1/17/23, 10:30 PM Quantum Particles: An Introduction | Biblical Science Institute

Quantum Particles: An Introduction

by Dr. Lisle | Jun 17, 2022 | Physics

Quantum physics deals with how the universe behaves at very small scales – on
the level of atoms and smaller. And it’s weird: very weird. Particles that are
smaller than atoms do not behave in exactly the same way as the much larger
objects to which we are accustomed. This makes quantum physics one of the
most intriguing areas of research, and one which declares the glory and majesty
of the Lord.

Atoms

We are taught in school that all matter is made up of very tiny particles called
atoms. Some substances consist of only one type of atom – these are called
elements. Gold, silver, lead, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, helium, and aluminum
are all examples of elements. The smallest particle of gold, for example, is a
single atom. Amazingly, there are only about 90 naturally-occurring elements.

But atoms can also bond with other types of atoms to form a compound. Water is
a common example. The smallest particle of water is not a single atom, but a
molecule made of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. All the
physical properties of any given substance are completely determined by the

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atoms that comprise it. And the properties of atoms are determined entirely by
their constituent components and the rules of quantum physics.

For example, the fact that water is liquid at room temperature and at standard
atmospheric pressure is completely determined by the rules that define how the
oxygen atom combines with the hydrogen atoms. It’s all quite complicated, and
that’s the point. When God created this universe, He made certain kinds of
particles and determined the rules that govern them so that life would be
possible. That is a logical computation far beyond the capacity of all human
minds combined!

Atoms themselves are composite particles; that is, they are made of smaller
particles. One or more electrons swarm around the central nucleus of an atom.
The cloud of electrons is what gives an atom its size. The central nucleus
consists of one or more protons. Protons are larger and 1800 times more
massive than electrons. Protons have a positive electrical charge, and electrons
have a negative electrical charge that is equal in magnitude to the proton but
opposite in sign. Thus, there is a strong attractive force between the nucleus of
an atom and the electrons swirling around it. This force is what keeps the high-
speed electrons from escaping. Normally, the number of electrons surrounding
the nucleus is equal to the number of protons in the nucleus. Thus, the atom has
a net charge of zero.

In all elements except hydrogen, the nucleus also contains one or more neutrons.
A neutron has no electrical charge, but is about as massive as a proton. The
mass of an atom is determined primarily by the sum of its protons and neutrons,
with electrons having only a minimal contribution.

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Schematic of a helium atom. The positively charged protons are represented in

red, the neutral neutrons in gray, and the negatively charged electrons in blue.
The net charge of the atom is zero because it has an equal number of positive
and negative charges.

The properties of various substances are determined by the atoms of which they
are composed. Gold, for example, is very heavy and dense. This is because a
single atom of gold has 79 protons in its nucleus and (typically) 118 neutrons.
Conversely, helium atoms have only two protons, and typically two neutrons.
Helium is therefore very light: lighter than air which is made primarily of nitrogen
and oxygen. That’s why helium balloons float on air.

But the other properties are not as obvious. Why, for example, is gold a good
conductor of electricity? Why does it have the yellow-ish color it does? Why is
polished gold shiny? All of these properties are determined by the rules governing
the way in which electrons swarm around the nucleus. And this is where the rules
of quantum physics come into play.

Why Quantum?

The way in which electrons “orbit” the nucleus of an atom is similar in certain
respects to the way in which planets orbit the sun. Planets are bound to the sun
by the attractive force of gravity, which bends their otherwise straight-line path into
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an approximate circle around the sun. Likewise, the negatively-charged electrons

are bound to the positively-charged protons in the nucleus, causing them to orbit.

However, there are some differences as well. Planets can orbit at essentially any
distance from the sun if they have the right velocity. Give a planet just a bit more
energy, and it will move into a slightly larger orbit. But electrons orbiting the
nucleus of an atom can only orbit at certain specific distances – and not in
between. Each distance is associated with a particular energy level – and there is
a minimum energy level called the ground state. The ground state represents the
closest an electron can circle the nucleus of an atom. The next level is called the
first excited state. The level after that is the second excited state, and so on.
Thus, the energy levels at which electrons can exist in an atom
are quantized (they come in discrete quantities). And this is what puts the
“quantum” in quantum physics.

The Wave Nature of Matter

But why are electron levels quantized? The answer concerns the wave nature of
matter. Early in the history of physics there was considerable debate about
whether light was a wave, or comprised of individual particles. We now know that
light is (in a sense) both. It sometimes behaves like a wave, and other times it
behaves as if it were made of particles. At first glance, this might seem
contradictory, because a wave is extended in space, whereas a particle has only a
single location in space and is not extended.

Consider dropping a rock into a lake. The splash will form a ripple pattern of
concentric circles that expands with time. If the splash is large enough, the
ripples might eventually fill the entire lake. So if we ask, “Where is the ripple?”
The answer is, “Everywhere – it fills the surface of the lake.” But a single particle
of infinitesimal size cannot do that. It exists at only one specific location in space
at any given time.

Through a variety of experiments, physicists have discovered that light, electrons,

and in fact all particles have a wave nature. Under certain circumstances, they
act as if they are a wave that fills a certain volume of space. At other times, they
behave as if they are particles, existing at only one specific location in space.
However, quantum particles never behave as both a wave and a particle at the
same time. Thus, there is no contradiction.[1]

So, when do quantum objects act like particles, and when do they act like waves?
The answer is apparently that they act like particles when they are observed, and
like waves when they are not observed. This seems very peculiar for multiple
reasons. (1) How does the particle know it is being observed so as to change its
behavior? (2) How do we know it’s a wave when we are not observing it?

As to the first question, keep in mind that we cannot observe a quantum particle
without affecting it. We tend to think of observation as passive. If we want to
observe something large, we just shine a light on it, and the reflected light enters
our eyes and informs us what the object looks like. Shining light on a large object
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doesn’t affect it very much because the object is so much more massive than the
particles of light that impact it. But in the quantum world, particles are so small
that anything we use to observe them will have a significant effect on the particle.

The Two-Slit Experiment

To answer the second question, we know that quantum objects behave like waves
when we are not observing them because of where the particles end up. This
was demonstrated in the famous two-slit experiment. In this experiment, there is
a light source some distance from a wall. The wall has two narrow, vertical slits in
it. Light can pass through the slits. These slits are microscopic – separated by a
distance comparable to the wavelength of light. Another wall exists behind the
first and records where the light strikes.

We know how waves behave in this

situation from our observations of large-
scale waves (such as waves in water). A
wave emitted from a source will impact the
wall, but sections of the wave will pass
through both narrow slits – forming two new
waves that move away from the slits. The
two waves begin to overlap as they move
toward the second wall. In some places the
peak of one wave overlaps with the trough
of the other, and the two opposites cancel
out. In other places the peak of one wave Overhead view of the two-slit experiment.
Interference patterns cause several bright
adds to the peak of another, forming a really vertical lines to appear on the final wall on
tall peak. Thus, there are certain places on the right.
the second wall where the waves are very
strong (because the two sources reinforce
each other), and other places where the waves are non-existent (because the two
sources have canceled out). This is called an interference pattern. We can
compute the interference pattern based on the wavelength of light.

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White and black represent peaks and troughs respectively of a light wave streaming away from its
source. Areas of gray on the right side are where the peaks of one wave cancel the troughs in the
other. This results in several regions on the right hand wall where no light waves are detected
because they have canceled out.

Sure enough, the two-slit experiment confirms that light is a wave. Send light of a
given wavelength toward the slits, and the wave will go through both, forming two
new waves which create an interference pattern. Yet, we also know that there is a
minimum energy level for light of a given wavelength. You can have one unit of
energy, or two, or three, but not 1.5 or one-half, or one-quarter. This suggests that
light is made of indivisible particles – each unit of energy corresponding to one
particle. These particles are called photons.

So what happens when we do the two-slit

experiment, sending the light in one photon
at a time? The answer is that the photon
will always land on one of the places where
the two waves combine constructively, and
never on the places where the two waves
cancel out. In other words, the photon has
apparently traveled as a wave (extended in
space), and has gone through both slits
forming two waves that interfere with each
other. Only when these waves strike the
wall does the photon again act like a single When particles are sent one at a time, they
always land in one of the zones of
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particle at one location in space. And the constructive interference.

location it picks is always where the waves
are strongest. It’s amazing and counterintuitive. But this experiment has been
repeated many times and this is always the result.

The equation describing the peaks and troughs of the wave is called the
wavefunction. Scientists have discovered that the square of the wavefunction is
exactly equal to the probability of detecting the particle at that location. So that is
why the photon always ends up where the waves are strongest, and never where
they cancel out.

Apparently, one photon – a single particle of light – can go through both slits
because it behaves like a wave. It is extended in space and can therefore pass
through both slits, forming two new waves that interfere with each other. Yet, our
intuition suggests that the particle can only pass through one slit. And so it is
tempting to put a detector on the slits to observe which slit the photon passed
through. We actually only need a detector on one of the two slits, because if it
does not detect the photon, then we know it must have gone through the other
slit. So, what happens when we place a detector on one of the two slits?

This experiment has been done. And

amazingly, the photon changes its behavior.
Instead of passing through both slits as a
wave and then landing on one of the
locations of constructive interference, the
photon will pass through only one slit or the
other, and will land at one of two locations
on the second wall. Observing the photon
at the slit causes it not to form the
interference pattern!
When a detector is placed on either slit (or
Apparently, observing a particle “collapses
both), the particles no longer produce an
interference pattern. the wavefunction.” It causes the object to
be a particle at one location in space,
thereby destroying the wave. After that
observation, the particle again behaves like a wave until it is once again
observed. It sounds unbelievable, but every scientific experiment ever done to
test this confirms that this is indeed what happens.

Not only do photons behave this way, but apparently all quantum particles do.
The two-slit experiment has also been performed with electrons. They also form
an interference pattern, even when the electrons are sent through the slits one at
a time. All particles have a wavefunction. The wavelength decreases with
increasing energy, which is why we cannot detect the wavefunction of
macroscopic objects.[2]

Waves and Atomic Structure

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The wavefunction is why electrons can only orbit at certain quantized energy
levels. As electrons in atoms are not normally being observed, they behave like
waves. These have a specific wavelength depending on the energy of the
electron. But the number of wavelengths in the circumference of an electron’s
orbit must be an integer (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, but not 1.5). Why? Because if it were not
an integer, then the peak of the wave would overlap with a trough from the
previous orbit and the wave would cancel itself out. Electrons can only orbit in
discrete energy levels for the same reason that photons in the two-slit experiment
only land in one of the bright zones of constructive interference.

Thus, the wave nature of electrons is responsible for the size of atoms, and to a
great extent, how atoms interact with other atoms. This, along with other factors
to be discussed later (such as spin and the Pauli exclusion principle), is why
various substances have various properties. So, when God decided that gold
should be heavy and shiny, and that hydrogen should be light and flammable, He
had to design particles with a wave nature and laws of physics that would give
rise to all these properties. What a mind!

A Brief History of Discovery

Most students learn in grade school about atoms and that atoms are comprised of
protons, neutrons, and electrons. The existence of atoms was postulated as early
as 450 B.C. by the Greek philosopher Democritus. However, scientific
confirmation that all matter is made of atoms came about only in the early 1800s.
Electrons were discovered in 1897 by J.J. Thomson. The proton was discovered
in 1917 by Ernest Rutherford who had previously (1911) discovered that all the
positive charge in an atom was concentrated in a central nucleus. The elusive
neutron was discovered in 1932 by Sir James Chadwick, for which he won the
1935 Nobel Prize in physics. It may surprise many people that we have only
known about the structure of an atom for less than a century.

Of course, the existence of light has been known since the creation of mankind.
And the wave nature of light has been known since around 1800. But the
discovery that light comes in discrete energy particles – photons – came about in
1905. Albert Einstein made this discovery – the photoelectric effect – for which he
received the 1922 Nobel Prize in physics. However, the term “photon” was coined
1926.

Electrons are thought to be elementary (or “fundamental”) – meaning they are not
comprised of smaller particles. Likewise, photons are elementary. But protons
and neutrons are composite particles. They are made of smaller particles called
quarks. There are six types of quarks, but protons and neutrons are made of only
the two least massive types. There are other, more exotic particles that are made
of other varieties of quarks. Most of these particles are unstable – meaning they
will spontaneously change into a different type of particle while releasing energy.
There are certain rules that govern what kinds of particles can exist, and how (and
whether) they can transform into other particles.

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A Hierarchy of Particles

As such, we will find that all quantum particles fall into certain natural families.
For example, the electron is a member of a class of particles called leptons.
There are six leptons. Particles made of quarks are called hadrons. And while
there are many types of hadrons, there are only six types of quarks.

Amazingly, the properties of quantum particles are so mathematical that physicists

have been able to predict the existence and some of the properties of quantum
particles before they were discovered! For example, physicists predicted long ago
that there would be exactly six types of quarks, and six types of leptons. We have
now experimentally discovered all of them. In fact, all elementary particles
predicted by the standard model have now been discovered.

To illustrate how amazing this is, imagine a biologist carefully studying bears,
dogs, zebras, whales, and so on. Having never seen or heard about an elephant,
the biologist concludes that there must exist a large four-legged grey mammal
with a long trunk and tusks, based on the mathematical patterns he observes in
other animals. Then later, another biologist takes a trip to Africa and confirms the
existence of such a creature. Of course, nothing like that has ever happened in
biology. But in physics, we can actually predict the kinds of particles God created
based on math!

