Oh No wrote:

I am not personally convinced that qcd is the correct model of quark
confinement. But one has to accept the empirical evidence for the
existence of quarks as constituents of the proton. One cannot simply
overlook more than forty years of experimental results and mathematical
analysis and say "we don't know about that".

Just for the sake of clarity, would you please tell us the specific
observational evidence that convinces you, personally, that the 3-quark
hypothesis is an accurate model of the proton interior?

Pickering's book Constructing Quarks offers an interesting and
alternative view on whether the quark hypothesis corresponds to actual
physical objects in nature, or whether the quark hypothesis is
essentially an artificial, Platonic model that fits some very ambiguous
data, but bears little relation to how nature actually works, sort of
like Newtonian gravitation.

Let us remember the wisdom of Anatole France : 40 million people can
believe in a false thing, but that does not convert it into a true
thing.


I think you missed the point of what I was saying with regard to black
holes, and Kerr-Newmann black holes in particular. This is a
mathematical solution of an equation. It is not a physical thing. We
know that we cannot apply the equation to a proton. It is inconsistent,
and therefore wrong. Physics cannot be self contradictory. Whatever the

Hmmm. It seems to me here that you are contradicting the arguments you
applied above to Newtonian models. Now you say approximations should
not be considered as valid stepping stones toward a better
understanding.

My fundamental interest is in actual physical systems, and how nature
actually works. I think that we can even understand how the atom
actually works, if we are good enough scientists.

RLO