How Things Work: A Brief History of Reality
Book II: The Power of Three: (#45. Deducing the Modern Atom)
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Tuesday, August 23, 2022
“In the world of the very small, where particle and wave aspects of reality are equally significant, things do not behave in any way that we can understand from our experience of the everyday world... all pictures are false, and there is no physical analogy we can make to understand what goes on inside atoms. Atoms behave like atoms, nothing else.”
― John Gribbin (In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality)
CONSIDERATION #45 – Deducing A New Modern Atom
PREFACE
Welcome Everybody!
One of the key factors distinguishing modern science’s version of objective truth from past versions of truth stemmed from a requirement to produce some form of empirical evidence to back up and support rational abstract theories. Rational abstractions and ideas required some form of objective physical evidence to make them worthy of scientific investigation. Scientific theories not supported by physical empirical evidence were no better than the rational metaphysics used to support religious thinking. Science was not religion; science was “real.” Therefore, it required real physical evidence to be considered true, or factual.
“Experimentation provided the foundation for determining what was scientific and what was not.”
More importantly, modern science allowed for a change of perception regarding Reality depending on new empirical evidence. Essentially, empirical evidence gained through scientific experimentation became the bedrock for determining which theories were “true” and which were “untrue.” Experimentation provided the foundation for determining what was scientific and what was not. This balance between empirical and rational factors led to an explosion in practical scientific discovery resulting in a scientific and industrial revolution beyond anything the world had previously experienced.
As the idea of an atom began to catch on with modern physicists, the more scientific investigation and experimentation seemed to back up this theoretical entity. However, it was not the small indestructible piece of solid matter that Democritus and Dalton had predicted. Instead, modern physicists found the atom to be a relationship of three new particles based on their electrical charges. The once indivisible abstraction of unity was now a divisible abstraction of three electrical charges: positive (proton), negative, (electron), and no charge, or neutral charge (Neutron). The new Atomic Trilogy of Physical Reality.
CONSIDERATION #45 – Deducing A New Modern Atom
In the 1890’s, physicist J.J. Thomson used a series of Cathode Ray Tube experiments to prove the existence of the first atomic constituent, electrons, which he called corpuscles. Through further experiments, he determined that electrons were negatively charged and that the mass of this charge was 1000 times lighter than a hydrogen atom. Using rational deduction, objective experimentation, and empirical evidence, Thomson created the first modern atomic model. Thomson’s model, sometimes referred to as the “Plum Pudding” model, consisted of a sphere filled with a positively charged fluid that was thick and sticky, like the jam part of a pudding. The newly discovered negative “electrons” were suspended throughout this sticky fluid like the plums in a pudding. Thomson had demonstrated for the first time that atoms were not the solid, indivisible objects suggested by Democritus and Dalton, but in fact something that was divisible into other constituent parts; earning him the Nobel Prize in 1906.
“Earnest Rutherford was an experimental scientist responsible for a series of discoveries related to chemistry… His work involving radioactivity allowed him to devise an experiment involving atomic structure designed to prove Thomson’s “Plum Pudding” concept of the atom…”
Earnest Rutherford was an experimental scientist responsible for a series of discoveries related to chemistry, radioactivity and nuclear physics including the discovery of alpha rays, beta rays, the laws of radioactive decay, and the helium nuclei. Rutherford won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances.” His work involving radioactivity allowed him to devise an experiment involving atomic structure designed to prove Thomson’s “Plum Pudding” concept of the atom, but ironically, he ended up discovering the atom’s nucleus instead.
Earnest Rutherford’s famous “Gold Foil Experiment” involved firing positively charged alpha particles through a “gold foil.” After meticulously measuring the deflection patterns of the particles that had penetrated the gold foil, he noticed that while most particles were not deflected at all (meaning atoms were mostly composed of empty space), some particles were reflected by large degrees. Some of the particles were somehow redirected by large angles, and some even reflected directly back; leading Rutherford to declare:
“It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.”
– Rutherford
He deduced that there must be a positively charged center in the atoms of the gold foil, and that it was these larger positive particles that were deflecting some of the smaller positive alpha rays. He had discovered the nucleus of the atom. This led Rutherford to create the modern “Atomic Model,” also known as the “Planetary Model.”
Rutherford’s Planetary Model is very likely still the model you know or learned about in high school. When questioned why the negatively charged electrons were not attracted and drawn into the positively charged nucleus, Rutherford responded that the atom was like a “mini solar system” with the nucleus acting as the “sun” and the electrons in a very wide orbit around it acting as the “planets,” just like the solar system. The extreme distance from the nucleus in tangent with the high-speed elliptical orbit kept the electrons from being pulled into the nucleus the same way the planets were kept from being pulled into the sun. This model, based on classical physics, proved to be highly effective and practical, especially in terms of chemistry. However, it was not accurate.
“Not only were the mathematical foundations used in science pure abstractions, now, for the first time, the very ‘objects’ being studied, as well as the ‘science’ being used to study them, were also abstractions.”
Rutherford’s Planetary Model of the atom represented the final gasp of classical physics in terms of its ability to describe the new atomic abstractions and the nature of their reality in any truly meaningful way. Not only were the mathematical foundations used in science pure abstractions, now, for the first time, the very “objects” being studied, as well as the “science” being used to study them, were also abstractions. The world of the large could be understood, manipulated, and even transcended through classical physics. However, the world of the extremely small could not.
POSTSCRIPT
It could certainly be argued that the Planetary Model of the atom marks the end of a science that demands some form of objectivity. The model of an atom that mimicked the model of the universe made a lot of sense to modern scientists; the reality of the sub-atomic world should match the macro-reality of the universe. The laws of science were the laws of science. Everywhere.
“Unlike the ‘physical’ world of the universe, the abstract world of the atom played by completely different rules.”
However, the more physicists delved into the atomic abstraction the more they found verifiable and disturbing in-congruencies related to reality. The investigation into the building block of Reality, the atom, would eventually lead to “two realities.” The reality of large things making up the universe such as galaxies, solar systems, suns, and planets, and the reality of the sub-atomic world that manifested those large things into existence.
“This would become the beginning of the end for demanding empirical evidence as a bedrock requirement in modern science.”
Albert Einstein’s Special and General Theories of Relativity would come to define the reality of our universe. However, a completely new theoretical model known as Quantum Mechanics would become the model for the quantum world of the atom. Unlike the “physical” world of the universe, the abstract world of the atom played by completely different rules. This would become the beginning of the end for demanding empirical evidence as a bedrock requirement in modern science. It starts with the recognition of a “quantum” atom.
Next week we set the stage for Einstein’s Relativity Theories and the advent of Quantum Mechanics with the recognition of a new “quantum atom.”
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