The Proton Heresy

The latest issue of Scientific American raises a new challenge for those who think that we have out-grown our need for belief in things un-seen.

It turns out that sub-atomic particles don't really exist -- Not in any way that we think of chairs and trees (apparently) exist. There is no such thing as a proton.

Now, many of us have suspected that these types of things are rather fuzzy -- it's impossible to pin down both their position and velocity for example -- we get that. But it always seemed like a limitation of our measurement tools. Surely there is *something* there to be measured !!

Apparently not.

Suppose you have a box that you have determined is totally empty. No protons at all. However, somebody observing the *same* box from an accelerating frame of reference (say, a rocket whizzing by) will see the box full of warm protons !!

In other words, the observation depends on who is doing the observing. We got used to this bizarre property of the Universe when it came to clocks and yard sticks, but THE COUNT OF PROTONS ??

As the author of the article cited points out, it's only the *observation* that is real. To put it another way, the *properties* of a system must include the observer as part of the system. We really can't say anything about what gives rise to the properties. Absurdly, this means that you can have "red" without anything that *is* red !!

Students of Quantum Mechanics have learned to live with absurdity, but there is something a bit scary about this one.

This result is fascinating in its own right of course, but I'd like to point out an issue that's dear to my own heart. I'm always bothered by people who smugly assume that religious belief is somehow primitive and old-fashioned.

In ancient times and modern, many people have assumed the existence of Gods, spirits, angels, karma, fate and other elements of the supernatural world to account for the phenomena they observe. Of course, in most cases, they simply accepted the common "authoritative" explanation without considering alternatives. The fact that whole societies accepted these explanations made these entities seem as real as chairs and trees.

It turns out that we haven't entirely escaped this kind of mistake after all. Not even the most "objective" and "scientific" among us. We all visualize atoms, protons, electrons and other tiny stuff whizzing around like tiny lumps of material we see every day. We trusted our Science teacher, never asking just how we *knew* that these little things actually existed. It turns out that they don't.

We can only hope that we don't start  burning Quantum Mechanics at the stake for publishing such heretical ideas. We can also give Granny a break when she says that God made the little green apples. She's doing the best she can with the information she has.