Comment by nyc111

Your comment is helpful, thanks. I also discussed this with chatgpt and he said similar things: “Strassler’s term "indivisible waves" seems to be his unique phrasing to make these ideas more intuitive for a lay audience. Physicists usually use more formal language, such as ‘quantized excitations of a field’ or ‘wave-particle duality.’

But my problem is different.

Below I use the word “particle” to mean “a three dimensional indivisible unit,” and nothing else. A particle is not a mathematical point as Strassler suggests when he describes a particle as a “dot.” And a particle is not a wave. If Strassler decides to call waves “particles”, waves do not magically become particles. Ever since the scientific revolution we have not explained natural phenomena by magic.

I read Strassler quote again:

“In a quantum world such as ours, the field’s waves are made from indivisible tiny waves, which for historical reasons we call “particles.” Despite their name, these objects aren’t little dots...”

My interpretation of this quote is like this:

> In a quantum world such as ours the field’s waves are made from indivisible tiny waves...

This means that the world is made of quantum fields and fields are waves and not particles [particle are indivisible units, Strassler calls them “little dots”].

This is a clear statement. Strassler is saying that our world is quantum and it is made of fields. Fields are not particles. The unit of study of physics is now fields, not particles. There are no particles in this world because the field is made of waves. These waves are not particles. But they differ from the classical waves because they can only be scaled down to a certain length.

> ...which for historical reasons we call “particles”. Despite their name these objects aren’t little dots [they are not indivisible units with extension].

Strassler’s quote makes it clear that the building blocks of the world are waves, not particles. In this world of ours there are no particles in the sense of indivisible units. It is only that Strassler chooses to call these waves “particles.” This is just a naming convention.

If someone decides to call “monkey” the animal we know and love as a “donkey”, obviously the long eared cute animal will not become a monkey just because someone decided to call it “monkey”. This play on words can only make a monkey out of logic and create confusion. If we are calling an animal with the name of another animal we are only exposing ourself as a sophist.

This is exactly what Strassler is doing. He is intentionally trying to corrupt the meanings of well established words by loading them with new meanings. He is playing naming games. Calling a wave particle does not make the wave a particle. Then why call a wave particle? No sane person would call a wave “particle” unless he has something to hide and wants to deceive us or even deceive himself.

To me, if true, the fact that the building blocks of the world are waves is a huge and fundamental discovery because it proves that the world is not atomic and matterful as Newton assumed. There are no forces acting between particles because particles do not exist.

This is where the problem lies for physicists. Atomic materialism is their professional dogma and they need to save it despite the experiments contradicting it. But this dogma cannot be saved by using sophistry and calling waves particles.