An Artist\'s Modest Proposal by Kenneth Snelson

Dear Kenneth

Your essay is a pleasure to read both for the clarity of the presentation and illustrations, and the originality and relevance of the ideas presented. I hope readers more qualified than I about atomic structure will give their feedback. I specially love the magnetic spin system shown in your Fig. 10. You have provided more details on your website www.kennethsnelson.net this wonderful invention (discovery!?) which may well describe in a physical way how nuclear particles and electrons actually behave at the smallest scales.

On your website you have also fascinating studies of weaving patterns which in a spherical configuration become topographical knots. Some years ago there was a Scientific American article showing how various quantum states are represented by the topology of knots. You were already there too in that area straddling art and science to the benefit of both!

In this magnetic conception tensegrity plays a role because of the () (-) repulsive- attractive forces. These forces are hard to 'see' in the gear-like top configuration you provided because the gears are always in contact, but may be easier to visualize if you think of the tops as free-floating rotating rods set normal to the rotation axis, moving in unison with their neighbors. Inspired by your work this is how I presented my universal building blocks in my Beautiful Universe Theory

Hats off and good luck in continuing your wonderful inventions and artistic creations.

Vladimir

Kenneth,

BTW, I did find a Wikipedia entry, Atomic orbitals that presented a great deal of additional considerations I had certainly been unaware of. You might also find it a useful read...

Jim

Dear Kenneth,

Louis de Broglie is underappreciated - his contribution was essential to quantum mechanics. I guess that this lack of appreciation has to do with the rejection, by the scientific community, of his idea of double solution and of de Broglie-Bohm theory. In my opinion, the debates which took place at Solvay, and continued after that, had a very important role, and all criticism brought by Einstein, de Broglie and others to the Copenhagen interpretation led to the understanding we have today. It is a shame that they are so often regarded as opposing the new and the truth, and that their contribution is so underrated.

I am amazed by tensegrity and your sculptures, as well as your visual model of the atom - beautiful and inspiring.

Best wishes,

Cristi Stoica

P.S. I feel that I should add this, to avoid any misunderstanding. I fully endorse the atom as it is pictured by quantum mechanics, based on the Schrodinger and Dirac equations. I can appreciate though an artist's modest proposal.

Hello Cristi,

Thanks for your kind messages. Yes, clearly, physicists need the mathematical tools of the standard model to solve problems.

I'm wondering though if my visual model, as you see it, is totally resistant to calculation? For example do you think it might be possible to calculate the orbital magnetism -- the azimuthal, l (small L), quantum-number value -- for the 3s, 3p, 3d de Broglie-wave "halo" orbits in my model; in order to compare them with Sommerfeld's elliptical orbits? Or does the question make any sense?

Thanks and best wishes,

Ken

Dear Kenneth,

You asked:

"I'm wondering though if my visual model, as you see it, is totally resistant to calculation? For example do you think it might be possible to calculate the orbital magnetism -- the azimuthal, l (small L), quantum-number value -- for the 3s, 3p, 3d de Broglie-wave "halo" orbits in my model; in order to compare them with Sommerfeld's elliptical orbits? Or does the question make any sense?"

In my opinion, the parameters of your model can be calculated and compared with Sommerfeld's elliptical orbits. I don't know if the direct calculations can give the known values, but I think it worth checking how far is possible to go in this comparison, and if there are some natural adjustments which can help. My intuition saids that your artistic depiction extracts some essentials features of the atom and makes them somehow more visible. It may be possible even to exist a mathematical correspondence between the standard atom model and yours. If this turns out to be true, your model can complement the standard atom model, and have some pedagogical advantages.

Best wishes,

Cristi Stoica

Dear Cristi,

Thank you. I am very pleased you believe that calculations for my atom might be possible. In the many years I have tried to explain and describe it no one has suggested that actually doing such math is in the cards.

