Skip to main content
19 events
when toggle format what by license comment
Jul 2 at 11:47 comment added freecharly @Tobias Fünke I do not fully agree with the statement, "Physics doesn't answer such questions." If such questions hadn't been asked in regard to the nature of heat, we would still adhere to the caloric theory, which also explained heat phenomena pretty well.
Jul 1 at 22:49 comment added FlatterMann Doesn't this question have a "natural" answer in terms of CPT-symmetry? If we accept that that's the answer, then we can, at most, ask why nature is locally symmetric under Lorentz transformations (because it is locally "empty"?) and why it is metric with a one dimensional time-like order parameter. I think the latter two questions are currently probably unanswered, but once we have that, CPT symmetry seems to follow strongly, at least in a Lagrangian/Hamiltonian framework. Maybe a theorist can expand on the question what the possible escape clauses are.
Jul 1 at 17:56 comment added my2cts ‘ just we don't know for sure yet’ No, just ‘we don’t know’. We also don’t know any experiment at present to investigate this question.
Jul 1 at 17:16 vote accept shriekspeare
Jul 1 at 17:06 answer added Bob D timeline score: 1
Jul 1 at 16:59 history edited shriekspeare CC BY-SA 4.0
added 164 characters in body
Jul 1 at 16:58 comment added shriekspeare if anyone knows any plausible theories for this whole charge thing, I'd be happy to read them
Jul 1 at 16:55 comment added shriekspeare well then i guess the answer is just we don't know for sure yet
Jul 1 at 16:41 comment added Tobias Fünke I don't want to start a discussion about the philosophy of science. But let me mention two things. First: To what extend "charge" is a "real" thing is a matter of philosophy, not physics as a natural science, and so is the question for the cause of existence. Second, I agree that a "higher" or better (in the sense of better prediction of observed phenomena) theory might give a reason for the existence of things like charge, but then the cause of that cause is not clear. Physics cannot fully answer why questions. I agree that I should've written something like: In our current theoretical...
Jul 1 at 15:56 comment added Thomas Tappeiner @TobiasFünke I also do not fully agree with this picture as there may be a theory where the cause for charge can be fully derived from a mathematical consistency equation along the lines of the limitation of open strings to theories with self-dual lattices heavily restricting the symmetries and thus possible charges (in unitary irreps of these symmetries). Though one may then of course ask why the our universe should adhere to a description based on these objects.
Jul 1 at 15:50 comment added Apoorv Potnis @TobiasFünke I don't agree with your comment. Physics does deal with such questions, it's just that it is out of our current ability to answer OP's question. What if the electron has a substructure, unknown as of now? What if the electron is hypothetically made up of a mass particle and a charge particle, and it is possible to separate the two? It is the job of physics to provide an answer why the above possibility is or is not true.
Jul 1 at 15:11 comment added shriekspeare ah so no "cause" as such but it's a property for both the bigger object (due to the particles which make it up) and the particle as well
Jul 1 at 15:05 comment added trula No the particles have a charge, and the bigger object is charged, since it contains many charged particles. Also in classical mechanics a particle has mass, an many particles together have greater mass and you don't ask where mass comes from.
Jul 1 at 15:01 comment added Tobias Fünke Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Perhaps someone else finds better words for what I am trying to say.
Jul 1 at 14:47 comment added shriekspeare so, if i'm getting this right, these particles give the property of charge to something like a metal or bigger atoms or molecules by just being themselves, but when they are taken individually, they show no such thing as "charge" because on a relatively larger scale, they themselves are the cause of it?
Jul 1 at 13:28 history edited Tobias Fünke
edited tags
Jul 1 at 13:28 comment added Tobias Fünke Physics does not answer such questions. In the theoretical description of experimental observed phenomena, we see that the concept of (electrical) charge is very useful. In this mathematical description, we associate to some particles, e.g. an electron, the property "charged". This is similar to the concept of mass. What these concepts "are", to what extend they are "real" and what is their "cause" is, is not in the scope of physics.
S Jul 1 at 13:21 review First questions
Jul 1 at 14:24
S Jul 1 at 13:21 history asked shriekspeare CC BY-SA 4.0