I find that just working off some notes from my tablet and talking about them works better for me than writing elaborate papers. Boileau: “Ce que l’on conçoit bien s’énonce clairement, Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.” I did five new lectures in just one week on my YouTube channel. Have a look at the last one: symmetries and asymmetries in Nature.
It takes an easy-to-understand look at CP- and CPT-symmetry (and the related processes that sometimes break these symmetries) by thinking about what particles actually are: not infinitesimally small, but charged oscillations with a 2D or 3D structure. We also revisit the inherent mass-generating mechanism, which explains all mass in terms of electromagnetic mass.
We talked about CP- and CPT-symmetries before – back in 2014, to be very precise – but then I did not know what I know now, and those older posts also suffered from the 2020 attack by the dark force. 🙂 Briefly, what you should take away from it, is that the most fundamental asymmetry in Nature is this: the asymmetry in the electromagnetic force or field itself. It is that 90 degree phase difference (or ‘lag’) between the electric and magnetic field vectors. That explains why mirror images cannot be real, and it also explains why some processes go one way only. So… Another mystery solved ! I call it “the fallacy of CPT arguments.” 🙂
Post scriptum: I also wrapped up my YouTube ‘Schrödinger’s cat is dead’ series. For those who do not like the theoretical aspects of all these things, have a look at the last one (on pair creation-annihilation and intermediate vector bosons), in which I discuss the two interpretations (mainstream versus my classical perspective) one can have when looking at this wonderful world. I wrote this comment on it, which is probably my farewell to this hobby of mine:
For those who struggle with this, the key to understanding it all, is to understand that the superposition principle works for fields, but not for charges. That is also the key to understanding Bose-Einstein statistics, Fermi-Dirac statistics and – at larger scales – the ‘real world’ Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics (which combine both). See: https://readingfeynman.org/2015/07/21/maxwell-boltzmann-bose-einstein-and-fermi-dirac-statistics/. Always do a good dimensional analysis of the equations: distinguish real physical dimensions from purely mathematical ones: do not add apples and oranges. Distinguish potential or field strengths from real forces and actual energy (a force acting on a charge over some distance). That is why charges should not ‘vanish’ in the analysis, and it is also why i*pi and -i*pi are not ‘common phase factors’ which vanish against each other (both are equal to -1, right?) in equations involving wavefunctions. A positive charge zittering around in one direction is not the same as a negative charge zittering around in the other direction. Neutral particles are either real photons (which carry no charge whatsoever) or, else, neutral matter-particles. Applying the saying that was looks and quacks like a duck must be a duck, we might say most of these neutral particles will look like ordinary matter. Some, however, will look like light-like or be photon-like because they travel at or near the speed of light (the orbital motion of the two charges has vanished and so there is zero angular momentum). That does not mean they are photons. Also do not worry about wave equations when you prefer to think in terms of wavefunctions: wavefunctions are the real thing, not wave equations (see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341269271_De_Broglie’s_matter-wave_concept_and_issues and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342424980_Feynman’s_Time_Machine). If you think otherwise, that is fine. Everyone looks for the Holy Grail, and you may be amongst those who think they have found it. If it is looks very different from the Holy Grail that I have finally found, that is OK. Jesus might have left more than one Holy Grail – fake or real ones – and just be happy with yours ! I will end this short illustrated Guide to the Universe with the Looney Tunes sign-off: “That’s All, Folks!”
Jean Louis Van Belle
Reading Feynman 