Something I have often thought of: A fellow student once told me that as a child she was disappointed when she found out for the first time that pasta was made in a factory with machines. She had always pictured a field of spaghetti plants with lots of different pasta blossoms. I have always figured that my atom model is my own kind of pasta bush. If it should turn out that there is a near resemblance to the standard model that would be quite a miracle. It would be truly great if you can discover any evidence of that.

Thanks and best,

Ken

Dear Kenneth

It's nice to see a fellow proponent of science-art. We both offer graphic interpretations of physics' hidden realities. It is my belief that the circle is the cornerstone of all creation, its form repeated ad infinitum in nature, and I think that if you use it in a reasonably intelligent way you stand a greater chance of hitting the mark in an attempt to describe a hidden reality. Higher-dimensional string theory that began with Kaluza-Klein introducing the fifth dimension only became possible when Oskar Klein in 1926 proposed that the fourth spatial dimension was curled up in none other than our friend the circle. Looking at your website, I found it fascinating how you were bitten by the physics bug when you began a study of the circular aspects of your tension structures by experimenting with plastic rings. I am of the notion that if you correctly depict a hidden reality it should be as visually appealing as a landscape painting and strike a chord of resonance within the viewer. Your Fig. 11 is a perfect example.

All the best,

Peter Bauch

Dear Jim,

Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. Yes, even the Figures 7 and 8 are meant to represent a blurred electrical charge. They aren't blurred in the illustrations largely because of I wanted to emphasize the numbers of de Broglie waves and they become less clear by blurring them. It's a question choices of graphic style. I've attempted in so many different ways over the years to represent these invisible things. Did you ever Google "images" for "atom"? It's hilarious how many different ways people try to picture atoms.

Best wishes,

Ken

Kenneth,

Both good reading and valid electron conception. Congratulations. Unfortunately it seems my long post last night got lost in cyberspace. The basics;

Have you considered possible helical fields around a more 'substantive' version of your ribbon. This would form a toroid, which I've found as a fundamental structure from single particle through nuclear tokamaks, Earth's em field, through to AGN's and indeed probably the universe. You don't of course suggest what the ribbon may be 'made of'. Thoughts?

Secondly. I commend your comment;

"As with macro pieces of matter, de Broglie waves occupy exclusive space. Orbits cannot be in the same space at the same time."

And suggest it may have far deeper meaning than you discuss, which I outline in my essay, considering the implications of spatial exclusivity of matter an states of motion. I do hope you'll read and comment on (and score!) my essay.

Well done. And congratulations for such a flexible and perceptive mind, putting many physicists 50 years younger to shame.

Best wishes

Peter

Dear Kenneth Snelson,

I very much enjoyed your essay and your artwork. Your summary of de Broglie is excellent. If you have not already read it [it's not in your references] I think you would enjoy reading "Quantum Theory at the Crossroads", a recent analysis of the 1927 Solvay Conference and re-evaluation of de Broglie, available at Amazon.

Like you, I am convinced that the "atom is an elegant submicroscopic mechanism" that can be visualized, much as you have done. The question of how this related to probability is treated in my essay, The Nature of the Wave Function. In fact we visualize the orbits [which have recent experimental support!] in much the same way. Based on my interpretation of the physical field that is the basis of the wave function and upon Joy Christian's framework that focuses on a 'volume element' instead of a 'vector' description, I derive a 'volume conservation' relation that, visually, preserves a cylindrical volume that gets narrower as the cylinder gets longer, fatter as it get shorter, corresponding to your figure 4 and to your figure 3. [see the diagrams on page 5 of my essay.] The volume represents the actual (helical) wave in space whose strength is proportional to the particle momentum and hence to the de Broglie wavelength. You seem to capture this in your figure 3.

Like you and several other authors here, I consider the de Broglie waves to be physically real -- a physical field that is induced by the mass in motion according to an equation of general relativity. I believe that your work with tension/compression networks [tensegrity] have provided you with an excellent intuitive understanding of the relevant atomic relations.

I invite you to read my essay and hopefully comment upon it and give it a [high] community score.

