Recent content by ribbie

Thanks for that explanation, Nugatory. Maybe my question doesn't really have anything to do with entropy after all. I'll try to redesign it. There seem to be two directions from which you can get an elementary particle. Either you can "shatter" matter until it yields some. Or you...

I realize that the second generation does not have more entropy than the first generation, that is an inherent part of my question. But, you did enlighten me as to why the generations' numbering seems somehow to be "backwards" from a layman's perspective. Thanks.

Thanks for your reply Nugatory, is there any way the mathematical definition of entropy can be explained in words?

Maybe my question is a bit more philosophical than scientific. In the macroscopic world entropy means that things become more chaotic and less orderly as they decay. It seems to me somewhat paradoxical that in the quantum world lower generation particles "decay" into the first generation...

Is there a relationship between the inverse fine-structure constant (alpha) and the life span of elementary particles?

perhaps more like a word is divine to the speaker - not that humans need to pay homage to it, but that it is relatively more "spiritual" and ethereal.

So what you're saying is that even though Planck's length as "a small indivisible unit" exists, it has no significance in mathematics because mathematics is essentially infinitessimal and has no bearing on the laws of the physical world, whereas physics measures the physical world in which...

The following is a quote from Wikipedia on Irrational Numbers (the bold is mine): If this is the case and there is no "small indivisible unit that could fit evenly into one of these lengths as well as the other", then how can Planck's Constant be true, unless it is a paradoxical number that is...

Can someone give a list of all the pure numbers that relate to elementary particles (such as the fine-structure constant)? How many such numbers are there? Is it likely that more will be discovered? Thanks