Understanding Spin: Unpacking the Concept of Electron Angular Momentum

[VivaLaFisica]

As far as we know, an electron cannot be decomposed into angular momentum of constituent parts. So how am I suppose to be thinking about what "spin" is?

I've come across intrinsic angular momentum explanations, but I'm not really satisfied with that and am still a bit stumped.

 

[Zmunkz]

I don't think you are going to find a very satisfactory answer to this... Except for the label itself ("spin"), there is not really anything in common between a physical object spinning, and the spin number of a particle. It's just a tag identifying what a particle will communicate to other particles when it interacts. We try to work by metaphor where possible, but its a very unstable metaphor in most cases.

Great question though... I've always wanted a good answer to this as well.