On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 8:05 PM, David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote:
Being a skeptic, I have to question the Pauli exclusion principal itself. > How do we know that it is actually a physical reality? It may have > appeared true during most of the previous experimentation, but how can we > be sure it is anything more than an observation that has worked up until > now? The Pauli exclusion principle is your friend. It is why rigid bodies are rigid. It is why you and I are not falling towards the center of the earth. It's why additional electrons must occupy higher levels in atomic orbitals once lower ones are filled. It is why neutron stars don't collapse into a single point [1]. I think of fermions as being a class of wave that is susceptible to destructive interference. When two electrons of the same wavefunction are near one another, they begin to cancel one another out. This means that the closer you approach the region in which they would otherwise overlap, the less you will be likely to see either. This is a very intuitive explanation for me, since it's clear that waves sometimes destructively interfere with one another. If we set aside the Pauli exclusion principle, we must be prepared to offer an alternative explanation for all of the things above. Eric [1] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/pulsar.html#c3
