I have to ponder what "fundamental" means? Non divisible yes, and like the neutrino and the muon, also non divisible. So, is there something important when we arrive at the non divisible? We are kind of back to the ancient idea of atoms (Democritus?) in the sense that there is nothing else to break down, Planck Cells maybe? My only objection if we call it this is semantic in the sense that fundamental becomes a psychological trap, where further research is halted because it means, look no further.
-----Original Message----- From: John Clark <[email protected]> To: everything-list <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, May 31, 2016 9:11 pm Subject: Re: Aristotle the Nitwit On Tue, May 31, 2016 , spudboy100 via Everything List <[email protected]> wrote: > Being picky, what are electrons made out of? As far as we know electrons aren't made of anything, electrons are fundamental. > Are electrons arguably, material? Electrons have mass, electrical charge, and a magnetic moment , and all of those things are physical properties. So yes, electrons are material. > Last year, a trio of physicists in Italy deduced that electrons would last 5 quitillion times the current age of the univeres I've heard some speculate that the proton might be unstable over huge time ranges like that, but not the electron. For a electron to decay it would have to change into a charged particle that was lighter than it was, but the electron (and its antimatter counterpart the positron) is the lightest known charged particle, so there is nothing for the electron to decay into. A Muon is very similar to the electron except that it's 207 times as massive, so in about a millionth of a second it decays into a electron and 2 neutrinos, but the electron is the end of the line, there is no place for the electron to go so it sticks around. The same is true of the neutrino, like the electron it's stable, fundamental and isn't made of anything. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
