How small does matter get? For example, what exactly is

>>8932299

fishing wire

>>8932299
They're fundamental, so structureless.

>>8932308
That doesn't quite make sense. If you were to get an ultra super zoom microscope that was capable of seeing smaller than a quark, what would you see?

>>8932311
your penis

>>8932311

That doesn't quite make sense

>>8932318
A quark has to be made up of something for it to exist. It can't just exist for existence's sake. The universe must get smaller than a quark. So I'll ask again, what exactly is a quark made up of?

>>8932320
Wouldn't that logic result in an infinite regress?

>>8932329
Well yeah, that's what I'm trying to understand. Is there a point where thing don't get smaller? If so, how can that be?

>>8932332
Yep, it ends with quarks.

>>8932299
>>8932311
You can't really 'see' particles, they are just excitation in their corresponding fields that interact with other excitation through force carrier particles (excitation). often times you can't really apply basic concepts to quantum mechanics because it doesn't play by traditional 'rules' Although, string theory dictates that all particles are made of dimensionless strings.

>>8932311
You wouldn't "see" anything because seeing depends on photons hitting your retina. It's like saying you want to see inside a photon using photons. Can't be done for obvious reasons

>>8932332
It gets "smaller" on a purely mathematical level in terms of infinite regress, maybe. The world doesn't really make sense, and you should stop expecting it to. If you think about it long enough, trying to "make sense" of it doesn't really make sense.

>>8932311
The fact that you're still thinking of it in terms of "seeing" something shows that you haven't really understood the fundamental structure of reality.

Particles are not "things." They are not objects. Not really. You think that everything that can have behavior and impact on the world has to be an object, something with mass that can be touched, but at a microscopic scale nothing like "weight" or "touching" or "seeing" (at least in an intuitive way) ever happens.

Fundamental particles are only describable in terms of their behavior. In truth, that's all anything is describable as, the only difference being that you have a lot of shorthand to make it easier... for example, rather than saying "this object sure reflects a lot of electromagnetic radiation at around 700nm" you say "this thing is red". But particles don't have those properties. They don't (really) have shape, and whether any particular particle is going to react to whatever you'd use to detect them at all is a crapshoot(plus a lot of these things would be irrevocably changed into something else if they ever collided with or emitted a photon anyway), so asking "what does it look like" is a question that makes no sense.

>>8932299
Strings. Though that's not really accurate

>>8932361
>>8932311
It's not that these things have magical properties, it's that you to assume that your senses are detecting something fundamental about your reality, but they're not. Things as you experience them are actually epiphenomena, things that have no reality in and of themselves, but are a result of something else.

It's like, you're a feral child who grew up in a warehouse, and you've never seen anything except stacked rectangular boxes. Someone finds you and brings you a hamburger and it blows your mind how this thing is round and doesn't have six flat sides. That's about the worst metaphor anyone has ever come up with but still. That's you.

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54KB, 625x415px

>>8932311
a quark is one mathematical function and unless you are a retard having faith in scientific realism, it is just this.

>>8932393
but muh deep inelastic scattering

>>8932299
quantum foam or some shit.

thin nylon strings, hence the name os string theory

>>8932299
https://youtu.be/RwdY7Eqyguo?t=14m45s

>>8933000
>hunting the niggs
what?

>>8932299
>what is a quark made of
Blind physicist faith

>>8932313
KEK

>>8933060
So quantum physics is a religion then.

>>8933044
>t=14m45s too hard to decode
bless your heart

>>8933082
any theoretical science shares notable characteristics with religion

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211KB, 621x3338px

>>8932299

>>8932332
>Well yeah, that's what I'm trying to understand. Is there a point where thing don't get smaller? If so, how can that be?

Shhhh, don't think about it, don't ask the scientists. They'll shit themselves and have to admit Plato was right

>>8932333
>brainlet

>>8932332
Because particles aren't "things" they're little abstract points that can exert forces on other little abstract points. Below a certain size, the only thing that really sets one region apart from another is the probability of a force acting upon a particle there. Even those are kind of graident-y things.

Read more about quantum physics to get an idea-- especially learn about wave packets. Reality doesn't "exist" so much as announce itself in response to a ridiculous multitude of tiny questions.

>>8934621
>professor is a woman
a bit unbelievable

>>8933082
Yes exactly. If a particle isnt part of a chemists regular vocabulary it isnt real