In the next articles, we will look at the various families of particles that God
created along with their properties. We will also explore how these particles
transform into others and the rules behind this. When we examine how particles
are classified into a nested hierarchy; we will find that there is no secular
explanation. However, the natural groups of particles make perfect sense in light
of the nature of God as revealed in the Bible.

[1] A contradiction is “A and not-A at the same time and in the same sense.” An
electron sometimes behaves as a wave (extended in space) and other times as a
particle (not extended in space), but never both at the same time.

[2] The wavelength is equal to hc/E where E is the energy of the particle, c is the
round-trip speed of light, and h is Planck’s constant. Thus, lower energy particles
have longer wavelengths.

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Quantum Particles: Leptons

by Dr. Lisle | Jun 24, 2022 | Physics

In the previous article we explored some of the basic properties of quantum

particles, including the electron. But the electron is merely one member of a
group of particles called leptons. The term lepton comes from the Greek and
means “small,” or “thin” and refers to the extremely low mass of leptons.[1] The
electron, for example, is 1800 times less massive than a proton.

Classification of Leptons

There are exactly six types (called “flavors”) of leptons. Three of these are
charged leptons; they have an electric charge – of -1 just like
– the electron. –The
three charged leptons are the electron (e ), the muon (μ ), and the tau (τ ).
These are referred to as the three generations of charged leptons. Muons were
discovered in 1936, and were originally misclassified as mesons (to be discussed
in a later article). For this reason, older literature might refer to muons as mu-
mesons. But we now know that muons are leptons, and essentially heavier
versions of electrons. The muon is 207 times heavier than the electron, but is
otherwise identical. The tau, discovered in the 1970s, is 3477 times the mass of
an electron. This means the tau is almost twice the mass of a proton, and is the
only “heavy” lepton.

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The other three leptons are electrically neutral and are called neutrinos –
designated by the Greek letter nu (ν). Each of the three neutrinos is basically an
uncharged version of one of the three charged leptons. So, there is an electron
neutrino (νe), a muon neutrino (νμ), and a tau neutrino (ντ). All three generations
of neutrinos are extremely low mass. In fact, for many years, the electron
neutrino was thought to be massless. But we now have evidence that it has a tiny
amount of mass.[2] Nonetheless, the mass of neutrinos is currently smaller than
our ability to detect experimentally, something like a million times smaller than the
mass of an electron.

We would expect the charged leptons to be far more massive than the neutral
versions. When two particles are both negatively charged (or both positively
charged), they repel each other. Thus, it takes energy to push like charges
together. Imagine a cloud of negative charge, and then push it into the tiny
volume of an electron. [3] This would take energy. Thus, electrons have potential
energy because they contain self-repelling charge compressed into a small
volume. Einstein discovered that energy has mass. And since electrons have
internal potential energy due to their self-repelling charge, they have mass.
Neutrinos do not have the internal energy of charge, and therefore are much less
massive than any of the charged leptons.[4]

The Ghostly Nature of Neutrinos

The sun is a strong source of neutrinos. In the solar core, hydrogen undergoes
nuclear fusion to become helium. One of the byproducts of this process is
neutrinos. One fascinating aspect of neutrinos is their ghostly ability to pass
through ordinary matter. They stream away from the core of the sun, passing
effortlessly through its bulk and into space. Right now, about 100 trillion neutrinos
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are passing harmlessly through your body every second! These are the very
neutrinos produced by the sun. This continues even at night when the sun is
below the horizon; the neutrinos pass through the earth first and then through
your body and into space.

The reason neutrinos can pass through matter is because matter is mostly empty
space. The nucleus of an atom is tiny compared to the size of the atom. The
electrons orbit at distances roughly ten thousand times the size of the nucleus.
Since an atom is mostly empty space, a neutrino could only be stopped if it is
unlikely enough to collide directly with the nucleus or with one of the electrons.
But the probability of that happening is infinitesimal. In fact, a neutrino can pass
through roughly 6 trillion miles of solid lead before it is likely to impact an electron
or nucleus! This ghostly property of neutrinos makes them very difficult to detect.
Consequently, neutrino detectors can observe only the tiniest fraction of neutrinos
that pass through them.

Given that atoms are mostly empty space, it makes sense that neutrinos can pass
through atoms undeterred. The question then becomes, why don’t other particles
do this too? The answer is that many other particles are either charged, contain
charged particles, or otherwise interact with the intense electric field within an
atom. The atom itself is made of a positively charged nucleus and a negatively
charged electron cloud. So, any charged particle that comes near an atom is
strongly affected by the electric force of that atom. This is why atoms collide with
each other; their electron clouds are mutually repulsive.

Spin

Elementary particles also have a property called “spin.” This is because they
behave mathematically as if they were rotating.[5] No external torque is causing
this rotation; particles are simply born “spinning.” Nothing can affect the rate of
their spin either. It is simply a property of the particle.

The electron, for example, has a small magnetic moment – meaning it acts like a
little magnet. Magnetic moments are produced by rotating a charged object. So,
the electron behaves somewhat like a little charged rotating sphere. On the other
hand, the electron has no apparent size. So how can it rotate? This is part of the
weirdness of quantum physics.

It’s best to think of spin as built-in angular momentum of certain elementary

particles. Spin is quantized into integer or half-integer units. That is, particles
come with a spin of 0, ½, 1, 3/2, 2, 5/2, 3, and so on. All leptons have a spin of
½. So do protons and neutrons.[6] All photons have a spin of 1.

Although we cannot affect the rate of spin, we can affect the direction of spin.
Imagine looking down on top of a spinning ball that is rotating clockwise. Now
take that spinning ball and flip it upside down. It will now appear to be spinning
counter-clockwise. Likewise, the spin of electrons can be flipped upside down.
So, when we measure the spin state of an electron, it will either be +½, or -½.

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Thus, we say electrons are either “spin-up” (+½) or “spin-down” (-½). But the
magnitude of their spin is always exactly one half.[7]

You might think we could turn an electron on its “side” so that the spin is neither
up nor down. However, measured spin states are quantized. A detector will
always find a spin-½ particle to be either spin-up or spin-down. No measurable
in-between states are allowed.

Fermions and Bosons

Particles that have half-integer spins (such as ½ or 3/2) are called fermions. This
is in honor of Enrico Fermi, who along with Paul Dirac discovered the way large
sets of fermions behave. Fermions obey a law of nature called the Pauli
exclusion principle. Named after its discoverer, Wolfgang Pauli, this principle
states that no two fermions can occupy the same quantum state at the same
time. Basically, this means that you cannot put two fermions of identical spin
states into a given location with the same energy.

The Pauli exclusion principle, along with the fact that electrons are fermions, is
responsible for atomic structure. For example, how many electrons can occupy
the ground state (the lowest energy level) in an atom? The answer is two – if one
is spin-up and the other is spin-down. You cannot place a third electron in the
ground state because it would have the same spin, energy, and momentum of one
of the other two electrons – the same quantum state. Thus, a third electron in an

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atom must exist in a higher energy level than the ground state. This is why atoms
have quantized electron shells.

Particles that have integer spins (such as 0, 1, 2) are called bosons. This is in
honor of Satyendra Bose who along with Albert Einstein discovered the way large
groups of bosons behave. One of the main differences between bosons and
fermions is that bosons are not constrained by the Pauli Exclusion principle. You
can put as many bosons as you like into the same quantum state. Photons,
particles of light, are bosons. Multiple photons can exist in the same place at the
same time. In fact, that is what a laser is. A laser beam is a form of light in which
many photons exist in the same quantum state.

Making Matter

Suppose that God had given electrons a spin of 1 instead of ½. In that event,
electrons would be bosons rather than fermions, and would ignore the Pauli
exclusion principle. All electrons in all atoms would fall into the ground state. All
atoms would behave somewhat like heavier versions of hydrogen, chemistry
would not exist, and biological life would not be possible.

On the other hand, suppose God had given electrons a spin of 3/2. The possible
spin states for a 3/2-spin particle are 3/2, ½, -1/2, and -3/2. Thus, we could place
four electrons rather than two into the ground state of any atom. Consequently, all
of chemistry would change. Beryllium, for example, would be inert like helium is
now. Whether biological life would be possible with that alternate chemistry is
known only to God.

Antimatter

In 1928, physicist Paul Dirac showed that the equation governing electrons had
two possible solutions. That is, the equation showed that electrons could have
either negative or positive charge. Essentially, this showed that in addition to
electrons, the universe could also contain anti-electrons (also called positrons)
which were identical in every way to electrons except with a positive charge. The
positron was definitively detected in 1932. The positron was the first predicted,
and first discovered particle of antimatter: a particle having the opposite charge of
a known particle, but which is otherwise identical.

We now know that all particles have an antimatter counterpart. Just as there are
positively charged protons, there are negatively charged anti-protons. Just as
there are muons and tau particles, there are also anti-muons and anti-tau
particles. Theoretically, there could be antimatter atoms such as anti-hydrogen in
which a positron orbits an anti-proton.

Some neutral particles are their own anti-particle. For example, photons and anti-
photons are identical. Yet, other neutral particles are different from their
antimatter counterpart. Neutrons are different from anti-neutrons because
neutrons are made of quarks and anti-neutrons are made of anti-quarks.[8]

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Fortunately, antimatter particles tend to be scarce. That is, there are far more
protons and electrons in the universe than anti-protons and positrons. Why is this
fortunate? When particles of matter touch their antimatter counterpart, they
destroy each other and release energy such as photons.[9] If the universe were
equal parts matter and antimatter, we would not be here to discuss it. Since the
universe is dominated by matter, most antimatter particles have only a fleeting
existence. They are created in high-energy particle collisions, only to be almost
immediately destroyed when they inevitably interact with ordinary matter. The
lack of abundant antimatter is a problem in the big bang story, as will be
discussed in a later article.

Particle Transformations

Quantum particles have the capacity to change into other particles under certain
circumstances. Some will do this spontaneously; they will simply change into
some other combination of particles. The spontaneous transformation of one
particle into another is called “decay.” Particles that decay into other particles are
called “unstable.” We will find that the overwhelming majority of quantum particles
are unstable. They have only a fleeting existence, lasting less than a
microsecond, before they transform into something else. Particles that
do not spontaneously transform into others are called “stable.”

Electrons are stable. This is important because the electron structure is what
determines the chemical properties of atoms. If electrons were unstable, then the
chemical properties of matter would not be constant and biological life would not
be possible.

Muons and tauons are unstable. In fact, they are very unstable. Muons have a
typical lifetime -13
of 2.197 microseconds. The tau is even more unstable; it lasts
only 2.903×10 seconds. Neutrinos are stable, although we now know that they
oscillate (they can change between the three flavors).

In many circumstances, we can actually predict which particles are unstable, and
what kind of particles they decay into. This is because there are certain
conservation principles that all particle transformations must obey. For example,
there is the law of conservation of energy. This law requires that the total energy
of all particles before a transformation must equal the total energy of all particles
after the transformation. This includes the mass of all the particles since mass is
a type of potential energy. One implication of the law of conservation of energy is
that massive particles tend to decay into less massive particles that carry away
some of the energy in the form of motion. Generally, the more massive a particle
is, the faster it decays.

Another conserved quantity is electric charge. The total charge of all particles
before the interaction must be the same as the total charge after the interaction.
So, a muon cannot decay into a single positron, because the charge before the
transformation (-1) would not match the charge after (+1).

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Total momentum is also conserved. Momentum is the product of mass and

velocity. The momentum of a particle before its decay must exactly match the
sum of the momentum of all particles after the decay.

Spin state is also conserved. The total added spin states of all the particles
before and after the transformation must match. Remember, spin states can be
positive or negative. So, a spin +½ particle could decay into two particles: a
particle with spin -½ AND a particle with spin +1. Or it could decay into three
particles with spin states, +½, +½, and -½. Other possibilities exist.

Lepton number is also conserved. Lepton number simply refers to the number of
leptons present. So, an electron has a lepton number of 1. So does a muon, a
tau, and each of the three flavors of neutrinos. Anti-leptons have negative lepton
numbers. So, a positron has a lepton number of -1. All non-leptons have a lepton
number of zero.

There are also some quasi-conserved quantities; these are conserved in most
transformations, but not all. Electron number, muon number, and tau number are
quasi-conserved. Electrons and electron-neutrinos each have an electron
number of one. Likewise, muons and muon-neutrinos have a muon number of
one, etc. Anti-muons and muon anti-neutrinos have a muon number of -1 just as
we would expect.

Generally, if a massive particle can decay into less massive particles without
violating any of the above rules, it will. Hence, we can predict which particles are
stable, and which are unstable. We can also predict some of the possible
daughter particles using the conservation rules.

