High School Bypassing Pauli Exclusion principle.

Click For Summary
The discussion centers on the hypothetical scenario of bypassing the Pauli exclusion principle, allowing fermions like electrons to occupy multiple states simultaneously. Participants highlight the potential consequences, such as violating fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, including unitarity and reversibility, which could lead to unpredictable outcomes in nature. The concept of "occupying more than one state" is clarified to mean multiple fermions sharing the same state, likened to the behavior of bosons, such as in Bose-Einstein condensates. Ultimately, the thread is closed due to its speculative nature, which is deemed inappropriate for the forum's focus on established physics. The conversation emphasizes the challenges of discussing alterations to foundational laws of physics.
MathematicalPhysicist
Science Advisor
Gold Member
Messages
4,662
Reaction score
372
Suppose that somehow we could artificially bypass Pauli exclusion principle, and make electrons or any fermions for that matter occupy more than one state at the same time?

What consequences in nature will we see? what phenomenons will occur?
Suppose this mechanism for bypassing is limited in time, and needs some kind of interaction or force to yield it.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Turning that kind of thing on and off would stretch and squeeze the state space, violate reversibility and unitarity, and generally make all the math gears seize up.

Best case scenario, you could use it as a probability pump. Worst case scenario, the universe immediately pumps its probability to 0. Actual case scenario, your post gets locked because this sub-forum isn't for speculation about ways the laws of physics could be different. Especially when those ways violate the postulates of quantum mechanics, like state evolution being unitary.
 
MathematicalPhysicist said:
Suppose that somehow we could artificially bypass Pauli exclusion principle, and make electrons or any fermions for that matter occupy more than one state at the same time?

What does "occupy more than one state at the same time" mean? That makes no sense.

If you mean "multiple fermions occupying the same state at the same time", that would make more sense (and would be what I would expect bypassing the Pauli exclusion principle to do). If you want to see what happens when you do that, google, for example, "Bose-Einstein condensate". Basically you're asking what would happen if fermions were bosons.
 
Strilanc said:
Actual case scenario, your post gets locked because this sub-forum isn't for speculation about ways the laws of physics could be different.

This hypothesis actually can be recast as just reclassifying certain particles under the current laws of physics (see my previous post). But I agree this topic can't really go any further without going out of bounds. Accordingly, this thread is closed.
 
I am slowly going through the book 'What Is a Quantum Field Theory?' by Michel Talagrand. I came across the following quote: One does not" prove” the basic principles of Quantum Mechanics. The ultimate test for a model is the agreement of its predictions with experiments. Although it may seem trite, it does fit in with my modelling view of QM. The more I think about it, the more I believe it could be saying something quite profound. For example, precisely what is the justification of...

Similar threads

  • · Replies 17 ·
Replies
17
Views
3K
  • · Replies 15 ·
Replies
15
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K
  • · Replies 18 ·
Replies
18
Views
2K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
1K