Reconsider Matter
Arjen Dijksman
Article published in Fusion n°75, March-April
1999, ISSN 0249.7648
The concept « matter » does not seem to be defined with
precision, as well in the current language as in the scientific
community. In reference books, one may find indeed the following
definitions:
- Substance which constitutes the bodies, which is object
of intuition in space and has a mechanical mass (Petit
Robert, 1993).
- Substance, constitutive reality of the bodies, endowed
with physical properties (Petit Larousse, 1995).
- All that has a location and a mass (Quid, 1994).
- General name of all the bodies having a proper mass (Dictionary
of Physics, J.-P. Mathieu, Masson and Eyrolle 1991)
In the standard model of contemporary physics, one admits
commonly that all the particles are material, excepted the
photon, because it does not have inertial mass. The neutrino,
other apparently imponderable «particle » that may hardly be
said to constitute the bodies, is however regarded as matter.
These definitions obviously carry the print of definition I of
Principia of Newton1 : « The quantity of matter is the measure
which one draws from its density and its volume ». Newton
specifies a little further that he employs indifferently the
concepts quantity of matter, mass and body for the same
abstraction.
This fuzziness maintained around the most fundamental concept
of «the Science of Matter » is detrimental for the advance of
knowledge. How can one indeed hope to describe matter with
precision, when the bases on which one melts this explanation are
ambiguous?
The statu quo results from the indubitable success that
have the laws stated by Newton, using the above mentioned
definition. This definition is criticizable and has been
criticized. One can for example quote Mach2. « [... ] definition I has only the
appearance of a definition. The concept of mass is not clearer
because one defines it as product of volume by the density, since
the density itself represents no other thing than the mass of the
unit of volume ».
Neither is the definition of Newton compatible with the
Lagrangian use, where one compares the matter element to a point.
The volume of a point being null, the quantity of matter of the
material point given by the product of volume and the density
must be null. It is of course a calculation artifact, making it
possible to describe the physical interactions in the classical
domain, but it is not satisfactory for the description of the
matter. As soon as one is interested in the interactions between
particles of the quantum field, the representation of the
material point is of no more use.
Also, at the beginning of quantum physics, we realized that it
was necessary to introduce the concept of the antimatter, which,
in spite of its evocative name, is no less material than matter.
We also had to admit that we could not locate the matter in a
point. With the passing of years, the scientific community
endeavoured «to standardize » the matter by adding supposedly
elementary qualities (spin, strangeness, baryonic number, a
leptonic number...) to more traditional qualities as were the
mass or the electric charge.
In his correspondence with Bezzo, Einstein3 wrote: « We are still far from having a
rational theory of the light and matter which is in agreement
with the facts! I think that only a bold speculation is capable
to make us progress, and not an accumulation of experiments
». In spite of the extraordinary experimental advances carried
out since their date of writing, these words are still timely. I
am of the opinion that the concept matter should be reconsidered.
Let us take a matter element. What makes it that this element
is perceived as a material object? For some, formed at the school
of Newton and Lagrange, it is its mass. Let us imagine that I
hold this matter element between my fingers. Whether it has a
mass or not, I would perceive this element as matter if it has a
proper extent. In other words, this element is matter if it
cannot be superimposed on another matter element. This point of
view is not new. In fact, I only join the dominant idea before
Newton revolutionized physics. In his « Principles of
philosophy », Descartes4 wrote: « Neither gravity, nor hardness, nor
the color... constitute the nature of the body but the extension
alone ». This more intuitive point of view frees me from the
cumbersome concept that is the mass.
To model this idea, I suppose that the matter element is
comparable to a short segment of a straight line, with constant
length. In order to avoid a confusion with the Newtonian matter
element, I will name it materion. To give a more concrete
idea of this element, one can evoke the image of a needle or a
rod whose mass would be null. Interactions between materions only
proceed by contact. Let us take two materions initially without
rotation and that are colliding: it seems clear that their state
of movement after collision depends on the point of contact (figure
opposite). 
If the
point of contact is at the center of the materion, this materion
moves away from the collided materion, without rotational
movement. If the point of contact is not at the center of the
materion, it acquires a rotation after the collision, with a
rotation speed depending on the ratio of the distances from the
center to the point of impact and from the center to the end of
the materion. The effect is similar for the collision between two
materions initially in rotation: no change of rotation if the
point of impact is at the center of the materion, change of speed
of rotation in the contrary case.
Within my conceptual framework of matter without inertial
mass, the velocity of the colliding materion with respect to the
collided materion can take only one value after collision.
Indeed, there is no "occult" quality which would enable
us to deduce a variation in the velocity. This reflects the
experimental behavior of the photon: whatever the initial
relative velocity between the photon and the experimental device,
final relative speed seems always equal to a constant value (in
vacuum). The directions of the translative velocity and of the
axes of rotation result from the geometrical analysis of the
collision.
To allow us to correctly judge of the relevance of this model,
it is necessary to carry out simulations on a significant number
of materions. Let us imagine a cloud of motionless materions (without
rotations or relative translations). Let us send a materion with
significant rotation in this cloud. By observing the evoked rules
of collision, one can deduce that the projectile materion will
cause shock waves with propagation of the collided materions. The
frequency of these shock waves is equal to the rotational
frequency of the projectile materion. This is explained by the
fact that when the materion is parallel to its translation
velocity, it "pierces" through the cloud; when it is
perpendicular, its "cross section" is maximum. However
the direction of the extent of the materion varies periodically.