Lepton Decay

With these rules in place, we can deduce which leptons decay and how. For
example, a muon decays into three particles: an electron, an electron anti-
neutrino, and a muon neutrino. The total mass of these three particles is less
than the mass of the muon. So, energy is conserved (the kinetic energy of the
resulting particles carries away the difference in total mass). Charge is conserved
because the total charge before and after is -1. Spin state is conserved; if the
muon is spin up (+½) then the three spin-½ particles could be +½, +½, and -½
which sums to ½. Lepton number is conserved because the anti-neutrino has a
lepton number of -1, which when added to the other two leptons gives a total
lepton number of 1. The electron number and muon number are both conserved
in this reaction because the electron anti-neutrino has a negative electron number,
canceling the electron. And the muon-neutrino has a muon number of 1.

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– –
Muon decay. The muon (μ ) decays into an electron (e ), a muon neutrino (νμ), and an electron
anti-neutrino (¯νe).

What about the tau? Since it is very massive, it decays very quickly. And since
there are many particles less massive than the tau, there are many different ways
it can decay. One possibility is for the tau to decay into an electron, an electron
anti-neutrino, and a tau neutrino. You can see that this reaction conserves
energy, charge, spin state, lepton number, etc. Another possibility is that the tau
will decay into a muon, a muon anti-neutrino, and a tau neutrino. This likewise
obeys all the conservation laws. Of course, the muon will then decay into an
electron, an electron anti-neutrino, and a muon neutrino. Since there are several
other types of particles less massive than the tau (which we have not yet
discussed), several other decay pathways are possible. But in all cases the
conservation laws are always followed.

We can also see why the electron must be stable. The electron cannot decay into
any combination of neutrinos because charge would not be conserved. Any
electron decay must result in a total charge of all particles that equals -1. But
there are no charged particles less massive than the electron. Hence, it cannot
decay.

Also, neutrinos cannot decay.[10] We might at first think that they could decay
into photons, since photons are massless and have no charge. But this would
violate conservation of lepton number. Also, no combination of photons can
produce a +½ or -½ spin state, since photons are bosons.

Although particles can only naturally decay into less-massive particles, it is

possible to force a reaction to go the other way by supplying large amounts of
energy. This is how particle accelerators work – like those at CERN or Fermilab.
They accelerate particles up to a high fraction of the speed of light in opposite
directions, and allow them to collide. If the kinetic energy in such collisions is
greater than the mass of a particle, a particle can be produced. The types of
particles produced are governed by the above conservation laws.

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For example, only particles of less or equal mass to the energy of the collision can
be produced. This is why more powerful particle accelerators can produce more
massive particles. Also, the change in net charge must be zero, and lepton
number and total spin state are also conserved. Therefore, if an electron is
created in such a collision, an anti-electron (positron) will also be produced.
Energy from particle collisions always results in the production of an exactly equal
amount of matter and antimatter.

The existence of the neutrino was predicted on the basis of the above
conservation laws. Physicists had discovered that neutrons can decay into a
proton and an electron. But the total energy of the proton and electron was
always somewhat less than the total energy of the neutron. And the total
momentum was apparently not conserved either. In 1930, Wolfgang Pauli
proposed that there must be a third particle produced which carried away the
extra energy and momentum. This particle would have to be neutral in order for
charge to be conserved. And it would have to be very low mass since in some
cases only a small amount of energy was “missing.” As such, it would be
a neutrino – Italian for “little neutral one.”

The ghostly nature of the neutrino makes it extremely difficult to detect. Pauli
once whimsically stated, “I have done a terrible thing, I have postulated a particle
that cannot be detected.” It took two and a half decades, but the neutrino was
definitively detected in 1956.

Quantum Astronomy

One interesting quantum interaction that is very relevant in astronomy involves the
electron in the ground state of a hydrogen atom. The proton of a hydrogen atom
is a fermion with a ½ spin. It can therefore be either spin-up (+½) or spin-down (-
½). The electron circling that proton is also spin ½, and can be either spin-up or
spin-down. If the two spins are in the same direction (both spin-up or both spin-
down), the energy state of the electron is slightly higher than it would be if the spin
states were opposite.[11] Therefore, it is possible for a hydrogen atom with
aligned spin states to “decay” into a hydrogen atom with opposite spin states.
-6
The energy difference between the two states is only 5.9×10 eV. The electron
can flip its spin state – -6
but only by obeying all the conservation rules. It must
release exactly 5.9×10
-6 eV of energy. The only discovered particle with less
mass than 5.9×10 eV is the photon[12]. Furthermore, the total spin of the
system has gone from 1 to zero. Therefore, it must release a particle with a spin
of 1. Photons have a spin of 1. Sure enough, the hydrogen atom can drop from
the aligned spin-state to the slightly
-6 lower energy (anti-aligned) state by releasing
a photon with energy 5.9×10 eV, which corresponds to a wavelength of 21 cm.
This is in the radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Astronomers use
radio telescopes to detect this 21 cm line, and map the structure of the Milky Way
galaxy. Our galaxy “glows” in 21 cm radio waves because the electrons in its
hydrogen atoms are constantly flipping from aligned to anti-aligned spin states.

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The entire night sky as it appears in 21-cm radio. Red indicates brighter, and blue indicates fainter.
The bright horizontal line is the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. Image credit: NASA / LAMBDA Archive
Team

Particles Common and Exotic

Of the six leptons, the only one most people directly experience are electrons.
Electricity is due to the flow of electrons, and we are all familiar with electricity.
The muon and tau particle have such a fleeting existence that it takes specialized
equipment to detect them. And although the three flavors of neutrinos are
constantly passing through our bodies every second, they are invisible and rarely
interact with ordinary matter.

Likewise, we have some familiarity with protons and neutrons, because we are
made of them. These are primarily responsible for our mass. But they are merely
two examples of a class of particles that contains many others. More to come.

[1] Five of the six types of leptons are very low mass. The heaviest lepton, the
tau, had not yet been discovered when the term ‘lepton’ was coined.

[2] The discovery that neutrinos oscillate between flavors demonstrates that they
have finite rest mass. Physicists have demonstrated mathematically that
massless neutrinos would not oscillate.

[3] Although we might think of an electron as a tiny sphere, it often behaves as if it

had no size at all (like all elementary particles). This is just another example of
the counterintuitive nature of quantum physics.

[4] The reason neutrinos have any mass at all is currently disputed because there
is more than one possible mechanism.

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[5] The only known (elementary) exception is the Higgs boson which has a spin of
zero.

[6] In some sense, you can think of higher spin numbers as rotating faster (they
correspond to higher angular momentum). But there is more to it than that; the
spin also describes how objects behave under rotation. Particles with spin 1 act
somewhat like we would expect. If you rotate a spin-1 particle by 360 degrees, it
will return to its original state. However, if you rotate a spin-½ particle by 360
degrees, you get a reversed version of the original. You must rotate a spin-½
particle by 720 degrees to return it to its original state. On the other hand, a spin-
2 particle needs to be rotated only 180 degrees to return to its original state.

[7] Spin states are quantized too. For a given particle, its spin states are
separated by integer values up to the spin of the particle, or down to the negative
of its spin. So, a particle of spin 1 could have a spin state of -1,0, or, +1. A
particle of spin 3/2 could have a spin state of -3/2, -1/2, 1/2, or 3/2. An exception
to this rule exists for particles with no rest mass; they have only two spin states –
the positive or negative of their total spin. Thus, photons can have a spin state of
either 1 or -1.

[8] Presently, we do not know if neutrinos are their own anti-particle. This is an
unsolved problem in modern physics. We will proceed in this article series as if
neutrinos are distinct from anti-neutrinos.

[9] Photons (and anti-photons) themselves are exempt from this pattern since they
are already photons.

[10] Neutrinos do oscillate – meaning they can switch from one flavor to another.
But this is not a decay in the traditional sense. Rather it has to do with the three
overlapping wavefunctions that propagate at different speeds, making the
probability of detecting a particular flavor of neutrino a function of energy and
distance.

[11] This is due to the magnetic moments of the proton and electron respectively.
The electron flipping its spin is much like pushing two bar magnets together (north
to north), and one of them flips around.

[12] The as-yet-undiscovered graviton must also have a rest mass of zero – like
the photon. However, the graviton has a spin of 2, and therefore cannot be
emitted as a result of an electron flipping spin state.

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Quantum Particles: Quarks

by Dr. Lisle | Jul 8, 2022 | Physics

In the core of every atom is a nucleus consisting of one or more protons, and
(except for hydrogen) some neutrons as well. Protons and neutrons are
responsible for most of the mass of an atom. The electrons “orbit” around this
central nucleus, generally in equal numbers to the protons, which makes the
overall atom electrically neutral. Electrons are elementary – meaning they are not
made of any smaller particles. But protons and neutrons are composite particles;
they are made of smaller particles called quarks.

Quarks vs. Leptons

Since God is a God of order, the various objects He created can be classified in
natural families on the basis of similarities and differences. In the previous
article we examined the family of particles called leptons which are very low-mass
particles (except for the tau). We found that there are exactly six types
(called flavors) of leptons, three of which possess an electrical charge of -1 (the
electron, muon, and tau), and three of which are uncharged (the neutrinos).
There are three generations of leptons, with two particles (differing by electric
charge) in each generation.

The particles that comprise protons and neutrons are called quarks. And, as with
the leptons, there are exactly six types (flavors) of quarks. Furthermore, there are
three generations, with two quarks in each generation (and which differ by electric
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charge). Just as each lepton has a spin of ½, likewise each quark has a spin of
½. So, quarks and leptons are both fermions – non-integer spin particles that
obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Like leptons, quarks have no detectable size.
In all these ways, the similarity between quarks and leptons is remarkable.

But there are some differences too. And these differences make quarks a bit
more complicated than leptons. We might think of leptons as the introverts of the
universe. They are perfectly happy by themselves and can found apart from any
other particles. Of course, the charged leptons can interact with other particles;
electrons can orbit around the nucleus of an atom, but they tend to keep their
distance. And of course, the neutrinos are just downright anti-social. They pretty
much ignore all other particles and each other unless there is a direct collision.

Quarks, on the other hand, are like extroverts. They are always surrounded by
and interacting with other particles. As far as we know, quarks are never found in
isolation. They only exist in combination with other particles. We will see the
reason for this later. For now, it is sufficient to know that quarks always occur in
combinations. Often, they will occur in groups of three to form composite particles
like protons and neutrons. The name “quark” refers to this three-ness. It is taken
from the first line of a poem about King Mark written by James Joyce included in
Finnegan’s Wake: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!”

Properties of Quarks

From the table, we see that quarks fall into three generations with two particles in
each, for a total of six flavors, just like leptons. But there are two remarkable
differences. First, the quarks are much more massive than the leptons.[1]
Furthermore, notice that the chart lists two different masses for each quark. This
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is because quarks have a strong energy field surrounding them; that energy has
mass. The “constituent mass” is the total mass of the quark along with its field.
The “current mass” is the mass of the actual quark if we could somehow separate
it from its energy field – which we really cannot do. So, the constituent mass is
the relevant mass in practical applications, and the only one we will use going
forward.

Second, quarks have fractional electric charge. For example, the down quark is
negatively charged, but has only 1/3 the charge of an electron. The up quark has
a positive charge, but it is 2/3 the charge of a proton. We have been using color
to illustrate electrical charge with blue denoting negative charge and red denoting
positive charge. So, the fractional charge of quarks is shown as a sphere only 1/3
or 2/3 full of charge.[2]

There are six types of antiquarks as well. They are identical to quarks in every
way except their charges are reversed.[3] So, the up antiquark has a charge of
-2/3 while the down antiquark has a charge of +1/3. As far as we know, quarks
and antiquarks are the only particles with a non-integer charge.

Although quarks themselves have fractional charge, they will only combine in
ways to make a composite particle with an integer charge. They often cluster in
groups of three. For example, the proton is made of two up quarks and one down
quark. Adding 2/3 plus 2/3 plus -1/3 adds up to +1. So the proton has a charge of
+1. The neutron is made of one up quark and two down quarks for a total charge
of (2/3 – 1/3 – 1/3) = 0. By the way, the “up” and “down” are simply names and
have nothing to do with spin state.[4]

As with the charged leptons, the higher generations of quarks are progressively
more massive, with the top quark weighing in at 189 times the mass of a proton!
Recall from the previous article that the more massive particles tend to be
unstable. They will spontaneously decay into less massive particles as long as
they can obey all the conservation laws. This is true of quarks as well. Sure
enough, the top and bottom quarks have the fastest decays, followed by the
charm and strange quarks. The up and down quarks are potentially stable, but
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their stability depends on how they are grouped. Remember, quarks are never
alone. Hence, their proximity to other particles can affect whether or not they
decay.

Color Charge and the Strong Force

The nucleus of a helium atom contains two protons and two neutrons bound
together. But what is binding them? We understand that electrons tend to stay
with their atom because they are negatively-charged and are therefore attracted
to the positively-charged nucleus. But the two protons are each positively
charged. So, shouldn’t they repel each other? Physicists recognized this problem
very early and reasoned that there must be some other force between the protons
– an attractive force – that is even more powerful and therefore overcomes their
electric repulsion. This force is also responsible for holding together the quarks
within a proton. It is called the strong nuclear force, or simply the strong force.

The strong force is similar to the electric force in many respects. Both forces can
cause two particles to attract or repel. But there are some differences. First, the
strong force is much, much stronger than the electric force (hence the name).
Second, the strong force has an extremely limited range.[5] In fact, it really
doesn’t extend much beyond the nucleus of an atom. This is why we don’t
observe the strong force in our observations of macroscopic objects.

