Hello everyone,

can anyone explain me the phenomenon of spinning of
1) Celestial bodies
2) Electrons

please explain the very cause of this phenomenon.

neoneurons:

I will offer you my theory on the spinning of Solar System objects and leave the electron request alone. T o my knowledge no one has mathematically offered a formula that applies to all norman spherical bodies. I have made such an offer in my book and I do provide a calculation method that works.

Most simply it's like the head bone connected to the back bone, connected to....

The Sun received its motion when the dust/stuff of the system was organized by the gravitation of the galaxy. The remaing material that became solar objects was put into motion by the same mechanics and continues to this day. The rotating Sun keeps the system in motion by the strength of its gravitation and it is subject to calculation by simple mathematics. The answer to the first part of your question is that it is due to the Suns gravitation and rotation. My own view only.
jjw

Hi neoneurons

The concept of spin was introduced, empirically, to explain certain aspects of atomic emission spectra. The story is a bit involved as it took researchers a few years to figure out what was going on. However, here is a good website that gives a reasonable, and humorous account:

http://www.ilorentz.org/history/spin/goudsmit.html

There really is no "cause" of this or any other phenomena - it just is. We see it, describe it and cope with it.

Dr. R.

Hi Dr. R.

I read your link in my own limited way and do not yet understand why the electron spins, if it dos?

Your author is well to read and I enjoyed it all even when I felt inferior. The last part seemed important in its own right to me;

"That is the way the history looks and it is a somewhat curious history. Who, precisely, should get credit for it? Such things are not possible without also giving credit to all other people who have contributed. But one aspect stands out which is of particular importance for young people. First: you need not be a genius to make an important contribution to physics because, I do admit, the electron spin is an important contribution. That I know now, then we did not know, but now I do. They all told me so.

Then I want to say one more thing: even if you make a minor contribution, if it is not important, then this gives an enormous satisfaction. Therefore I do believe that one should not always aspire to tackle what is most important, but try to have fun working in physics and obtain results."

In my old age I get lost in thougt unrelated to the focus of the subject. Very seldom, but mostly when I get bored with people speaking a language I can not comprehend. I suspect there is a one or two liner that can explain why the electron spins and when properly articulated well tell volumnes.

You conclude:
"There really is no "cause" of this or any other phenomena - it just is. We see it, describe it and cope with it."

Sorry, physics or not, i believe that there is a cause for everything. No doubt a view left over from my training as a lawyer. I think your comment is very entertaining- "without cause"?
jjw

Neonneurons, You asked 2 questions that are not related. Celestial bodies spin because of conservation of the angular momentum of the nebula they started life in. Electrons, on the other hand, do not spin (jjw is not as limited as he thinks). Spinning electrons were invented in the 1920's by 2 physicists who won the Nobel prize for their work. There is, however, no actual data or evidence that electrons spin. There is, in fact, no evidence that an electron is a singular particle. Instead, it appears to be a cloud of particles.

Lovely article. I believe that J Arthur God and D A Morgan can learn a lot from the letter that L H Thomas wrote to Goudsmit on the 25th of March 1926.

Hi jjw,

Something you said caught my eye. You said "... i believe that there is a cause for everything ...". The whole concept of causes has a very long history some of which falls under the rubric of teleology.

Aristotle pretty much leads the parade:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/

On teleology in general see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology

David Hume also had an interesting take on cause and effect. A fair run down on Hume's ideas is at

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/


The perception of cause and effect has a powerful influence on the way people think and interact. It is natural and intuitive - seems so obvious. This is especially true of scientist, but the ideas involved are not so cut and dried. Younger, less experienced and, sorry to say, even some older scientist never question their teleological principles.


Dr. R.

Dr R:

Thank you for the links,

My remark was an expression of my experience and not simply based on intuition. "Cause" as I vision it, is the reason something or some action takes place. A philosopher may wish to debate whether we have eyes so we can see or if
we have eyes because we can see. That is not productive for me and the reasons used to enlarge the discussion bore me to distraction.

One of the important questions, undecided for some of us, is why the Mass of an object will produce gravitation. That is mysterious to me but I would never say that it is without a cause; accept it! There is most certainly a cause
whether we know it or understand it or not. The next part of the question would be why does more Mass produce greater or stronger degree of
gravitation than is produced with a smaller object. We can infer easily that bulk equates to Mass but ponder the question of whether it is the surface area or the volume that is the cause of the difference, or that possibly both
may play a part. The point is that there must be a cause and if we stay with it we will discover the cause. Possibly too simple an approach.

On one of the space missions the astronauts observed a spider making a web in a corner of the capsule and they filmed it. It was doing it with out difficulty just like it would on earth. The astronauts were floating around the inside of the capsule like being weightless. The CAUSE, for this effect to me, was the relative Mass of the spider and the capsule. The spiders
relationship to the capsule was a close quivalent of a man to the Moon and he was still experiencing gravitation, now from the Mass of the capsule.

