why does the monopoles not exist

Faraz Murtaza

why does the monopoles not exist

Khashishi

why should they exist?

DrewD

Monopoles do exist

cronanster

What kind of monopoles are we talking about?

Gordianus

Electric monopoles do exist. Somehow, I feel the O:P asked about magnetic monopoles; a very common question.

Vorde

Electric Monopoles do exist, like Gordianus said. Assuming the OP is talking about Magnetic monopoles, why should they exist?

To rephrase: Even though there are theories that predict the existence of magnetic monopoles, the mainstream particle theories do not. Physically there is nothing wrong with their existence, but there is no reason for them to exist, either.

Nabeshin

Huh? Monopoles are actually a fairly generic prediction of grand unified theories, from what I understand. It's actually a large conflict between theory and observation, since obviously we don't see any. This led, in part, to the development of inflation theory, which is more or less the standard paradigm for early universe cosmology (in one incarnation or another).

Vorde

I meant theories that are considered 'true' now, like QED and EWT (is that how it's called?), not GUTs. I was under the impression that currently verified theories do not predict monopoles, and the existence of monopoles in speculative TOEs and GUTs are one of their experimental testing points.

I see how that point of view did not get across in my earlier post.

Though I am confused as to how magnetic monopoles led to inflation theory?

Nabeshin

Well while it's true that we have no direct experimental verification of GUT scale physics, and likely never will, my point is that it seems a fairly generic prediction of what must be going on at those scales. This could be false, as I obviously haven't surveyed all theories claiming to describe these energy ranges, but I think it's fairly universal.

The reason this motivated inflation theory is precisely what I stated before. If you predict a monopole density which is much larger than the observed bounds (we do have some bounds), then that's obviously a contradiction. Either the theory is wrong, or the observations are flawed (not likely, given the magnitude of the discrepency). Now, as I've mentioned monopoles seem to be a fairly straightforward prediction of what's going on at GUT energies, so there's no clear way to get around producing them. The only way to lower the density, then, is to dilute them over a larger volume; this is precisely what inflation does.

Faraz Murtaza

we are talking about magnet poles

Faraz Murtaza

what is OP?
CAN YOU PLEASE TELL

Ibix

Original Post or Original Poster. The first post in a thread or the person who made it.

tris_d

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amperes_Law



Magnetic field due to moving charge. Count the poles, and point out where is the north and where is the south pole.

sophiecentaur

You don't actually need to 'have' magnetic fields at all. The force that we call magnetism can be accounted for by the relativistic effects on moving charges. None of it's real- it's just models and we choose the one that suits a situation best.

tris_d

How's that relevant to whether magnetic monopoles exist or not? Whatever is the way you account it for you still can measure what is called sink and source, positive and negative, or north and south pole. The question I have for you is how many poles can you count on that image above of magnetic field due to moving charge, and can you point where is the south and where is the north pole?

sophiecentaur

My point was that an argument based on fields need not be totally valid (sufficient?) once you realise that the field concept is only a concept. I know that post of yours is a great way to show that monopoles "can't" exist, based on the model that field lines have no 'ends'. But field lines are only a construct to model what we observe. The question of the existence of the monopole may require more than a field line argument.

tris_d

I'm not talking about "models" or "constructs". This is real.
Take a permanent magnet in your hand and you can measure it.


Field lines have no ends?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field

Do you see field lines start at north pole and end at south pole?


Is this picture below of magnetic dipole?
Can you point where is north and south pole?