Third, the electric force contains only two types of charge, which we call “positive”
and “negative.” But the strong force has six types of charge. Physicists use color
to represent these charges. Three of these colors are red, green, and blue. The
other three are called anti-red, anti-green, and anti-blue. (We often depict these
respectively as cyan, purple, and yellow – the opposite or complimentary colors of
red, green, and blue). These color charges have absolutely nothing to do with
what we normally think of as “color” in terms of our visual experience. The red,
green, and blue terms are simply labels we use to describe three of the six types
of charge associated with the strong force. But we will see later that there is a
connection to visual color when it comes to the way these color charges add. So,
color is a useful analogy.

In a later article, we will explore how these six charges work in terms of attracting
or repelling the others. Here, we will only focus on the first three: red, green, and
blue. As with the electric force, like charges repel. So, a particle with red color
charge would repel another particle with red color charge. But different colors
attract. So, a particle with red charge will attract a particle with blue or green
charge. Likewise, blue will attract red or green; green will attract red or blue.

Each of the six types of quarks comes with one of these three color charges. So,
in a way, there are actually 18 quarks since each of the six flavors comes with red,
green, or blue color charge. Conversely, each antiquark comes in one of the
three anti-colors: anti-red, anti-green, or anti-blue. But the particles we will
discuss in this article and in the next are made only of quarks, not anti-quarks.
Thus, we need only address three of the six color charges – red, green, and blue.

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What happens when you take a red

spotlight, a green spotlight, and a blue
spotlight, and shine them all at the
same spot? You get white. Likewise, a
particle that is made of an equal
amount of red, green, and blue color-
charged particles will have an overall
color of “white” – it will be color-neutral.
This is exactly the case with the proton
and neutron. The proton has one red
quark, one green quark, and one blue
quark. Since these three charges are
mutually attractive, the three quarks
stick together making a color-neutral
proton. Likewise, each neutron is made
of one red quark, one green quark, and
one blue quark. Color charges of the three quarks in a proton or
neutron
In fact, the quarks within a proton are
constantly swapping color charges with each other. We’ll see how that works in a
later article. But at any given moment, one of the quarks has red color charge,
another has green, and the remaining quark is blue. Composite particles are
always color-neutral. This seems to be a law of nature.

If each of the two

protons in the
nucleus of a helium
atom is color-
neutral, then why do
they attract? Well,
in a way, they don’t
– at least not directly
in the same way that
quarks within a
proton attract.
Although the three
quarks add together
to form a color-
neutral proton, the
cancellation isn’t
perfect because
these three quarks
have slightly
different positions.
This results in a
residual field of color
charge extending
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just beyond proton.

Although the net color of a proton or neutron is neutral, there is residual
color charge due to imperfect cancellation. This is sometimes
called the residual
strong force. The distance between the two protons in helium is just within the
range limit of the residual strong force.

The reason that leptons do not have any of these complications is because they
are all color-neutral. They possess no color charge, and therefore leptons do not
experience the strong force. Nor do photons. But quarks possess color charge,
and since the strong force is far more powerful than any other force, this explains
why quarks come in groups of three.[6] In fact, the amount of energy required to
separate a quark from the other two is more than sufficient to create new
quarks/antiquarks. So, a new quark will form and instantly fill the vacancy.
Therefore, quarks cannot be isolated. They always come in groups.

For this reason, we really need to examine the composite particles that quarks
(and/or antiquarks) tend to form. These composite particles are called hadrons.
The flavors of quarks or antiquarks in a hadron, along with the way in which the
quarks combine in terms of their spin states, will determine the properties of the
hadron. Since composite particles must be color-neutral, there are two ways in
which quarks or antiquarks will combine, and therefore two types of hadrons.
First, quarks can combine in groups of three (one red quark, one green quark, and
one blue quark) into a particle we call a baryon. Another way to generate a
colorless hadron is to combine one quark with one antiquark of opposite color
charge (such as a red quark and an anti-red antiquark) into a particle we call a
meson. In the next article we will examine the properties of baryons. Baryons are
the substance of the cosmos.

[1] Except of course for the tau. All quarks (by constituent mass) are heavier than
all leptons excluding the tau. But even the bottom and top quarks are heavier
than the tau.

[2] This is simply a visual way to remember their charges. Quarks are thought to
be points of no size, not spheres. And, of course, they have no literal color in the
sense of reflecting various light frequencies.

[3] This charge reversal includes “color charge” as discussed later.

[4] That is, the up quark can be either spin-up (+1/2) or spin-down (-1/2). And
likewise with the down quark.

[5] In contrast, the range of the electric force is (in principle) infinite, although it
diminishes in strength as the square of the distance.

[6] Alternatively, quarks can come in quark/antiquark pairs. These are mesons –
to be covered in a later article. Mesons are also color-neutral.

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Quantum Particles: Baryons

by Dr. Lisle | Jul 15, 2022 | Physics

The Lord created certain types of fundamental particles and also determined the
rules these particles obey. These are what allow for the rich diversity of
substances in the universe today. We here consider baryons – the substance of
the cosmos. We will find that baryons confirm biblical creation and challenge
secular explanations.

In the previous
article we
examined
elementary
particles
called quarks.
Quarks are spin-½
fermions that
come in six flavors
and have
fractional electric
charge. Recall,
the up quark has
an electric charge
of +2/3, whereas
the down quark has a charge of -1/3. Quarks and antiquarks are the only known
particles with fractional charge. We also saw that quarks respond to the strong
force – a force somewhat like the electric force, except much stronger and with
extremely limited range. The strong force has six types of “color charge” which
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we label as red, green, blue, anti-red, anti-green, and anti-blue. These have
nothing to do with visual colors, but they “add” the same way colors do. Quarks
always come with one of the three positive-type color charges (red, green, or
blue), and any one of these will attract the other two. For this reason, quarks tend
to come in groups of three (one red, one green, and one blue) to form a color-
neutral particle.

A baryon is any particle made of exactly three bound

quarks.[1] Each quark comes in one of two possible spin
states, +½ (spin up), or -½ (spin down). And since there
are three quarks, the total spin state of a baryon will be
the sum of the spin states of its quarks: -3/2, -½, +½, or
+3/2. Thus, the magnitude of the spin of a baryon is
either ½, or 3/2.[2] Since they have non-integer spin, all
baryons are fermions and obey the Pauli exclusion
principle – they cannot be in the same quantum state at
the same time. All baryons are color neutral because they have one red quark,
one green quark, and one blue quark. Yet, they can bind to other baryons by the
residual strong force due to their constituent quarks.

Mass Defect

The two baryons we are

most familiar with are the
proton and neutron with
composition uud (up, up, and
down quarks) and udd (up,
down, and down quarks)
respectively. So, for the
proton, if we add the
(constituent) masses of the
two up quarks with the one
down quark
2 we get 1012
MeV/c2. Yet, many experiments have revealed the mass of the proton to be 938
MeV/c2. The whole is less than the sum of its parts! Where did the other 74
MeV/c go? In the previous article, we found that the electron has some mass
due to its self-repelling charge. That is, it would take energy to force a cloud of
negative charge into such a small volume because it is mutually repulsive. That
energy has mass and therefore makes the electron heavier than the electron
neutrino. In the case of the three quarks in a proton, they are attracted to each
other due to the strong force. It is the opposite situation because it would take
energy to pull them away. Thus, they have less energy in the bound state than
they would have if we could somehow separate them. That binding energy is
negative; therefore, it reduces the mass of the system. This is called mass defect.

Any system in which the particles are bound by an attractive force will have less
mass than if the same particles could be separated.[3] The strong force is so
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powerful, the energy associated with it is often comparable to the mass of the
particles involved. Therefore, we cannot assume that the mass of a composite
particle will be merely the sum of the masses of its components. We must include
negative contributions from binding energy, as well as positive energy
contributions of motion, aligned spin states, and so on.

Consider a helium nucleus. It contains two protons and two neutrons.

2 If we add
the mass of two protons and two neutrons,
2 we get 3755.7 MeV/c . Yet, the2 mass
of the helium nucleus is 3726.7 MeV/c . So, the mass defect is 29 MeV/c . That
means it would take 29 MeV of energy to separate the four particles in a helium
nucleus. This also means that if we could bring together two protons and two
neutrons into a helium nucleus, this process would release 29 MeV of energy per
helium atom. This is how nuclear fusion works. In the core of the sun, hydrogen
is constantly being fused into helium, releasing an enormous amount of energy.

Likewise, the mass of baryons is determined primarily by the constituent mass of

their quarks, but is also affected by the internal energy of the system. Consider
the neutral delta baryon. It is made of one up quark and two down quarks. That
is exactly the same quark
2 composition as a neutron. Yet, the neutral delta has
2 a
mass of 1232 MeV/c , whereas the neutron has a mass of only 940 MeV/c . The
neutral delta has greater internal energy because all three of its quarks have the
same (aligned) spin state, whereas the neutron has one quark anti-aligned with
the other two. The spin of the baryon is the sum of the spin states of its
constituent particles.[4] So, the neutron has a spin of ½, but the delta has a spin
of 3/2. The delta is a fundamentally different particle with different properties from
the neutron even though they have identical quark compositions!

Families of Baryons

Baryons fall into six natural families based on both their quark composition and
the spin states of their quarks. These spin states affect the total mass and the
total spin of the resulting baryon. Protons and neutrons are the only two members
of the nucleon family.[5] Nucleons are baryons consisting only of up and down
quarks, where the spin of one quark is anti-aligned with the other two. Nucleons
have a spin of ½ and are the least massive baryons. The nucleons are shown in
the table below along with one possible spin state of their constituent quarks.

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The other five families of baryons are each named after one of five Greek letters.
Delta (Δ) baryons are also made of only up and down quarks, but have a spin of
3/2 because all their constituent quarks are spin-aligned. There are 2four delta
particles
++ as shown in the table. All four have a mass of 1232 MeV/c
+ . The
Δ consists of three up quarks and has a charge of +2. The Δ consists of two
up quarks and one down
0 quark (like the proton) and therefore has a charge of +1.
The neutral delta (Δ ) has one– up quark and two down quarks (like the neutron)
and has a charge of 0. The Δ consists of three down quarks and has a charge of
negative one.

The lambda baryons contain one up quark, one down quark, and one of the
heavier quarks (strange, charm, or bottom). These also have a spin of one-half
since one quark is always anti-aligned with the other two. But they are heavier
than the nucleons because one of their constituent quarks is heavier. There are
three lambda baryons as shown below.

The three remaining families are the Sigma, the Xi, and the Omega. These
families include some of the heavier quarks. Each of these families contains
many members, so we show only one member of each family in the table below.
There are 18 members of the sigma family. Each has two of the light quarks (up or
down) and one heavier quark. The Xi (also called cascade) baryons contain only
one of the light quarks (either the up or down), and two heavier quarks. The
omega baryons contain only heavier quarks, and no up or down quarks. Note that
no baryons contain any top quarks. Although top quarks can form in high-energy
collisions in close proximity to other quarks, the top quark decays so quickly that it
cannot settle into a distinct baryon.

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These tables depict only the ground state members with one possible spin
configuration for the quarks. In addition to spin states of the quarks, the quarks
can also revolve around each other, which produces additional spin for the baryon
in integer units. This is just like electrons existing in an excited state in an atom.
These excited nuclear states result in additional mass due to additional energy.
Also, this orbital motion can either increase (if aligned) or decrease (if anti-
aligned) the spin of the baryon by integer values. For example, excited delta
baryons can have spins of 5/2, 7/2, 9/2, 11/2, and so on. They can also have a
spin of ½ if the angular momentum of quark motions is opposite their spin
direction. Excited states tend to be very short-lived, and quickly decay.

Baryon Stability

Some people may wonder why they have only heard about protons and neutrons,
and not the plethora of other baryons. The reason is that all the other baryons
exist for only a fraction of a millisecond before they decay – they spontaneously
transform into other particles. Just as the heavier leptons (the muon and tau)
decay into other particles, so do most baryons.

However, all the conservation laws must be followed. These laws constrain what
types of decay are possible. For example, the total charge of all daughter
products must match the charge of the parent baryon because charge is
conserved. The lepton number must match. (Baryons have a lepton number of
zero. So, if they produce a lepton in a decay, they must also produce an anti-
lepton.) The total energy is conserved – which means baryons can only decay
into less massive particles (with the kinetic energy of the daughter particles
carrying away the difference in mass).

In addition to the conservation laws we covered in the article on leptons, there is

also the conservation of baryon number. Baryon number is just what you think it
is: the number of baryons. Each baryon has a baryon number of 1. An antibaryon
(made of three antiquarks) would have a baryon number of -1. Quarks have a
baryon number of 1/3, and antiquarks have a baryon number of -1/3. All other
particles have a baryon number of zero.

One implication of the conservation of baryon number is that when a baryon

decays, at least one of the particles it decays into will also be a baryon. And since
heavier baryons can only decay into lighter ones, it follows logically that the
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lightest baryon 2
cannot decay. The lightest baryon is the proton with a mass of
938.272 MeV/c . And indeed, protons are stable. They will not spontaneously
decay into anything else.

