A Quantum Query for Thee

Physicists and anyone else please answer me this.

In the picture, there is a proton, which is made up of 3 bound quarks. Can you tell me which bit is the 3 bound quarks, and which bit is the proton, and tell me how they are different things?

The Quarks are the particles that make up the Proton. Specifically, it must be an U, U, D (Up, Up, Down) configuration. The Colored particles are the Quarks and the Gray Circle surrounding it is the proton. This image is showing you what the Proton is composed of.

Hello?

What is the grey circle made of?

I'm pretty sure the grey circle is just an artistic representation. It's just to show the quarks in context. In reality, there is no magical grey circle surrounding the quarks, but the quarks themselves comprise the proton. It's like when they show models of molecules, when they are mostly empty space

If you got rid of the circle, would the diagram still be a proton?

That's like asking what the atom is made of other than nucleons and electrons. It has the appearance of being a singular solid thing because of the interaction between thw bound components. The grey part doesn't really exist.

At what point do 3 bound quarks become a different thing to a proton? I'm having trouble seeing the difference.

They don't. Protons, atoms, molecules, etc. are just useful abstractions. In the same way an integrated chip is nothing more than many transistors (with some other components too), and transistors are nothing more than atoms, etc.

What's a quark composed of?

Yes.

When the 3 bound quarks have a specific configuration corresponding to a proton then it 'becomes' a proton. Nomenclature is just us systematically labeling things to make it easier for us. When it no longer has the same specific function and characteristics of a proton, it is different from a proton. Don't be autistic and look too deep into taxonomy and semantics

So it isn't the standard model of particle physics just arbitrarily labelling things and pretending things are made of other smaller things, when in fact it is all one thing.

Yea but we don't know what the basic unit is.

Also, in math, do we say 100 1's, or simply say 100? It is just a system to make things more efficient.

>just arbitrarily labelling things
It's not arbitrary if each label refers to an object that behaves differently enough to distinguish from others.

>pretending things are made of other smaller things
Well, protons etc are made of smaller things

>when in fact it is all one thing
wot

as far as we know, they're just sort of there

>Yea but we don't know what the basic unit is.

Because there isn't one. Logically impossible. Infinite regress.

>It's not arbitrary if each label refers to an object that behaves differently enough to distinguish from others.

How do the three bound quarks that make up the proton behave differently to a proton?

>Well, protons etc are made of smaller things

Infinite regress.

A particle is just an energy spike in a certain field.

>How do the three bound quarks that make up the proton behave differently to a proton?
They don't but that particular triplet of quarks has a name because it behaves differently to other triplets of quarks.

>Because there isn't one. Logically impossible. Infinite regress.

what? how do you know that? Seems fallacious

Is this thread an elaborate bait by a godfag?

>Infinite regress.
Not really, currently it just stops at quarks and leptons

AKA non-physical?

Would it then be wrong to say that all matter in existence is simply a lot of bound quarks?

>Would it then be wrong to say that all matter in existence is simply a lot of bound quarks?
All baryonic and mesonic matter is a lot of bound quarks. Electrons, neutrinos etc are leptons.

Sometimes it's useful to think of things as sets of quarks but often it's more useful to use a higher level of abstraction.

Do you not see the issue with having a base particle that makes up everything? Everything would be the same! Think about it...

In my limited understanding of string theory, I think one of the ideas in there is that all particles are just the same basic object vibrating at different frequencies.

So in that framework, everything is made of the same thing but the thing does different things depending on other factors.

Quarks and leptons are different to each other and therefore can't be considered a base particle that makes up everything else.

Useful it may be, it's not a true idea of reality.

Strings vibrating at different frequencies are different things by the very fact their frequencies are different. String theory needs to do better than that.

Why would everything be the same?
Color is just waves at different frequencies. Is everything the same color because it is caused by electromagnetic radiation? Are you retarded?

What's your obsession with finding a base particle? What if there isn't one?

>Strings vibrating at different frequencies are different things by the very fact their frequencies are different.
When you strum a guitar string at different frequencies is it a different string?

This is a typical intelligent design argument. He is baiting

>Why would everything be the same?

Because everything would be made up of the same fundamental particle.

Are we talking about one string, or multiple strings?

I'm not religious at all.

no thanks
im a mereological nihilist

>Are we talking about one string, or multiple strings?
Same string, e.g. the first harmonic and the second harmonic.

Point being that the same basic object can exhibit materially different behaviours.

