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Re: Whence Degeneracy Pressure?



Why would we decide that something is a force based on whether it can be
made to correspond to a force term in the Hamiltonian? Isn't that allowing
our mathematical formalism to dictate how we see reality?

If the gravitational force is causing atoms in a degenerate gas to press
downward toward the center of a star, and if the exclusion principle gives
our best explanation of what is opposing that collapse, and if our formalism
denies us the ability to describe this as a force, do we then describe this
situation as non-Newtonian? By what right do we do so?

Chris, who has been uneasy for years about the relationship of the exclusion
principle to the force laws.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Christopher A. Horton, Ph.D.
4158 RR#3 (Hwy. 204)
Amherst, NS B4H 3Y1
CANADA
ChrisAHorton2@hotmail.com
(902) 447-2109

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us
will have been effaced. Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has
in it something for every age to investigate ... Nature does not reveal her
mysteries once and for all."
- Seneca, "Natural Questions", first century, quoted by Carl Sagan in
"Cosmos", p.xi.

* * * * * * * * * * *


----- Original Message -----
From: William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: Whence Degeneracy Pressure?


On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, John Mallinckrodt wrote:

A sophisticated layperson friend of mine asked me a question which
I had to confess had never really occurred to me before. I told
him I'd consult a prestigious panel of friends. So here goes:

Why should the Pauli principle *not* be considered itself to be
the equivalent of a "fifth force"?


Suppose I pinch your finger with a pair of pliers which are made of
solid neutronium...


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