In fact, all baryons except the proton are unstable. They will decay into lighter
baryons, producing other particles in the process to conserve energy, spin state,
and charge. The heavier baryons tend to have the fastest decays. This is due
mainly to the short lifetimes of the bottom and charm quarks, and to some extent
the strange quark. It may be surprising to learn that2even neutrons are (slightly)
unstable. Neutrons have a mass of 939.565 MeV/c – just slightly more massive
than the proton. Therefore, they can decay. An isolated neutron will decay into a
proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino. (You can check to see that this
indeed conserves electric charge, lepton number, electron number, and baryon
number. And the combined mass of the daughter products is less than the mass
of the neutron.) The neutron has an average lifespan of about 15 minutes.[6]

Nuclear Stability

But if neutrons only last 15 minutes, then how can atoms exist? After all, every
atom except hydrogen has some neutrons in it. These neutrons are essential to
hold the protons together. So, how can atoms last longer than 15 minutes? When
neutrons are bound by the residual strong force to another baryon, this can have
a stabilizing effect due to the negative binding energy. That is, the energy/mass of
the system is actually lower if the neutron remains a neutron than if it were to
decay into a proton. Conservation of energy therefore prevents decay. Let’s look
at one example.

Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen in which the nucleus consists

2 of one proton
and one neutron. This nucleus has a mass of 1875.6 MeV/c . That neutron
might want to decay into a proton, but this would result in a diproton – two protons
bound 2by the residual strong force. However, the diproton has a mass of 1877.8
MeV/c . The diproton is slightly heavier than the deuterium nucleus because the
energy of the bond differs, resulting in a higher energy/mass state. Thus, the
neutron in the deuterium nucleus cannot decay because it would result in a
heavier particle – and that would violate conservation of energy. So, in this case,
the combination of the proton and neutron is stable, whereas the diproton is
unstable.

There are many configurations in which the nuclear binding energy can have a
stabilizing effect on the neutron. Certain combinations of protons and neutrons in
a nucleus are stable because any change would result in a higher energy (more
massive) nucleus. And that would violate conservation of energy. This is why the
lighter atoms tend to have an approximately equal number of protons and
neutrons. For heavier atoms, the neutrons tend to outnumber the protons in order
to result in a stable nucleus. In fact, if the neutron-to-proton ratio in an atom is too
small, one of the protons will decay into a neutron.[7] So even particles that are
normally stable can become unstable depending on their binding energy with
other particles.

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But one rule is always followed: a nucleus can only spontaneously decay into
a less massive nucleus. That will determine whether a neutron can decay,
whether a proton can decay, or neither. And the mass of the nucleus depends not
only on its protons and neutrons, but also on the binding energy between them.
We might ask, “Can X decay into Y?” If Y is heavier than X, then answer is “no.”
If Y is lighter than X, then the answer is “possibly – if no conservation laws are
violated.”

A Designed Cosmos

One implication of all this is that the mass of baryons and therefore their
constituent quarks is not arbitrary. There is a reason why the Lord made the down
quark slightly heavier than the up quark. If it were the reverse, if God had made
the down quark slightly lighter than the up quark, then the neutron would be
slightly lighter than the proton. In that event, isolated neutrons would be stable,
but unbound protons would not. Protons would spontaneously decay into
neutrons.[8]

But hydrogen gas has a nucleus of one proton.[9] Thus, ordinary hydrogen gas
could not exist if the down quark were slightly lighter than the up quark. And 90%
of the matter in the universe is hydrogen gas. It is what stars are made of and is
their source of power.[10] Furthermore, water molecules consist of two parts
hydrogen to one part oxygen – and water is essential for life. Making the down
quark slightly heavier than the up quark is therefore a design feature.

Conversely, if the Lord had made the down quark significantly heavier than it is,
then the nuclear binding energy would be insufficient to prevent all neutrons in all
atoms from decaying because the result would always be less massive. Yet, the
neutrons are what prevent the nucleus in heavier atoms from splitting. So, the
only atom that could exist would be hydrogen, and life would not be possible.
Again, we see the incredible intelligence that went into designing quantum
particles and the rules that govern their behavior.

A Problem for the Big Bang

Since baryon number is conserved in any collision or decay of particles, the

baryon number before the event must match the baryon number after the event.
Thus, if any new baryons are created, an exactly equal number of antibaryons
must also be created. This is a problem for big bang supporters because in their
view the universe started in a 80
high-energy state with no baryons. Yet, today, we
estimate there are roughly 10 baryons in the visible universe. The number of
antibaryons is essentially zero compared to that since antibaryons are only
produced in high-energy situations and almost instantly destroyed upon contact
with matter. But if our universe once had no baryons (as the big bang requires),
then there should be an equal number of baryons and anti-baryons today, since
they are only naturally produced in equal numbers. There should be an equal
amount of matter and antimatter. But there isn’t. Our universe is essentially
matter only. The big bang story violates conservation of baryon number. And it

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violates it by an enormous amount. This is known as the baryon asymmetry

problem.

Of course, this is a feature for creation. The creation of the universe was not a
natural event. God is not bound by the laws He imposes on nature today. He
was free to create baryons without creating any antibaryons. Of course, the Lord
had a good purpose for this. When baryons contact antibaryons, they destroy
each other and release enormous energy. We could not exist in such a universe.

Balance in the Cosmos

Also, consider that the number of charged leptons in the universe precisely
matches the number of charged baryons, at least within our ability to measure
them. That is, as far as we can tell, there are exactly as many electrons in the
universe as protons. Therefore, the number of negative charges balances the
number of positive charges, resulting in a universe that is exactly electrically
neutral on large scales.

This is an important design feature. What if the universe had just 1% more
negative charge than positive charge? That is, what if for every 100 protons there
were 101 electrons? In that event, the universe would have a net electrical
charge of -1 per 100 atoms. Everything in the universe would electrically repel
everything else in the universe. And since the electric force is much stronger than
the force of gravity, planets and stars could not exist. Their inward pull of gravity
would be unable to overcome the outward force of electrostatic repulsion.

It’s pretty amazing what the Lord made out of primarily just two varieties of quarks
along with electrons. The situation becomes even more fascinating when we
consider that quarks can bind to antiquarks into particles called mesons. Mesons
are important because they are involved in the residual strong force. Without
mesons, matter could not exist. More to come.

[1] This is a simplified explanation. I am of course referring to valence quarks and

not “sea quarks.”

[2] This does not include excited states in which quark motions contribute to spin
– to be discussed later.

[3] Although this is true in chemistry as well, the difference there is normally too
small to measure. Yet, a hydrogen atom is slightly less massive than the mass of
its electron and proton (if they were widely separated).

[4] We now know that gluons also contribute to the spin state. But this detail is
beyond the scope of this article.

[5] You may wonder why there are no nucleons with three up quarks or three
down quarks. However, these cannot exist because of the Generalized Pauli
Principle. This principle gives additional rules for what spin states are allowed.
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For example, if all three quarks are the same flavor, then they must also be spin-
aligned (as in Delta baryons). But nucleons by definition have one quark anti-
aligned with the other two. Three quarks of the same flavor do exist in delta
baryons, because they are spin-aligned.

[6] Average lifetime is related to (but is not the same as) the half-life. The half-life
is given by the natural logarithm of 2, multiplied by the average lifetime. The
neutron has a half-life of 10.4 minutes.

[7] This can occur by electron capture in which one of the electrons is absorbed
by a proton to become a neutron. An electron neutrino must also be released to
conserve lepton number. As one example, Aluminum-26 is radioactive and can
decay into Magnesium-26 by electron capture.

[8] Either by electron capture or positron emission.

[9] The most common isotope of hydrogen by far has exactly one proton. Less
than 0.02% of hydrogen is deuterium, which has one proton and one neutron.

[10] Perhaps deuterium could exist in such a scenario. But deuterium undergoes
fusion at a much lower temperature than hydrogen-1. Thus, stars would have to
be much smaller and less massive to compensate, which would change the orbital
period of planets, and so on. Whether life would be possible in such a situation is
known only to the Lord.

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Quantum Particles: Mesons

by Dr. Lisle | Jul 29, 2022 | Physics

The Lord has determined the laws of nature and the kinds of particles that can
exist so that our universe has the right properties for life. Biology is possible
because of chemistry, which is possible because of physics: the elementary
particles God created and the rules governing them. A slight change in the
properties of particles or the laws they obey, and atoms could not exist and
biological life would be impossible. The intelligence needed to construct the right
particles and laws such that biological life can exist is far beyond the combined
mental capacity of all people who have ever lived. Quantum particles give us a bit
of insight into the infinite mind of the Lord.

A Brief Review

We have been exploring elementary particles: those particles that are not made of
any smaller particles. And we have examined two families of elementary
particles: leptons and quarks. There are six varieties (called flavors) in each of
these two families, and there are six corresponding anti-particles (six antileptons
and six antiquarks). Our examination of leptons was straightforward because
leptons can be studied in isolation. Furthermore, most people are already aware
of the electron – the least massive charged lepton. The muon and tau are heavier
versions of the electron, and then there are the neutral versions called neutrinos
which have the ghostly ability to pass through ordinary matter.

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Quarks are more complicated because they have “color charge” and respond to
the strong force. This means that quarks are never found in isolation. They
always combine into color-neutral composite particles called hadrons. Quarks
have fractional electric charge (+2/3 for the up, charm, and top quark, and -1/3 for
the down, strange, and bottom quark) and will only group in such a way as to
make a hadron with integer charge.

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Each quark comes in one of three color charges: red, green, or blue. These have
nothing to do with our visual experience of color, but merely refer to three types of
charge. Antiquarks come in one of three color charges: anti-red, anti-green, and
anti-blue. Antiquarks have opposite electric charge from quarks, coming in either
-2/3 or +1/3 varieties. There are two ways in which quarks and/or antiquarks can
combine to form a color-neutral hadron; and hence there are two types of
hadrons: baryons and mesons. We covered baryons in the previous article; a
baryon is always made of exactly three quarks (red, green, and blue). There are
also antibaryons made of three antiquarks (anti-red, anti-green, and anti-blue).
Mesons are made of one quark and one anti-quark of opposite color (such as red
and anti-red). Before we examine the properties of mesons, we need a bit more
information on the strong force.

The color charges of the three quarks in any

baryon.

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The color charges of the three antiquarks in any antibaryon: anti-red, anti-green, and anti-blue

The Strong Force Revisited

The nuclear strong force is what is responsible for holding together the three
quarks in any baryon such as the proton. It’s much like the electric force, but is
stronger and involves six charges rather than just two. So, we need to
understand how these six color charges interact. As with the electric force, like
charges repel and opposite charges attract. But what about non-opposite colors?
How do they relate?

First, the strength of the force is twice as strong for same color or anti-color as it is
for “other” colors. In other words, the force between a red particle and another
red or anti-red particle will be twice as strong as the force between a red and a
green or anti-blue particle. So, then we just need to know if the force is attractive
or repulsive. The pattern is as follows: (1) each color is strongly repelled by the
same color (2) weakly attracted to the other two colors, (3) strongly attracted to its
own anti-color, (4) weakly repelled by the other two anti-colors.

For example, a red particle will attract a blue or green particle and
will doubly attract an anti-red particle. A red particle will repel an anti-green or
anti-blue particle, and will doubly repel another red particle. Thus, the force
between the red, green, and blue quarks in any baryon is attractive, but has only
half the strength of the force between a red particle and an anti-red particle.

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The color charges of the strong force combine in exactly the same way as visual colors. The
combination of red, green, and blue charges results in a color-neutral particle (“white”). The
combination of the three anti-colors (anti-red, anti-green, and anti-blue) also results in white. Adding
any two colors results in an anti-color, opposite the color that was not included. In other words, red
plus green results in anti-blue.

Another way that a quark can combine to form a composite particle is to join with
one antiquark. When a quark and antiquark combine, the composite particle is
called a meson. Recall that quarks and antiquarks will only combine in such a
way as to make a color-neutral particle. Therefore, the quark and anti-quark in
any meson will always have opposite color charges: red and anti-red, green and
anti-green, or blue and anti-blue. In fact, a single meson can oscillate between
these color combinations. The resulting meson is therefore color-neutral. In fact,
we can now see that if the antiquark did not have the opposite color charge of the

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quark, the two particles would repel and would not form a meson. That is, a red
quark will repel an anti-blue or anti-green antiquark.

These are the three possible color combinations of any meson. A meson can rapidly oscillate
between these three combinations.

All mesons have an integer electric charge. Adding the charge of any one quark
to any one antiquark will always result in a total charge of -1, 0, or +1. And
indeed, all mesons have one of these three electric charges.

Pions

The first meson was discovered in 1947, and is called a pi-meson or pion.[1]
There are actually three particles in the pion family: a positive pion, a neutral pion,
and a negative pion. Let’s first consider the positive pion (left side on the chart
below). It is comprised of one up quark, and one down antiquark with opposite
spin alignment (and opposite color charge). Adding the charges of the constituent
quark/antiquark pair, we find the total charge is +1: the same as the proton.

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At first, we might suspect that the pion would have about 2/3 the mass of the
proton since it is made of two particles (one quark and one antiquark) whereas the
proton has three quarks. But recall, the strong force is twice as strong between
opposite colors as it is between “off” colors. Thus, the binding energy between a
red quark and anti-red antiquark in a pion is much stronger than the binding
energy between the three colored quarks in a proton. This binding energy is
negative, which further reduces the mass of the system. This is the “mass defect”
we discussed in the previous article. Consequently, mesons tend to be lighter
than baryons with similar quark flavors because the stronger binding energy
produces a larger mass defect.