>Because there isn't one. Logically impossible. Infinite regress.
Actually, we know it isn't an infinite regress due to the energy levels involved. It might go further, but at this point, it seems unlikely. You can't meaningful analyze anything beneath the planck scale in anycase.

But OP is also being far too picky. When does a bunch of cells become a human being? Collections of structures have emergent properties. It isn't an intellectual shortcut, it's just how things work.

>Point being that the same basic object can exhibit materially different behaviours.

But the frequency is still different. A guitar string can only be different frequencies when there is something to strum it.

>Because everything would be made up of the same fundamental particle.

Why would that mean everything is the same?
You seem to be unable to get past this notion that one thing in a different state can have a different function than just one of that thing.

Take for example the words on this screen, or this website.
It is just information in different states.

That's because eventually they stop vibrating but the strings in string theory don't, they just change frequency (which is what happens when particles transform into others I think).

I'm struggling to see your endgame here, what point are you even trying to make? Do you want there to be one thing that everything is made of?

>Actually, we know it isn't an infinite regress due to the energy levels involved. It might go further, but at this point, it seems unlikely. You can't meaningful analyze anything beneath the planck scale in anycase.

We can analyse all energy in existence with our five senses rooted in the 3rd dimension?

>But OP is also being far too picky. When does a bunch of cells become a human being? Collections of structures have emergent properties. It isn't an intellectual shortcut, it's just how things work.

Ah yes, "emergent properties". Another word for magic.

>Ah yes, "emergent properties". Another word for magic.

It's like the relationship between 1+1+1 and 3. Asking "which part" of the 1+1+1 is the 3 is retarded.

>Ah yes, "emergent properties". Another word for magic.

At last the troll admits defeat

A base particle would be a particle that you couldn't split any more, it would make up everything. How can that possibly work?

1 + 1 + 1 is a calculation, not the number 3 itself. I'm asking which part of 3 is the 3?

tell me how 3 is a distinct entity and not just a boundary arbitrarily drawn around 1 1 1

OP, what's so hard to understand? A proton is three quarks (U,U,D) and three quarks (U,U,D) are a proton. Where's the hangup here?

Emergent properties commits the fallacy of circular reasoning. You are no better than people who believe the bible is true because it says it is.

Because it is said that a proton is "made up" of three bound quarks, despite them being the same thing. There is a fundamental metaphysical flaw in the way particles are described and illustrated.

>How can that possibly work?
How does the difference in protons and neutrons change the atom?

How do spin states in electrons change physical characteristics?

Again and again I counter your argument, yet all you can do is ask why? how?

Going to go back to my first post, as I explained the fallacy of your thinking in it
I think the real question is:
How can it possibly not work?

Do you believe a base particle could exist? A particle that is not different from itself in any way.

Depends on your perspective I guess. From an empirical point of view, there are just many fundamental units arranged in different ways. From a human, qualitative perspective, things like hurricanes, houses, protons, etc. do exist and it is correct to say they're "made up of" things.

Are quarks really little spheres? How does everything become a matter that we touch if its non material at base?

Yes I believe a base unit could exist, and fluctuations/changes in its state could account from the differences we observe in the macroscopic world.

I think you are implying that a thing with two states are not the same thing (i.e. a mug of coffee on the table vs the same mug of coffee moved to the right by 1 cm are two different things rather than the same thing in a different state).
This is basically a semantics argument and a waste of time.

matter is just confined energy, and touching is a bit of an illusion; it's just atomic forces

no, particles aren't spheres. what particles really are is incredibly complicated and nonsensical/not intuitional; in order to truly understand you need to know way too much to be explained to you on an anonymous imageboard

Both of those perspectives are arbitrary.

>
I think you are implying that a thing with two states are not the same thing (i.e. a mug of coffee on the table vs the same mug of coffee moved to the right by 1 cm are two different things rather than the same thing in a different state).

The mug of coffee moved by itself?

>fixating on the analogy
Is it autism?

there are multiple interactions that make hadron creation possible, the basic rule for quarks is that you can't find one alone in nature, there can be for example pions (quark-antiquark pairs). Gluons hold hadrons together by constantly exchanging color (is just a label nothign to do with real color).