There is "phase coincidence" between the rotational
frequency of the materion and the frequency of the shock waves
induced by same rotation. The shock wave being made up of sole
materions, its velocity of propagation is of the same order as
the velocity of the projectile materion. Here we find a
similarity with the of works of Louis de Broglie5, for who "the incidental photons have a
frequency of internal oscillation equal to that of the wave".
For de Broglie, it was the wave that controlled the internal
frequency of the photon; in the model of the materion, it is the
materion that controls the frequency of the wave.
In the preceding cloud of materions, let us
imagine a screen with two slits (device of Young, figure below).
The projectile materion, which crosses one of the two slits, will
interfere with the shock waves which passed through the other
slit. If we compare the rotating materion to a photon, it is not
astonishing that a controlled emission of photons (one by one)
gives interference rings in the experiment of Young. In all taken
experimental measurements, one never evacuated the "cloud"
of ambient photons upstream of the two slits. In fact the
collisions upstream of the screen, generate downstream the
interferences of the projectile photon with the photons of the
induced wave. The wave-particle duality for the light rises quite
naturally from the model of the materion.
 |
Experimental setting of Young. A
projectile photon is emitted in A, passes through
slit B and interferes on the screen D with the shock
waves produced by this same photon upstream of the
two slits, which passed through slit C.
|
In accordance with the statistical laws applying to
significant sets of particles, a thermal balance establishes in
any significant population of materions. Their energy
distribution will then be similar to that of the radiation of a
black body. Thus, in this model, even in the absence of "material"
bodies, there may be a thermal radiation. On Earth, this
experiment is not easily realizable, but the intersidereal vacuum
provides such a radiation: the cosmological microwave radiation
of the universe6,
currently explained within the theoretical framework of the Big-Bang.
If the spinning velocity of the projectile materion is high
enough, it may supplant the constant translation speed after a
collision. The contact between the projectile materion and the
struck materion will not be instantaneous anymore. Both materions
will "slide" on each other. While crossing a cloud of
materions, the apparent speed of the projectile materion will be
lower. Up from a threshold internal spinning velocity, the
materion thus acquires an inertia. With l the length of
the materion, f the rotational frequency and let c be the
constant universal of translational velocity, this will occur
when the rotational component at the end of a materion (= l
p f) is higher than c. With the
experimental data (frequency of appearance of electron = mec2/h, approximately 1020 Hz), this implies that the length
of the materion must be h/p
mec. This length is equivalent to
le/p ~ 0,8.10-12m,
with le the Compton
wavelength of the electron.
We therefore see that it is possible to deduce the property of
inertia out of geometrical considerations on the motion of fixed
length rodlike particles. This has an undeniable advantage on all
the central force models where inertia must absolutely be
introduced a priori, to explain the behavior of the
ponderable particles.
By taking identical measurements of the position or speed of a
materion, one realizes that there is indeterminacy of the result
of measurement. There is a certain probability of presence of the
particle in each point of a volume whose section is of about size
of l. This "statistical presence" should be
interpreted as a rapidly spinning rodlike particle. Since the
materion has an extent, measurements of its position or its speed
may give several values depending on the position, on the
segment, of the point of interaction during detection. This point
of view reconciles a mechanistic explanation of matter with
quantum mechanics.
We saw that, at the instant of an inertial interaction, the
point of contact moves along each of both materions. They
separate, when the point of contact reaches the end of one of
both materions. If a third materion enters in interaction with
one of the two other materions, whereas the first interaction is
not finished yet, there are cases where these three materions
will form a bound system, since they oppose mutually to slide
along the extent of each of the materions. The three materions
will present quantified complementary rotations which will not
exist any more if they are separate. The experimental data on the
structure of quarks in baryons are in agreement with this point
of view.
Since these aggregates have "hooking points", they
will be able to combine, either with other aggregates, or with
other materions, provided that there is compatibility of
rotational movements. These systems will form atoms and molecules.
According to the conceptual framework of the matérion, the
rotational motions inside these systems can take only quantified
values. This is an undeniable experimental fact on which rest all
the quantum theories of matter.
In his correspondence with Michele Besso, Einstein further
wrote7 : « A
truly rational theory would allow us to deduce the elementary
particles (electron,etc.) and not be forced to state them a
priori ». The conventional theories do not make it possible
to answer this requirement, since they are restricted to order
the empirical facts, in terms of concepts that are too far away
from our perceptions. To succeed in building a really rational
theory, it is necessary to reconsider the matter while being
freed from the standard concepts. The few ideas which have been
presented above illustrate the fruitfulness of such an approach.
They are asking to be verified.
References
- Newton I., 1985.
Principia Mathematica, Christian Bourgois Editeur, Paris.
- Mach E., 1987. La Mécanique,
exposé historique et critique de son développement,
Gabay, Paris.
- Einstein A. et Besso M.,
1972. Correspondance (1903-1955), traduction, notes et
introduction de P. Speziali, Hermann, Paris.
- Descartes R., 1664.
Principes de la philosophie, cité dans La lumière, B.
Maitte, Editions du Seuil, 1981, Paris.
- de Broglie L., 1973.
CR. Acad. Sci. Paris, 277.
- Penzias A. and Wilson
R., 1965. Ap. J., 142, p. 419.
- Einstein A. et Besso M.,
Ibid.
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