I am aware we may be looking at the same word with different interpretations. If this is so then this was a wasted effort. I do sincerely
believe there is a cause for everything giving us some thing to work on.
jjw

Hi jjw,

You make some interesting points. We, as you say, may be interpreting at the idea of cause from different points of view.

There are, philosophical quibbles aside, only two problems with causality. The first is the infinite regress problem and the second is the cause-effect relation.

You say that Mass of an object causes its gravity. Along these lines one could as well ask for the cause of mass, and then for the cause of that cause and so on forever, i.e., an infinite regress. The question is was there a beginning or not? Im not too sure that such a question can be answered or even that it is meaningful. I personally find infinite regress easier to grasp than a set beginning.

The second question is to the relation between cause and effect. The difficulty is to discern if there is an actual relation between the cause and the effect or if it is only in the human mind for whatever reason. (This is part of what Hume was talking about.)

The idea of inertial mass was introduced as a constant of proportionality in Newton's second law F = ma. The idea was to replace the vague notion of the "quantity of matter" in a body. Newton also gave us the Universal Law of gravitation, which is where we get our idea of gravitational mass. In both of these cases Newton was simply describing the way the physical world works. He specifically "framed no hypothesis" of what mass or gravity "actually is", "how it is caused" or "how it comes into being". Newton was, first and foremost, a philosopher - he knew better than to tackle such a thorny question without real understanding.

If you have ever watched a spider build a web (on earth) you can't help but to notice that gravity means little to the creature. It does its work in any orientation. It seems that when one of these animals is in space the lack of gravitational effects may well pass unnoticed. This may seem remarkable to a human astronaut who is unconsciously accustomed to using gravity for orientation, help in walking, swollowing food, etc. Where is the cause here? In the relative proportions of nearby mass or in the (self absorbed) human perception of thing?

Now many people think that such philosophical musings are of no value and more than pointless in the context of a scientific discussion. I might point out that all the great scientist have taken these things seriously. Keep in mind that science started out as Natural Philosophy.

In this light I might argue with you over some points but, I do not believe that you have "wasted effort" at all. As you say "giving us some thing to work on" - different point of view gives one something to work on!

Dr. R.

Just a thought: inertial mass implies equilibrium; i.e. if there is no force the mass will be stationary within the inertial reference frame travelling with it. Mass also implies "resistance" against being moved by an applied force from equilibrium. Equilibrium and resistance against being moved from equilibrium indicates the presence of a restoring force (i.e. stable equilibrium). Does this not then imply that the mass of a particle is the lowest quantum mechanical energy that this entity can have under the action of a restoring force; i.e. harmonic potential energy? This then implies that the energy of an electron at an infinite distance from a proton is not zero but equal to mc^2 where m is the mass of the electron.

OK dr. R:

I am a kind of home spun phylospher but I simply can not run on with the infinite degrees of reason that are available if you wish to be thorough. A lack of mine because, rightly or not I simply lose intereat.

Suppose we say the Sun is at the center of the Solar System and is the cause for the continued existentence of the system. So why? We must now take the Sun apart, as well as the objects of the system to try to answer that question. My point is that each entity or object has an existence of note and that reducing them to atoms, by a means which can full up books, is not neccessary for the thought process directed at limited issues.

Yes, I believe there is a cause for everything we experience- however, this does not require a conclusion of every possible contribution to the apparent cause. Those details can be considered as we move towards a better understanding of all.

Thank you for the exchange.
jjw

Hi Dr. R:

One point you make:

"If you have ever watched a spider build a web (on earth) you can't help but to notice that gravity means little to the creature. It does its work in any orientation. It seems that when one of these animals is in space the lack of gravitational effects may well pass unnoticed."

Tell that to the spider. This is more of the "what we see here is every where? idea and I feel you do not really advocate that.
jjw

Hi jjw,

I am not so sure about infinite regress, but it is easier for me to buy into it than an ultimate first cause.

Your example of the sun and solar system, if I read you right, is called "reductionism". This approach to things has it use, but is limited.

You said: "I believe there is a cause for everything we experience". This is a view shared by many scientist and is called "realism". I tend to think this way - but not without question.

In your second post you say: "This is more of the "what we see here is every where? idea and I feel you do not really advocate that."

I sort of do advocate this - but with caution! In science this view is common place. For example, in spectroscopy. If I make a spectrograph of an element in the lab and then find the same lines in the solar spectrum it is reasonable to suppose that the element is involved in solar processes. Since the sun is one of many stars we can transfer lab based and solar based obsevation to stars everywhere. There are lots of details, so we have to be careful in our reasoning. Nevertheless, "what we see here is every where" is not too unreasonable.

By the way, I have watched countless spiders in my garden. They don't seem to care about gravity, but that may be an anthropomorphic project on my part.

My apologies for being a bit slow in responding to your interesting remarks. The new term has been keeping me busy.

Dr. R.

I wish you many attentive and appreciative students.
Thank you for the exchange.
jjw