Thanks for your analysis and your artwork, and good luck in the contest.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Kenneth,

Thank you for pointing out that physicists should be held accountable for refusing to think about small objects in real space and time! As you suggest, it was de Broglie who first conceived of the quantum wave and deserves credit for starting the field of QM. I see you give your quantum objects (or at least electrons) a quality such that they cannot share space with any other quantum object, rather like discreet solid objects, whether or not they have differing quantum numbers; this, of course is contrary to the accepted view. Whether or not you are right, I agree that the Pauli exclusion principle, so fundamental to the nature of matter, needs to be thought about more deeply. It surely must be hiding a lot of physics, but when being taught, it is presented without any reason or further comment.

I think you would be very interested in reading Alan Kadin's essay on the rise and fall of wave-particle duality: The Rise and Fall of Wave-Particle Duality. He also builds a real-space picture of electrons based essentially on de Broglie waves and suggested that electrons are not point particles, but are made of a distributed rotating vector field. According to Alan, this real field, which can be represented as a picture in 3 dimensions IS the quantum wave function. However, it is not so easy to draw a picture of a distributed rotating vector field. You might have the insight to be able to represent these fields in 3-D.

Best regards,

Robert

Dear Kenneth,

The representation and hypothesis you propose for the model de Broglie suggested seems quite interesting, since it covers some of the problems one could find when trying to model it. It was also very useful all the images you provided to show your ideas. I think this reminds us that different models, even if not mainstream or toy models, may have greater pedagogical advantages than others in order to work towards the understanding of more complex topics.

Hi Ken!

Reading your essay and enjoying the illustrations gives me a kind of Christmas eve feeling. I am not sure it convinces me to change view of the atom, but it sure helps me with the out of the box thinking. Just like good science fiction.

A short SF story I think you might enjoy is "The Tower of Babylon" by Ted Chiang.

Dear Kenneth,

Vladimir Tamari was kind enough to mention your artistry over on my thread, so I came over to see what he meant. I have no idea how long it took you to create this, but it was well worth it!

By the way, I agree with the notion that physics ought to be based on simple physical principles (I like to describe things as much as possible in terms of cause and effect). However, I have found that choosing the physical principles to be simple rather than choosing the mathematics to be convenient can result in some very complicated mathematics! I noted the discussion in your thread above about trying to precisely quantify your model, and it looks to me as if the math involved might be a bit steep. No matter, though; the math ought to be whatever it has to be to get the job done.

On a lighter note, if a picture really is worth a thousand words, then I'm afraid you've exceeded the length limit for the contest! Take care,

Ben Dribus

Hi Kenneth,

What a surprise to see you authoring an article in this contest. I have known and admired your sculptures for many years and was delighted to see that you, like me, take our artistic/visual talents and our interest in science to deal with questioning the foundations of modern science. I have an article in this contest you might want to check out. It's brief and easy reading. I haven't been able to read and comment on many of the entered essays because I've been busy promoting my just released debut novel, The Reluctant Hunter, which tells the odyssey of a young aspiring architect with an interest in cosmology who is caught up in the Bosnian War. It has five stars on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and was voted Editor's Choice by my publisher.

But I was so excited to see your name here that I had to write even before I read your article. I will go there now. You've been one of my heroes -- your sculptures are exquisite.

Joel Levinson joellevinsonauthor.com At this website you'll see articles I've written on architecture and other subjects.

Dear Kenneth thank you so much for your kind words. It is great that you are getting so many visitors to this page who offer support and understanding of your atomic model. Your clear uncluttered model is the result of deep thought about structure and the forces that keep various components in tensegretistic balance (to coin an adjective from your noun !). This has served you well in the conviction that the atom is no different than any other structure.

Bravo for ignoring the negativity of the probabilistic Copenhagen interpretation towards physical reality. That took some strength of mind. On the other hand non-academic researchers like you and me have the advantage that we can go on a limb and present our ideas without worrying that it will cost us a University position, and the like.

The visual approach is more important than other kinds of math (geometry might be considered a visual discipline) because Nature has structure in 3D. This we believe.

Avanti!

Vladimir