The negative pion consists of one down quark and one up antiquark (right side in
the above illustration). These combine to form a pion with a charge of -1: the
same as the electron. The positive and negative pions have exactly the same
mass, and are anti-particles of each other. Since positive and negative pions are
equally abundant in the universe, it is meaningless to ask which one of them is
“matter” and which is “antimatter.” Each is the anti-particle of the other. There are
no anti-mesons, because each meson is one quark and one antiquark. So, the
anti-particle of any meson is just another meson (and sometimes the same
meson).[2]

There is also a neutral pion. An up quark and an up antiquark would combine to

make a zero-charged pion. But so would a down quark and a down antiquark.
So, which is the combination for the neutral pion? The answer is both. Until it is
observed, the wavefunction of the neutral pion acts like a combination of both
states. When observed, there is a 50% chance a neutral pion will be an up quark
and an up antiquark, and a 50% chance it will be a down quark and a down
antiquark. The slight mass difference between the up and down
quarks/antiquarks is easily absorbed in the binding energy. So, the neutral pion
has an indeterminate composition unless and until it is observed. Several other
neutral mesons also have an indeterminate composition: these include the rho (ρ),
the eta (η), the K (S and L versions), and the omega (ω) mesons. Each of these
mesons is its own antiparticle.

Mesons are Bosons

All the particle families we have studied previously (leptons, quarks, and baryons)
are fermions: particles with half-integer spin. Fermions obey the Pauli exclusion
principle: they cannot exist in the same quantum state (same place, same time,
same spin, etc.). Baryons are fermions because the sum of three ½-spin particles
always results in a particle with either ½ or 3/2 spin.

However, a meson has only two particles. And since each will either be spin-up
(+1/2) or spin down (-1/2), a meson will always have a total spin of either 0 or 1 (in
the ground state). A meson is spin-0 if the quark and antiquark have opposite
spin states; a meson is spin-1 if the quark and antiquark have the same spin
state.

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If the quark and/or antiquark have orbital motion, this will create higher spin states
in integer steps (2, 3, 4, …). But the result is always an integer. So, all mesons
always have an integer spin, and are therefore bosons. Recall that bosons are
not constrained by the Pauli exclusion principle; multiple bosons can exist in the
same quantum state. This is rather fascinating because every meson is
comprised of two fermions. And fermions must obey the Pauli exclusion
principle. It seems strange that mesons can (and do) violate the Pauli exclusion
principle even though they are made of particles that cannot.

As with baryons, the total spin and mass of a meson is affected not only by their
quark/antiquark composition, but also by whether those quarks have aligned or
anti-aligned spin states. The rho meson has exactly the same quark/antiquark
composition as the pion. But with the rho, the spin states are aligned, resulting in
a meson of spin one, whereas the pions have a spin of zero. Aligned spin states
have higher (positive) energy, and thus the rho mesons are considerably heavier
than the pions despite their identical quark composition.

The pion and rho meson are among the lightest mesons because they contain
only the lightest two flavors of quarks/antiquarks: the up and down. The next least
massive flavor is the strange quark/antiquark. K-mesons (kaons) consist of one
up or down quark or antiquark, and one strange quark or anti-quark. Kaons can
be spin zero (if their constituent quark and antiquark have opposite spin) or spin
one (if the quark and antiquark have aligned spin states). The spin-0 versions of
the neutral kaon can exist in an indeterminate composition (much like the neutral
pion), but there are two possible wavefunctions and these affect the lifetime of the
particle. These two versions are called the K-short and K-long.

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There are ten families of mesons. Each meson family is named after a lowercase
Greek letter or an uppercase English letter (or both as is uniquely the case for the
J/psi meson). These are: the pion (π), rho (ρ), kaon (K), eta (η), D, B, omega (ω),
phi (φ), J/psi (J/ψ), and the upsilon (υ). Some families contain only one member.
For example, the J/psi meson consists of a charm quark and charm antiquark with
aligned spin. Likewise, the phi meson is a spin-1 meson consisting of a strange
quark and strange antiquark.

Meson Decay

Mesons can decay – they can spontaneously change into other combinations of
particles. The kinds of particles mesons can decay into is determined by the
conservation laws. Recall that a particle can only decay into a less massive
particle, and the combined charge and spin states of the daughter products must
match the charge and spin state of the original. Furthermore, lepton number and
baryon number are conserved. Mesons have a lepton number of zero, and a
baryon number of zero. Thus, if they produce a lepton in a decay, they must also
produce an anti-lepton so that the total lepton number remains zero.

The reason the lightest charged lepton (the electron) cannot decay is because it
would violate lepton number. Likewise, the lightest baryon (the proton) cannot (in
isolation) decay because the only things lighter are non-baryons, and that would
violate baryon number. We might at first suspect that there is a similar rule for
mesons. However, there is no “meson number,” or at least it is not a conserved
quantity. Thus, mesons can decay into non-mesons. Even the lightest meson,
the neutral pion, can decay.

Therefore, there are no stable mesons. All mesons have a fleeting existence. In
fact, the longest-lived meson, the K-Long, has a mean lifetime of only 51
nanoseconds – that’s 51 billionths of a second. The second longest-lived mesons
are the charged pions (either positive or negative), each of which has a mean
lifetime of only 26 nanoseconds.

The positive pion often decays into an anti-muon and a muon neutrino with
opposite spin state from the anti-muon. We can confirm that this obeys all the
conservation rules: the anti-muon and muon neutrino are less than the mass of
the pion (with the kinetic energy carrying away the difference), the total charge
before and after is +1, the total spin state before and after is zero, and the total
lepton number before and after is zero. We can see this is an allowed decay, and
therefore it can occur.

How might a neutral pion decay? It is the lightest meson, so it cannot decay into
another meson. Recall this particle can be either an up quark and up antiquark,
or a down quark and a down antiquark. The total charge and total spin are each
zero. The lepton and baryon numbers are zero. So, this must be true of the sum
of the daughter products as well. One option would be to decay into two photons
with opposite spin states. That obeys all the conservation laws, and in fact is the
most common decay of the neutral pion. Another possibility is to decay into one
photon (spin state +1), an electron and positron (each spin state -1/2). The total
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mass is less than the pion, and the total charge and spin state are each zero.
That decay is the second most common.

Decay in Other Particles

Now that we understand mesons and their properties, we can read and
understand charts depicting the decay of essentially all other particles. In the
article on leptons, we mentioned one possible decay of the tau (the most massive
lepton) into other leptons. But the most common decay pathways of the tau
involve mesons. The tau most commonly (25.5% of the time) decays into a
charged pion, a neutral pion, and a tau neutrino. These pions then decay as
discussed above.

Likewise, the decay of baryons (although always resulting in at least one other
baryon) often involves mesons. Consider the delta baryons. The neutral delta
has the same quark composition as the neutron, but has greater mass and a spin
of 3/2 due to the fact that all three of its quarks are spin-aligned. The neutral delta
commonly decays in one of two ways. First, it can decay into a neutral pion and a
neutron. Alternatively, it can decay into a negative pion and a proton. The
daughter products have less mass than the original, and you can confirm that the
total charge is conserved, as is baryon number. The resulting pion will have
orbital angular momentum relative to the resulting nucleon, resulting in a spin of 1,
even though the pion itself has an intrinsic spin of zero. So, total spin is also
conserved.

Exotic Hadrons

In addition to pure baryons and mesons, there are other possible quark
combinations that result in a color-neutral composite particle. The pentaquark is a
collection of four quarks and one antiquark. As such, it is essentially a
combination of one baryon and one meson. Whether this exists as a “molecule”
of a baryon and meson, or whether all five particles equally interact is currently
debated. Several varieties of pentaquarks have now been created in particle-
collision experiments. Naturally-occurring pentaquarks have not been discovered,
but may be formed in high-energy cosmic events such as a supernova.

The tetraquark is a combination of two quarks and two antiquarks. We can think
of it as essentially the combination of two mesons. Several varieties of
tetraquarks have been detected in particle-collision experiments over the last
several years. Like the pentaquark, the tetraquark has not been observed to form
under natural conditions. Both pentaquarks and tetraquarks are unstable,
decaying into other particles almost immediately after they are formed.

Physicists have also proposed the possible existence of a quark nugget. This
hypothetical particle consists of large numbers of the three lightest flavors of
quarks (or antiquarks): the up, down, and strange, in roughly equal proportions.
The resulting particle would be extremely massive, and quite possibly stable.
Some scientists have suggested that quark nuggets may be responsible for dark

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1/17/23, 10:40 PM Quantum Particles: Mesons | Biblical Science Institute

matter – an unseen substance known only by its gravitational effects on visible

matter. Currently, quark nuggets have not been definitively detected.

Mesons and the Residual Strong Force

Although mesons have only a fleeting existence, they are essential in order to
have atoms heavier than hydrogen. Recall that the quarks within a proton or
neutron are held together by the strong force. But this force has extremely limited
range. Beyond the radius of the proton or neutron, there is only a residue of color
charge due to imperfect cancellation of the three colors due to the different
positions of the three quarks. This residual color field has energy. And from that
energy, mesons can be created. Since pions are the least massive mesons, they
are the most likely to form in this field. However, rho mesons can also contribute.

These mesons can pass from one proton or neutron to a neighboring proton or
neutron where they are absorbed. This process results in an attractive force
between nucleons. Essentially, a cloud of constantly forming and unforming
mesons surrounds a proton or neutron, and this has the effect of extending the
strong force enough so that protons and neutrons can stick together in the
nucleus of an atom.

If a neutral pion forms from the energy field and passes from a proton to a
neutron, it produces an attractive force between both particles, but leaves them
unchanged. On the other hand, a charged pion can swap the proton and
neutron. Suppose a positive pion is emitted from the proton; to conserve charge it
would have to convert an up quark to a down quark in the proton, to obtain the
pion’s +1 charge. This converts the proton to a neutron. This pion is then almost
immediately absorbed by a neighboring neutron, changing one of its down quarks
to an up quark in the process. The pion ceases to exist when absorbed, but the
neutron has become a proton. Notice that this process cannot change the
number of protons and neutrons in a nucleus; it can only swap their positions.

Thus, mesons are constantly being emitted and immediately absorbed by the
protons and neutrons in the nucleus. This has the effect of extending the strong
force just a bit – enough to keep the nucleus together. Without mesons, the only
atoms that could exist would be hydrogen.

So, mesons are just another link in the chain of quantum particles that the Lord
created in order for physics to be what it is. And the Lord causes physics to be
what it is so that chemistry will be what He decrees. And chemistry needed to be
just right in order for biological life forms to exist. Our minds are not capable of
considering the infinite number of possibilities for particles, the rules governing
them, and the potential chemistry that results. But God’s mind is and has. In
the next (final) article on quantum particles, we will look at elementary bosons and
their essential role as the glue by which God holds universe together.

[1] Recall that all baryons (except nucleons) are also named after Greek letters,
and when written these letters are always capital. Each meson family is indicated
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1/17/23, 10:40 PM Quantum Particles: Mesons | Biblical Science Institute

either by a lower-case Greek letter or a capital English letter. The J/psi meson
uses both.

[2] Contrast this with baryons. Baryons differ from antibaryons by composition.
Baryons are made of three quarks, whereas antibaryons are made of three
antiquarks. Since a meson is a quark/antiquark pair, reversing the charges results
in a meson.

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Quantum Particles: Gauge Bosons
by Dr. Lisle | Aug 12, 2022 | Physics

In Christ all things are held together (Colossians 1:17). Since God is an intelligent
and logical Being Who holds the universe together by His power, and since we
are made in His image and have revelation from Him, it is possible for us to
discover some of the logical patterns by which Christ holds His universe together.
There are four fundamental forces in nature, each of which is an expression of the
mathematical way God’s mind upholds creation. Each of these four forces is
associated with quantum particles called gauge bosons. These gauge bosons are
the glue that holds matter together. When we study these forces, we are learning
something about the mind of God.

The Four Forces

What is a force? A force is something that causes mass to accelerate – to change

the speed and/or direction of an object’s motion. There are four fundamental
forces in this universe: the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force,
electromagnetism, and gravity. We all have experience with gravity. It’s the force
that causes objects to fall – to accelerate toward earth’s center. The sun’s gravity
keeps the planets in orbit.

Most people also have experience with electromagnetism. The reason magnets
stick to the refrigerator is due to this force. The electromagnetic force manifests in
two ways: magnetism and the electric force. Think of these as two different
expressions of the same underlying mechanism. The electric force is what keeps
electrons bound in atoms. It is what causes atoms to stick to other atoms in a
molecule.

The two other forces are not so easily experienced (at least not directly) because
they have extremely limited range. In fact, they don’t extend much beyond the
nucleus of the atom. These are the two nuclear forces: the strong force and the
weak force. We already discussed the strong force in the articles on quarks,
baryons, and mesons. The strong force is what keeps the quarks bound together
in a proton and neutron, and indirectly keeps the proton and neutron bound
together in the nucleus of an atom.

The weak force is what is responsible for certain kinds of particle decay. That is, it
allows particles to change into other particles. The strength of this force is
actually quite high, but is much less than the strength of the strong nuclear force.
The weak force is “weak” only by comparison.

