I agree Eric. So far observations have shown the Pauli principle to be applicable. But, that does not really prove that it is a real physical phenomena. As you say, a new physical process needs to be found which explains the behavior if new discoveries prove it is not universal.
Science is always changing and what we believe is true today is going to be greatly improved upon in a few years. This is a necessary process and one that has taken place continuously as better instrumentation is applied to real world measurements. We will be in trouble when advances to our understanding are no longer taking place. The Pauli exclusion principle appears to be a rule that captures a portion of a deeper underlying physical phenomena. If what I suspect is true then one day new particles, etc. will be discovered that do not obey it. Of course, the physicists can just state that the new particle does not follow the principle for some unknown reason. :-) Dave -----Original Message----- From: Eric Walker <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, Oct 25, 2015 9:24 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:slide deck for ultradense hydrogen / Leif Holmlid 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
