Re: The Electron

[Bob LaMontagne <rlamont@POSTOFFICE.PROVIDENCE.EDU>]

I agree that the electron is an enigmatic entity, but what I find even
more difficult to accept is the association of a specific frequency with
a photon of light. I can't imagine any possible mechanism that could
connect an oscillation to something traveling at a speed c. Each of us
probably thinks that there is one key problem in quantum mechanics -
that if we understood this one thing the rest would be easy. I suspect
we're fooling ourselves :-)

Bob at PC

Tom Manz wrote:
> The electron is not well understood. No one precisely knows why it has the
> charge or mass that it does.
>
> Understanding the structure of the electron is one of the most difficult of
> all physical questions. I presume that it will have to wait to be answered
> until a more fundamental theory of physics is discovered which unifies
> gravity and electromagnetism.
>
> String theory does not explain the fundamental charge or mass of the
> electron.
>
> In fact, very little is known about why elementary particles have the
> properties that they do. In the Standard Model, the masses and charges of
> the particles have to be put in, they cannot be calculated.
>
> No current theory can predict the charge to mass ratio of the electron with
> good accuracy from first principles.