Fields

Each of the four forces has a type of “charge” which can be thought of as the
source of that force. Consider an electron. This particle has an electric charge of
-1. As such, the electron is surrounded by an electric field. Think of the electric
field like an invisible cloud surrounding every electron. This “cloud” gets thinner
and thinner as we get farther away from an electron. It never quite goes to zero,
but at some distance it is so thin that for all practical purposes it essentially
vanishes.

When another electron is placed in the electric field of any given electron, it
senses this field, and moves away from its source. This is why electrons don’t
need to be in direct contact in order to repel each other. Each electron is within
the electric field of any nearby electrons, and it is the field that tells the electron
how to move (namely, away from the other electron). When a positively charged
particle is placed within an electron’s electric field, the positive particle will
move toward the electron. With electromagnetism, like charges repel and
opposite charges attract.

Likewise, the strong force has a type of charge associated with it: “color
charge.” Leptons have no color charge (or if you prefer, they have a neutral color
charge), and so they do not feel the strong force. But quarks and antiquarks have
color charge, and therefore have a color field surrounding them. As with
electromagnetism, like charges repel and opposite charges attract. But, it’s more
complicated because there are six types of charges associated with the strong
force (red, green, blue, anti-red, anti-green, and anti-blue) rather than the two
associated with the electric force (positive and negative). In the previous
article we explored how these six charges relate to one another. The weak
nuclear force also has a type of charge, and it is repulsive for like charges and
attractive for opposite charges – just like the electric and strong forces.
The “charge” associated with gravity is simply mass. All mass has a gravitational
field surrounding it. But unlike the other three forces, like “charges” attract and
opposite charges repel. A particle with positive mass will gravitationally attract
another particle with positive mass. Theoretically, the gravitational force between
a particle with positive mass and a particle with negative mass would be repulsive.
[1] But as far as we know, there are no particles with negative mass. So, gravity
is always an attractive force.

Gravity Wins

Gravity is much weaker (by many orders of magnitude) than the other three
forces. That’s why the magnet sticks to the refrigerator without falling. And yet,
the largest structures in the universe (galaxies and clusters of galaxies) are held
together by gravity as if the other forces didn’t even exist. Why? Of course, the
two nuclear forces have very limited range. So, they cannot contribute to large-
scale structures. But the electric force has unlimited range. So why does it not
contribute significantly to large-scale structures like galaxies?

The reason is that there are an equal number of positive and negative charges in
the universe. And since opposite electric charges attract, positive and negative
charges are normally found very close together – such as the electrons that
surround the nucleus of an atom. The net electric charge of most objects is
therefore very close to zero. On the largest scales, the universe is electrically
neutral. But gravity, even though it is much weaker than the electric force, is
attractive for like charges. And since only positive mass exists, the effects of
gravity are cumulative.[2]

Forces and Particles

Each force has one or more quantum particles associated with it. These particles
exist as a ripple or wave in the field associated with that force. Consider an
electron and its surrounding electric field. If we rapidly wiggle that electron up and
down, it will cause the electric field surrounding the electron to wiggle, which
produces waves in the field that stream away from the electron. These are
electromagnetic waves. When we detect these waves, we find that their energy
levels are quantized, as if they are made of discrete particles. (Recall from the
first article in this series that particles behave like waves at times.) These
particles are photons – the same particles that make up light.

This is how radio works. Electrons are rapidly oscillated, which creates
electromagnetic waves – radio waves. These waves travel away from the
source. Some of them are intercepted by an antenna which causes the electrons
in the antenna to oscillate in response to the oscillating electromagnetic field.
This results in alternating electric current. When this current is put through a
speaker, it produces sound waves. Radio waves are low-frequency photons.

The only difference between the photons associated with radio and the photons of
visible light is their energy-level, which correlates with frequency and inversely
with wavelength. The lowest energy photons associated with radio have the
longest wavelengths. As we examine photons with progressively higher energy
and shorter wavelengths, we go to microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet,
X-rays, and gamma rays. These are all electromagnetic waves made of photons.

Photons and Virtual Particles

Photons are
spin-1 gauge
bosons.
“Gauge”
refers to the
fact that they
are
associated
with a force –
in this case
the

electromagnetic force. And being bosons, photons are not constrained by the
Pauli Exclusion Principle; hence, multiple photons can exist in the same quantum
state. This is what a laser is: multiple photons of identical energy and wavelength
exist in the same place at the same time in a laser.

Photons have no electric charge and are their own anti-particle. They exist as a
ripple or wave in an electromagnetic field. Photons have no rest mass. Any
particle with no rest mass must travel at the speed of light in vacuum.[3] Thus,
photons must travel at the speed of light in vacuum. Since photons have no
mass, they cannot decay into a less massive particle. Therefore, photons are
stable. They will propagate through space forever until they impact a particle.
There is only one kind of photon. Photons can have different kinetic energy levels
from each other (resulting in different wavelengths), and they can be either spin-
up (+1) or spin-down (-1), but in all other respects they are identical.

One of the strangest aspects of quantum physics involves virtual particles. Virtual
particles are unobserved, temporary particles that arise from fields due to the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP). A particle can form in a field by
borrowing a little bit of energy from that field as long as it “pays back” the energy
within a certain time limit.[4] The particle then vanishes. The HUP gives the
quantitative details. Basically, the more energy a particle borrows, the faster it
has to pay it back, and hence the shorter its lifetime. Since photons are massless
and therefore have no lower limit on energy, there is no upper limit on the lifetime
of a virtual photon.[5] Virtual particles can continually appear and disappear in a
field. In some sense, the field surrounding a charged particle is the cumulative
effect of all these virtual particles.

In an electric field, virtual photons can form and unform. These virtual photons
can travel from one charged particle to another; this creates either an attractive
force or repulsive force depending on the relative charges of the particles. Think
of virtual photons as messengers between charged particles. They carry a simple
message, either “come a bit closer,” or “move away a bit.”

Virtual particles explain why the electric force diminishes with the square of the
distance. Two charged particles separated by a distance D will experience a
certain force F. If these two particles are moved to twice the distance (2D), then
they will receive only ¼ the number of virtual photons from the other charged
particle. Hence, the force is reduced by the square of the distance.

It is important to note that virtual photons cannot be directly observed. (If

observed, the photon would not be virtual). There is some debate about how
“real” virtual particles are. Suffice it to say, the math works. That is, charged
particles really do behave as if they are constantly exchanging undetectable
photons, and this generates the force between them. Photons
therefore mediate the electromagnetic force.

Consequently, if photons did not exist, then there could be no electric force. Of
course, we couldn’t see anything either. But that would be the least of our
problems. With no electric force, atoms could not exist, and biological life would
be impossible.

The W and Z Bosons

Although there is only one particle that mediates the electromagnetic force (the
photon),
+ there –are three particles
0 that mediate the weak nuclear force. These are
the W , the W , and the Z . Like the photon, these are elementary spin-1 gauge
bosons. Unlike the photon, they have mass,2 and quite a bit of mass. The two W
bosons each have a mass2 of 80,433 MeV/c . The Z is slightly heavier with a
mass of 91,188 MeV/c . The only heavier elementary particles are the top quark
and the Higgs boson.
0 + –
As implied by the notation, the Z boson has no electric charge. The W and W
have an electric
0 charge of +1 and -1 respectively, and are anti-particles of each
other. The Z boson is its own antiparticle. None of these three bosons have any
color charge and therefore are not influenced by the strong force.

W and Z bosons are unstable; they decay into pairs of fermions. And since all
elementary fermions are less massive (except the top quark), there are many
possible decays. The W bosons can decay into a lepton and anti-lepton pair, with
one of the two having the same electric charge as the W, and the other being a
neutrino. Alternatively, they can decay into a quark-antiquark
+ pair with a total
charge matching that of the W. For example, a W could decay into an up quark
and a down antiquark.

0
 0
Z bosons decay into two fermions that are anti-particles of each other. They
most commonly decay into quark-antiquark pairs. But they can also decay into
lepton-antilepton pairs, such as an electron and positron, or a neutrino and
antineutrino.

The weak nuclear force is mediated by virtual W and Z bosons. And since these
bosons have quite a lot of mass, they must pay back their borrowed energy in a
very short time according to HUP. As such, they cannot travel very far before they
are reabsorbed. This is why the weak force has extremely short range.

Gluons

The strong nuclear force is mediated by gluons. Gluons are spin-1 gauge bosons,
much like photons. Gluons have no electric charge. And they are thought to be
massless – again like photons. However, gluons do have color charge. Recall
that all quarks have one of three color charges: red, green, or blue. And
antiquarks have one of three color charges: anti-red, anti-green, or anti-blue.
Gluons have both. Each gluon has one of the positive-type color charges (red,
green, or blue), and one of the negative-type color charges (anti-red, anti-green,
and anti-blue) at the same time.

As such, there are eight types of gluons. Six of these types consist of a color and
a non-opposite anti-color. These are (1) red and anti-blue, (2) red and anti-green,
(3) green and anti-blue, (4) green and anti-red, (5) blue and anti-red, and (6) blue
and anti-green. What about combinations like red and anti-red? These color-
neutral gluons cannot exist in isolation, but they can exist in an indeterminate,
mixed state.[6] There are two mathematical ways in which this can occur, and
there really is no easy way to illustrate these. Suffice it to say these are the
seventh and eighth type of gluon.
The exchange of virtual gluons is what holds the quarks together in a hadron.
Consider a baryon such as a proton or neutron. Each nucleon is made of one red
quark, one green quark, and one blue quark (top panel in the figure). Suppose
the red quark emits a gluon that has the red and anti-blue combination. To
conserve color charge, the red quark must turn into a blue quark (middle panel).
When “added” to the gluon, the blue in the quark cancels the anti-blue of the
gluon, leaving only red. So, there is no change in the net color of the nucleon – it
is still color neutral. This gluon is then absorbed by another blue quark,
transforming it into a red quark (bottom panel). The two quarks swap color
charge, and this results in an attractive force between them. The overall color of
the nucleon is unchanged (and is neutral) since the two quarks have merely
swapped colors.

Since gluons are spin-1 bosons, a gluon exchange also swaps the spin states of
the quarks. Suppose the quark emitting the gluon has an initial spin state of
+1/2. The emitted gluon will have a spin state of +1, which flips the quark to -1/2
(so that the combined spin states still add up to +1/2). The gluon is then absorbed
by a quark that has an initial spin state of -1/2. The gluon flips the quark to spin
+1/2 since it “adds” +1 to the spin of the quark. The overall spin of the baryon is
unchanged.

It is similar with mesons. Recall that mesons are made of one quark and one
antiquark of opposite color. Suppose we have a red quark and anti-red antiquark.
The red quark could emit a gluon that is red and anti-blue. This will flip the quark
to blue to conserve color charge. When the gluon is absorbed by the antiquark,
the red cancels the anti-red, and the remaining anti-blue is absorbed by the quark,
transforming it to anti-blue. The meson is still color-neutral because one quark is
now blue and the other is anti-blue. Mesons are always color neutral; but their
quarks and antiquarks are constantly changing color charge by exchanging
gluons.

Unlike photons, gluons possess the very type of charge that they mediate. In
other words, photons mediate the electric force, but are themselves electrically
neutral. So, photons don’t attract or repel each other. But gluons both mediate
color charge and possess color charge. Therefore, gluons can attract or repel
other gluons! They have a tendency to group into long tubes. This makes the
strong force far more complicated than the electric force. Since gluons interact
with each other, the strong force does not diminish with distance in the same
mathematical way as the electric field or gravity. It diminishes much faster, and
can even become repulsive at extremely short distances (for particles that are
normally attractive). This prevents the three quarks in a nucleon from being in
exactly the same location, which results in imperfect cancelation of the three
colors at the outer surface of the nucleon, which allows pions to form and mediate
the residual strong force. And without the residual strong force, no atoms other
than hydrogen could exist.

The extreme strength of the strong force is such that the energy needed to
separate the quarks in a baryon exceeds the energy of the quarks themselves.
Therefore, any attempt to separate the quarks would result in the formation of new
quarks from the energy, resulting again in a color-neutral hadron. This is called
“color confinement” and is why composite particles are always color-neutral. This,
along with the fact that gluons interact with each other, is why the strong force has
such a short range.[7]

The color field of the strong force has so much energy, that not only virtual gluons
form within it, but virtual quarks and antiquarks as well. To conserve baryon
number, quarks and antiquarks always form in pairs – a temporary meson. And
they can only exist for a very short time since they must “pay back” the energy
they borrowed from the field. These are sometimes called “sea quarks” as
opposed to the three permanent “valence” or “constituent” quarks. Since sea-
quarks always form in quark-antiquark pairs with opposite charges and spin, they
do not change the overall charge or spin state of the baryon. They do affect the
mass. And this is why the constituent mass of quarks is greater than their current
mass. The virtual mesons that form just outside a proton or neutron of an atom
(due to imperfect cancellation of color charge) are responsible for the residual
strong force which holds together the nucleus of all atoms (except hydrogen).

