I found that to be a very interesting slide show. Is there an audio/video track of the lecture to go with it?
On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 9:24 PM, Eric Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 > >