ANSWER THIS

no

i think the apparent answer is they are connected by information, the (+). I dont know the first thing about physics. Is there anyone who knows about quantum information that can confirm this holds true for quarks?
The thing is information is meaningless without life to interpret its meaning. So it appears to me that the part-whole composition of reality is entirely abstract, not necessarily illusory, but an representation abstracted from concrete reality. Concrete which is in actuality just different aggregations of quarks or whatever a mereological simple may be.
Is this line of reasoning solid?
Are the facts on my side?
i suppose it rests on the premise that uninterpreted information is meaningless.
even if so and the (+) has meaning in itself. Is that not just abstracted from the relationship of 1 to 1?
Perhaps information is a mereological simple and the concrete and the abstract supervene at the quantum level? I think a solid argument could be made in this case. What would that mean for the part-whole composition of reality?
That both abstracta and concreta are made up of nothing but mereological simples and the part-whole composition of reality is infact illusory?
i wish i could into formalisms.

Yep.

That still doesn't prove how a proton is a different thing to the three bound quarks it is "made up" of?

How is a car different from an engine, a frame, and some wheels, and shit?

For that matter, how is a car different from a collection of quarks?

When we see X things in Y configuration, we call it Z. Matter has specific functions in one configuration that it does not have in other configurations. Quarks arranged in protons behave differently, as a group, than quarks arranged in other ways.

It's just a simple function of language, that's all there is to it. Get over it, or stop talking. Or, the next time you want a chicken tendy, describe it, quark by quark.

>For that matter, how is a car different from a collection of quarks?

That's my point, it's not. A proton is just a collection of quarks bound by some energy, a nucleus is just a collection of more quarks bound by some energy, and an atom is yet a larger collection of quarks bound by some energy, and so on and so on.

>When we see X things in Y configuration, we call it Z. Matter has specific functions in one configuration that it does not have in other configurations. Quarks arranged in protons behave differently, as a group, than quarks arranged in other ways.

So quarks are in something else called a proton? I thought the quarks made up the proton, it can't be inside itself.

>So quarks are in something else called a proton? I thought the quarks made up the proton, it can't be inside itself.
You can make a big cube from a bunch of little cubes, and they will nonetheless be different cubes - though that's not the case here. Three quarks, engaged as imaged in the OP, make a proton. There are not protons inside the proton, there are quarks inside the proton.

1+2=3, even if 3 is made up of "three ones".

I mean, you're typing using a language that requires all this - that collection of objects in different arrangements with different resulting structures and /or functions are referred to by different words. We don't describe cars quark by quark as, leaving uncertainty principle aside, we don't live long enough to do so. Quarks arranged into cars have different behavior from quarks arranged into cats, so we use different words. Quarks arranged into protons have different behaviors from quarks arranged into neutrons, same difference, save that you might actually be able to catalog them in a lifetime.

I'm failing to see what your problem is - and I'm uncertain if there are drugs involved or if you're just trolling.

>You can make a big cube from a bunch of little cubes, and they will nonetheless be different cubes - though that's not the case here. Three quarks, engaged as imaged in the OP, make a proton. There are not protons inside the proton, there are quarks inside the proton.

Isn't the big cube both a big cube, and a bunch of little cubes that make up the big cube? They are not different things.

>Quarks arranged into protons have different behaviors from quarks arranged into neutrons

Those same quarks that make up the proton make up the the neutron as well - again, they are not actually different things even though it can be helpful to think they are for the benefit of scientific theories.

>Isn't the big cube both a big cube, and a bunch of little cubes that make up the big cube?
No, because if you have a 4x4 cube made up of 1" blocks, the 4x4 cube measures 4" on each side, while each block only measures 1". Thus, one big cube, many small cubes.

>they are not actually different things even though it can be helpful to think they are for the benefit of scientific theories.
Not just for scientific theories, but for talking about how those groups behave. Again, same with cats and cars, it's not about scientific theory, it's about having a useful descriptive language. They are two different groups with two different functions and different interactions.

Thus, there are neutron stars, but no proton stars - as protons repel each other. Yes, all matter is made up of quarks, but different groups of quarks arranged differently interact differently, thus we must label those groups "protons" and "neutrons", "cat" and "car".

>No, because if you have a 4x4 cube made up of 1" blocks, the 4x4 cube measures 4" on each side, while each block only measures 1". Thus, one big cube, many small cubes.

If I go up to the big cube, put a ruler on the side of it and measure 1", am I measuring a bit of the big cube, or one of the separate cubes?

Both.

And it would also be true to say I was measuring a collection of quarks.

Yes, but if the block is made up of legos, it would be just as accurate, as well as more useful, to say you were measuring legos.