Gravitons

Many
physicists
believe that
the
remaining
fundamental
force, gravity,
is mediated
by gauge
bosons

called gravitons. Unlike the other gauge bosons, gravitons have not been
observed or detected in any experiment. They remain theoretical. Furthermore,
gravity can also be explained in an entirely different way – without appealing to
quantum particles. The science of general relativity developed by Einstein
correctly predicts gravitational interactions by computing how mass affects the
curvature of spacetime. Most physicists believe that gravity on quantum scales
requires a quantum explanation, perhaps one that will be fully compatible with the
large-scale successful predictions of general relativity.

In any case, although gravitons have not been detected experimentally, we can
compute many of their properties using math on the basis of what gravity does.
This is only possible because the universe is upheld by a mind – the mind of God
– that thinks rationally and mathematically. We know, for example, that gravitons
have no rest mass – just like photons. If they had any mass whatsoever, then the
range of gravitation could not be infinite. Yet, the motions of galaxies in clusters
show that gravity works on a universal scale. Being massless, gravitons must
travel at the speed of light.

Furthermore, gravitons must be spin-2 bosons. As with all bosons, they ignore
the Pauli Exclusion Principle. A spin-2 boson results in a force that is attractive
between like charges. This stands in contrast to the other three fundamental
forces, mediated by spin-1 bosons, and in which like charges repel. As such, the
graviton is the only spin-2 elementary particle.

Gravitons must have no electric charge, otherwise they would interact with electric
fields. Gravitons have no color charge, and therefore ignore the nuclear strong
force. Gravitons are stable since there is no lighter particle into which they could
decay. Since they do not interact with the strong force, the weak force, or the
electromagnetic force, gravitons are exceptionally difficult to detect. They really
only respond to gravity, and gravity is orders of magnitude weaker than the other
forces. This accounts for why these particles have not been detected as yet.

The Higgs Boson

One
elementary
boson stands
apart as the
only
elementary
boson that is
not a gauge
boson; that
is, it does not
mediate any
force. This is
the Higgs
boson. The
Higgs boson
is a spin-0
boson, and
the only
known
elementary
particle that has no spin. It has
2 no electric or color charge. But it is massive,
weighing in at 125,350 MeV/c . This is the second most-massive elementary
particle; only the top quark is heavier.

Just as the photon, the 8 gluons, and the W and Z bosons are each associated
with a field, so the Higgs boson is associated with the Higgs field. Recall that the
fields associated with the strong and weak nuclear forces have extremely limited
range, whereas the force of gravity and electromagnetism have infinite range –
but their force diminishes with distance. We think of them as a cloud that gets
thinner as we move away from the source. The Higgs field, however, permeates
the entire universe equally, and is not diminished anywhere. The Higgs boson is
then a wave in this field.

But unlike the other fields, the Higgs field does not produce any force. Instead, it
produces mass. The mass of a particle is determined by how strongly that
particle “feels” the Higgs field. Particles like photons, gravitons, and gluons do not
interact at all with the Higgs field. They cannot detect it, and so they remain
massless. Particles like the top quark interact very strongly with the Higgs field
and thereby are very massive. Even the Higgs boson itself strongly interacts with
this field, causing its high mass. The Higgs field was proposed in 1964 to explain
why the W and Z bosons had mass. The Higgs boson was detected
experimentally in 2012.

The Higgs boson is sometimes called the “The God Particle” due to a 1990
popular book of the same name written by physicist Leon Lederman. The particle
“rules” over all others in that its field sets their mass. However, most physicists do
not use that nickname. The Higgs field is apparently the mechanism that God
uses to set the mass of all particles in the universe. Without the Higgs field, all
particles would be massless, and would therefore travel at the speed of light.
Obviously, chemistry and biology would not be possible in such a universe.

Lessons from the Quantum World

We have seen that there are exactly 12 elementary fermions (six quarks and six
leptons), along with their 12 antiparticles.[8] And there are exactly 14 elementary
bosons.[9],[10] Thus, everything in the universe is made of some combination of
these 38 particles. But most quantum particles have a fleeting existence; they are
created and decay in a fraction of a second. Only three of these particles form
physical, massive substances with long-term stability (either alone or in
combination). Namely, the up and down quarks form all protons and neutrons,
and the electrons “orbit” a nucleus in roughly equal numbers to the protons. This
results in a universe that is electrically neutral on the whole, and determines the
properties of all chemicals.

However, we have seen that many of the transient, short-lived particles are
essential in holding matter together. The interaction of gluons in a proton or
neutron holds the three quarks together. And mesons forming around nucleons
mediate the residual strong force, holding the protons and neutrons together in an
atom’s nucleus. Virtual photons keep the electrons orbiting the nucleus of atoms
by mediating the electromagnetic force. And gravitons apparently mediate the
force of gravity, which keeps the earth’s atmosphere from escaping into space,
and keeps the earth orbiting the sun.
A slight change to any of these essential particles and the properties or the rules
they obey, and the physical universe as we know it could not exist. Just imagine
the intelligence necessary to think through the logic of how all particles must
behave in order for the universe to be right for biological life. Secularism has no
answer for this. And so, the first lesson we learn from quantum particles is that
only the infinite mind of the Lord can think through all the infinite combinations of
particles and rules to arrive at a solution that allows for the properties of this
universe.

Yet, God is creative as well. Some of His creations are perhaps not essential for
life, and yet they display His majesty. To my knowledge, the top quark is not
necessary for life, or for chemistry, physics, or astronomy to be the way these
disciplines are.[11] Yet, particles like the neutral kaon (which may not be
necessary for life), have opened up new arenas in physics by behaving in
unexpected ways.[12] They give us insight into the creativity of the Lord.

Since mankind has been made in God’s image, as if a shadow of His nature, we
have at least a limited capacity to discover and understand the way God upholds
His universe. God has revealed Himself to us. So, we know something about
Him. Since God’s mind upholds all creation, and since God is logical and
mathematical, the laws of nature are logical and mathematical. Mathematics is a
mental exercise in the logic of numbers, which are concepts of quantity. And yet
the universe obeys logic and mathematics because it is upheld by the mind of
God. Secularism has no answer for this. It cannot account for the success of
science, nor the effectiveness of mathematics in the formulation of physical laws.
[13] But the biblical worldview can. Indeed, many of the quantum particles that
have been experimentally discovered were predicted to exist on the basis of
mathematics! And this is the second lesson.

A Nested Hierarchy

A third lesson concerns the way particles are classified. We have seen that
quantum particles fall neatly into certain families. There are composite particles
that are made of smaller particles, and there are elementary particles that are
indivisible. Of the elementary particles, there are 12 that are fermions (and 12
antiparticles), along with 14 bosons. The 12 fermions fall into two families: quarks
and leptons. Each of these two families has exactly six members called flavors.
Furthermore, there are two flavors in each of three generations. Quarks always
group to other quarks or antiquarks forming a hadron. And there are two types of
hadrons: baryons (which are fermions) and mesons (which are bosons).

The elementary bosons come in two broad varieties: gauge bosons, and the
Higgs. The Higgs is the only member of its class (as far as we know). But there
are four families of gauge bosons: one for each of the four fundamental forces.
There is only one type of photon, and+one –type of graviton.
0 But there are three
particles mediating the weak force (W , W , and Z ), and there are 8 varieties of
gluons. How do we account for this logical pattern?
Furthermore, particles can be classified by different criteria as well. For example,
particles that have positive rest mass and travel slower than the speed of light are
called bradyons. Particles that have zero rest mass and travel at the speed of
light are called luxons. Particles that travel faster than the speed of light are
called tachyons. All quarks, leptons, and hadrons are bradyons. So are the W, Z,
and Higgs bosons. Photons, gluons, and gravitons are luxons. And as far as we
know, there are no tachyons.

Hence, all particles on the quantum level can be classified into a hierarchy within
a hierarchy. This is called a nested hierarchy. There are many nested hierarchies
in nature. But there is one in particular that is often brought up in debates on
origins. Namely, biological organisms fall into a nested hierarchy. Biologists
classify organisms by the Linnaean taxonomy: kingdom, phylum, class, order,
family, genus, and species.

And what is responsible for this hierarchy? How do we account for it?
Evolutionists have argued that this hierarchy of organisms is the result of
evolution. Organisms are said to have similarities because they share a common
ancestor. Gradual, infinitesimal changes are said to have accumulated over
millions of years of mutations, eventually resulting in the wide variety of life.
Some evolutionists have even argued that evolution is the only explanation for this
nested hierarchy.

However, quantum particles refute this notion. We have seen that quantum
particles also fall neatly into a nested hierarchy. Yet, it would be absurd to say
that this is because they have gradually evolved from a common ancestor. It’s not
like the electron reproduced a slightly more massive electron, which gave rise to a
slightly more massive version until the electron evolved into a muon.

Unlike animals, quantum particles can change into other particles – they decay.
But this process is instantaneous and never results in a new type of particle.
Rather, any particle decay will always result in some combination of the 38
elementary particles that God created. Furthermore, the way in which particles
decay is strictly governed by the conservation laws. Particles cannot change into
anything other than various combinations of the 38 particles that the Lord allows
to exist in His universe.

The notion of some kind of evolution through imperfect replication from a common
ancestor is a non-starter for particles. They just don’t work that way. So, what will
account for the nested hierarchy of particles? Quantum particles can be classified
into a logical hierarchy because their existence is determined by a rational Mind.
The Triune God of Scripture is the basis for the logical pattern of similarities and
differences that exist in the universe. God Himself is one in nature, and three in
Persons. Thus, there is unity (all three divine Persons are the one God) and a
type of diversity (e.g. the Father is not the same Person as the Son, Who is not
the same Person as the Holy Spirit) within the Godhead. God therefore rules
nature in a way that expresses both unity and diversity. And this is what makes
taxonomic classification possible.
Thus, electrons, muons, and tau particles are all classified as leptons because
they are all spin ½, and have an electric charge of negative 1. But they differ in
mass, and are therefore distinct members of this one family. In the same way,
dogs and cats both have bones, fur, and four legs; both give live birth, and nurse
their young. They are both in the class of mammals. But they differ in anatomical
details and are therefore in different families. The Christian worldview can explain
why not only animals, but many other aspects of nature can be classified into a
nested hierarchy. It is not due to Darwinian evolution. It is due to the sovereignty
of the triune God of Scripture.

Conclusion

Quantum physics is a complex topic. We have only scratched the surface in this
short series, covering the types of elementary particles that are known or inferred
to exist and some of their basic properties. It takes years of study to master the
mathematics necessary to calculate quantum phenomena. Even many of the
concepts are difficult. We have seen particles that behave like waves, or exist
with indeterminate compositions. The counterintuitive nature of this topic
stretches our mind. Yet, all of these strange properties are what allow chemistry
to work in such a way that biology is possible. It is amazing to consider how the
Lord thought of all this. Furthermore, it is God’s mind that upholds all creation. It
is His thoughts that control every particle in the universe. Our response should be
to praise Him.

[1] However, the way negative mass responds to force is opposite to the way
positive mass responds to force in terms of the direction of acceleration. This is
because F = ma (the net force equals mass times acceleration). So, when mass
is negative, the direction of acceleration is opposite the direction of the force! (If
you push negative mass away from you it will move toward you.) So, imagine we
had two planets next to each other – one made of ordinary mass, and the other
made entirely of an equal magnitude of negative mass. The gravitational force
between them would be negative, and so the positive-mass planet would begin to
accelerate away from the negative-mass planet. The negative-mass planet also
experiences a repulsive force (away from the positive planet), but it responds to
that force backwards – by accelerating toward the positive-mass planet. The two
planets would spontaneously accelerate with the negative-mass planet always
maintaining the same distance from the positive-mass planet. Strangely, this
violates no laws of physics because the total kinetic energy of the system remains
zero (the negative-mass planet would have negative kinetic energy).

[2] Only positive mass exists in isolation. The mass defect associated with bound
particles is negative, but is always less than the positive mass of the system. As
far as we know, negative mass is never found in isolation.

[3] The reasons for this are given in my book, The Physics of Einstein.

[4] It is important to note that virtual particles do not come from nothing. They
come from fields that permeate space, and are reabsorbed into those fields.

[5] This is why the electric force has infinite range.

[6] This is much like the neutral pion which has an indeterminate composition.
This is discussed in the previous article.

[7] Since gluons are massless, the theoretical range of virtual gluons is infinite.
But color confinement effectively limits the range to nuclear scales. So, the strong
force and the weak force have limited range for entirely different reasons.

[8] Alternatively, there may be only 9 unique elementary anti-fermions depending

on the reason why neutrinos have mass. In some models of quantum physics,
neutrinos are their own anti-particle. Such a scenario would mean that lepton
number is not a conserved quantity.

[9] This includes the hypothetical graviton.

0
[10] These include anti-particles. The graviton, photon, Higgs, and Z are each
their own anti-particle.
+ The antiparticle
– of any gluon is just another gluon, and the
anti-particle of the W is the W .

[11] Of course, only the Lord knows for certain. We cannot think through all of the
implications of certain particles existing or how that would affect laws of nature,
partly because we do not know all the laws of nature.

[12] The decay of neutral kaons was the first known violation of a principle called
CP (charge-parity). The details go beyond this article. However, scientists
previously thought that CP could not be violated. The discovery that neutral
kaons violate CP has led to entirely new ways of thinking in physics.

[13] See Eugene Wigner’s excellent paper on this topic: “The Unreasonable
Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.”