a nice idea that floated around until someone decided to actually look for the stuff. Electron's, however, reliably hold up whenever someone tries to observe the quantization of charge (see Milikan's oil drop experiment, shot noise measurement [ignoring some limited examples of charge fractionalization in strongly 1D systems, but these results were predicted from electron-based theories long before they were observed], the operation of single electron guns, quantum dots, and single-electron transistors, conductance quantization in clean channels, etc.)

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>>8392833
>>8392826
Autist here :
The PET-scanner is only a detector.
A dose of radioactive Fluor-18 is injected and works like a glucose molecule.
Cancerous cells eat as much glucose as an super-active muscle.
That's why the F18-glucose tends to accumulate more in fucked-up cells... Where it decays in gamma-ray detectable by the PET-scanner.

>>8392632
So I was wondering what if we had unlimited zooming capabilities? Like we zoom into molecules,then atoms,then electrons,then quarks,and what happens when we zoom into quarks? What can we see? What is there?How much further can we zoom into till we reach nothingness?
Mind boggling.

>>8392891
Eventually we'd just get to the level of 'energy behaving funny'. Which I guess also sums up particle physics.

>>8392834
I don't see why there is a difference in the observation of a neutral particle (atom) splitting into a positively charged particle (ion) and negatively charged particle (electron) and a particle composed of these two sub-particles

what defines the difference? how is an electron a thing rather than just a state? nobody has made a good answer

>>8392891

You would "see" the atoms literally "bouncing around" between their possible states.
http://www.livescience.com/27137-uncertainty-principle-measured-macro-scale.html

>>8392891
Depends on what you mean by "zooming in."

We can't "see" quarks in the traditional sense.

>>8392801
you're right, I should have said: do you object their corpuscular nature too?

>>8392798
When was the first double slit experiment with electrons conducted?

>>8392901
>what defines the difference?
A sufficient number of electrons bound to an ion is a neutral atom; there is no difference between the two since the orbitals defined by the potential of the nucleus of an atom are all of the bound states.

>how is an electron a thing rather than just a state?
How are we defining "thing" and "state?" Within the standard model, an electron is an excitation of the electron field. This excitation is localizable, has definite, discrete charge, rest mass, total spin, etc. and thus has all the properties of a discrete bit of stuff and bits of stuff with such well defined properties are called particles.

>>8392944
still not seeing how the electron model is preferred over a million equivalent interpretations here

>>8392798
Quantum mechanics was actually created to explain the photoelectric effect and how the electron cloud of the atom doesn't collapse. The double-slit experiment for electrons didn't come along until 1961, ~50 years after QM was fairly well developed.

>>8392951
What is an example of an alternative interpretation?

Electric charge is a thing that definitely exists. When you try to measure ever smaller amounts of electric charge, eventually you reach a point where you just can't, there is such a thing as a "smallest possible charge" which cannot be divided further. We call this "smallest possible unit" the electron. Its existence is implied by the behaviour of electric charge, if you want to dispute it you must provide an alternative explanation for the FACT of the quantised nature of electric charge.

>>8392774
The electron cloud isn't a thing because it's moving really fast, it's because the electron literally can't be described as having a position.

>>8392965
That's a nice explanation but it doesn't explain why it has mass

>>8392967

Why does anything have mass?

The only thing that exists is information. Everything else is just useful tools for understanding the change in the information.

>>8392632
>vaguely
accurate to 12 digits... wew lad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_moment

>>8392967
Because we can measure the mass changes in objects which acquire a single bit of charge and subtract off the change which is attributable to binding energy. Because we can measure single electron confinement and relate this to the kinetic term in the Schrodinger equation and extract its mass. Because we can measure the acceleration of the Lorentz force on individual free electrons using low intensity cathode ray tubes [probably the earliest measurement of electron mass since it is the easiest]. There are probably many more, but these are what I can think of off the top of my head that have been done.

>>8392965
>We call this "smallest possible unit" the electron
B-but quarks have −1⁄3 e

>>8392986

That explains how we know it has mass, but why does it? Why isn't it like a photon or neutrino?

>>8392991

And are NEVER found alone in nature because of this.

>>8392992
Neutrinos have mass

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2015/

>>8392953
That's true, but before then QM wasn't widely accepted, nor was it ever applied to electrons.

>>8392992
Neutrinos also have mass, just a lot less then everything else and they all get it from the same place: the coupling to the Higgs field. Photons get away with being massless because they don't couple to the Higgs field (unless we are talking about certain situations in superconductors where a pseudo -Higgs mechanism grants the photons an effective mass).

>>8392926
In that case, yes, as its only half the story.

>>8392995
never say never

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark%E2%80%93gluon_plasma

>>8393001
...yes, it was. Quantum electrodynamics was pretty much complete by 1950 and that is a hell of a lot more complex treatment of electrons in quantum theoretical methods than is required for the double slit experiment.

>>8393002

So the higgs field is like the "gravity force", analogous to the "electromagnetic field" of the electron? Why is that the particle that moves the electromagnetic force around is also affected by gravity? What consequences does this have?

>>8393006
>in a plasma
>alone

Yeah no, you're a cunt.

>>8393001
>>8393008
I should also add that 6 Nobel prizes were awarded for quantum mechanics before 1940. That is an awful lot for something that "wasn't widely accepted."

>>8393015
The Higgs field has nothing to do with gravity and gravity affects even massless particles (see gravitational lensing and geodesic paths for light described by space-time curvature).

>>8393008
As far as my understanding takes me quantum electrodynamics in the early 1900s dealt with the field as a quantum component, but still treated the electron as a particle.

Not saying you're wrong, as I'm reaching the edge of my knowledge, but I'm gonna need some sources.

>>8393017
>moves goal posts & slings an ad hominem

never change, sci

>>8393027
>>quarks are never found alone in nature
>here's an example of them not being alone
>>uh okay?
>MUH GOALPOSTS

>>8393024
Ok nevermind.

"The 1925 pilot-wave model, and the wave-like behaviour of particles discovered by de Broglie was used by Erwin Schrödinger in his formulation of wave mechanics. The pilot-wave model and interpretation was then abandoned, in favor of the quantum formalism, until 1952 when it was rediscovered and enhanced by David Bohm."

But yeah, the double slit experiment was still a landmark result.

>>8393030
I'd say that plasma is a pretty extreme example of a particle being alone

>>8393033

Then you don't know what a plasma is.

>>8393035
It sure isn't particles clumped together

>>8393024
>As far as my understanding takes me quantum electrodynamics in the early 1900s dealt with the field as a quantum component, but still treated the electron as a particle.

...QED treats electrons through field operators the same as photons (only with anticommutation relations rather than commutation relations). For a source, I point to Feynman diagrams which were part of Feynman's contribution to QED in the 40's.

Electrons are just field excitations in an electron field.

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>>8393051

>>8393057
https://youtu.be/RwdY7Eqyguo?t=14m40s

>>8392696
Electrons don't change their nature every 20 years you know

>>8392653
Shut the fuck up, they linked the paper. You probably wouldn't have read it anyway

>>8392965
>>8392965
fuck off retard

>>8393033
im pretty sure you have no idea what a plasma is

>>8393163
/sci/ in a nutshell 2bh

>>8394547
>>8393038

>>8392632
Yes, but everything relating to them is a lie, so they might as well not be

>>8394568
so what would you say is closer to the truth?

>>8393163
LMAO BTFO

Further proof on this board that 99% of people are first and second year bachelor degree kiddies that would rather adhere to board culture and memes rather than actually fucking talking about something.

>>8392796
Gravity's only a theory.