Continuing on this path of scientific enquiry, will we at some point finally understand what this is all about? Why there should be such a thing as a proton, and why it has the properties it does?
I think this seems to make the opposite assumption, which also seems questionable.
Rather than “I don’t know the ‘why’ “, I think it would be better to say “I don’t know if there is a ‘why’, nor what it is if there is one.” .
Though, really, I think the question of “why” in this context, is a little unclear as to what exactly it is asking?
Like, what properties would a statement have to have in order to be a satisfactory answer to the question?
Like, if something like color confinement is inevitable assuming SU(3) symmetry, would this answer “why” hadrons exist? Or, if the fact by itself wouldn’t, would this fact, along with a mathematical proof of it, arranged in a way reflecting the core ideas of the proof, constitute a “why hadrons exist”?
Or, is the question asking something more, like, “why is there something rather than nothing?” ? Is it asking for the first cause?
Yes, very nice! But I didn't want to go down that rabbithole as you actually need more correction factors... because a person who doesn't know, doesn't know if they know or not. ;) But functionally, they can't say they "know" - they are not conscious - so they don't know if they know or not, and they don't know what knowledge they have may contain a "why" or not, etc., i.e. there is great knowledge in history but people don't realize or have forgotten what resides in their own consciousness or history yet.
> Though, really, I think the question of “why” in this context, is a little unclear as to what exactly it is asking?
Also very good. 'how' and 'why' converge. That's why a person should make clear what they're asking. Just because 'why' and 'how' converge doesn't mean 'why' is meaningless or useless. In fact, why does something exist is different from how, since any "how" explanation is implicitly about a process of existence, yet a "why" sometimes explains mechanisms that do not "exist" yet cause what exists. That's why understanding this and enunciating it perfectly is a little beyond human eyesight for now. Philosophy exists for a reason and it's not just bullshit some thinkers made up (nor does it culminate with some semi-Wittgensteinian cop-out that words are the best we can do. What a nonsense self-contradiction).
Why means many things. People should stop conflating them and ask one by one concretely what they want to know if they truly want to know. But many people can't even realize what their real questions are without some dialogue.
Why there is something rather than nothing is that nothing can't exist. One little modern explanation: the moment you put boundary conditions on, you get virtual particles. QFT is clear about that. Without boundary conditions or a metric, there is no way to even consider the notion of a vacuum or nothingness.
Answering your question involving SU(3) symmetry requires you understand why/how SU(3) is pre-determined.
The place where "why" and "how" diverges is when involving a subject: "why am I alive" vs "how am I alive". The second one is a lot easier to answer if you consider only the biological. If you don't understand what the point of life is, it will be a lot harder to understand your distant past and a lot harder to understand your ultimate "why" i.e. your path and your purpose in this life. Consider what you know, for starters: you are like a child in this universe, growing up and learning through your life. When someone has to learn and grow, it means they're on the path to realization, mastery, and complete knowledge. I'll leave it at that for now.
Isotopes are only imperfect in the context of one labeling system. But not from a quantum viewpoint.
Once something that you thought was atomic actually shows variation you begin to suspect it is composed of smaller things.
Your comment does remind me of this though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
If we are not in a one-electron universe, every electron is unique in the sense that it has an entirely unique path though spacetime, and thus can't be identical. I think what you mean is that every one of these "particles" seems to obey the same set of laws, which is not something that's unique to atoms, subatomic particles, or even larger things like molecules.
No, quite the opposite, actually. Some particles being identical is core to many quantum mechanical ideas. The distinction between Bosons and Fermions fundamentally relies on this idea.
Also, it probably isn’t true that all electrons have individual well-defined paths through spacetime.
Electrons are Fermions.
When two electrons are “in orbit” around a helium nucleus, with the atom including the electrons being in the lowest energy state, the two electrons are orbitals distinguished by their spin, but, at least if it were not for the interaction with the magnetic interaction from the spin of the nucleus, you could choose any axis along which to consider the spin direction of the electrons, and like, you would get for each of the two spin directions along that axis, one of the electrons would have its spin in that direction. But considering different axiis for the spin, you would be splitting the two up in different ways?
I’m fairly confident it isn’t possible to assign a consistent id for each electron which persists through time. (Even setting aside the “they don’t have well-defined positions” aspect)
"Honestly, are you never going to let this go? I had goo reason to think there was more than one proton!"
and a paper from last year https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11568
and basically the same paper from three years ago (you'll recognize one of the plots from the last article) https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.02031