Avogadro`s Hypothesis and the most wanted hidden Assumption of

Mario Wingert
Avogadro's Hypothesis and the
most wanted hidden assumption of physics:
The Atomos Paradigm
On the 200th anniversary of Avogadro's Molecule Hypothesis:
Avogadro's Hypothesis, new interpreted and commented by Mario Wingert 2011
Original: Journal de Physique par Delamétherie 73, p. 58-76, Juli 1811
(German translation and reprint of Avogadro's original hypothesis from
Ostwalds Klassiker der exakten Wissenschaften 3/8; Leipzig 1902)
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„Young academic scientists have the best chance of succeeding if they impress older scientists with
technically sweet solutions... To do the opposite - to think deeply and independently and try to formulate
one's own ideas- is a poor strategy for success. Physics thus finds itself unable to solve its key problems.
Dalton's atom concept (1803/1810) and Avogadro's hypothesis (1811) have been interpreted until today,
200 years later, as fundamental pillars of the atom hypothesis. The atom hypothesis rests on the naturephilosophical assumption that it should be possible in principle to reduce the properties of Nature in the
end to smallest indivisible building blocks of matter, and their mutually acting forces. This assumption
(atomos - the indivisible) goes already back to Democritus (400 B.C.), was reanimated for physical
chemistry by Dalton in 1810, but becomes widely accepted in physics first one hundred years later,
around 1910. One hundred years later again, 2010, the atom hypothesis seems to be so firm and experimentally secure founded that it plays the role of a paradigm, not reasonable questioning anymore.
Generally, paradigms lead to the consequence that physical imaginations, models and theories will be
structured and interpreted in a way which is compatible with the basic assumption. So also the molecule
theory, the kinetic theory of heat, and the quantum theory were subsumed under this frame, although
they are not really compatible with the atomos hypothesis, as we will see by taking an unprejudiced view
at Avogadro's original hypothesis and the double-slit experiments with single atoms and particles.
Although it becomes clear already at the end of the 19th century that „atoms“ are divisible matter
structures in reality, the atom hypothesis was not abandoned. Instead it was transfered again and again
onto new, smaller and then hopefully final real „atoms“, named elementary particles now. Par example, it
is assumed that electrons and photons are indivisible, in some cases the atom too, especially in the
double-slit experiment. Instead, this experiment actually proves that the paradigm of indivisibility does
not fit to the physics of elementary structures of Nature and reality. Why? It shows an interference condition, which means that the postulated „indivisible particles“ or „space-like concentrated energy amounts“
(photons) have to pass both slits simultaneously, theoretically and practically. But this means that
those entities must divide themselfes during the passage, and that they have to melting together again in
the local absorption event to be reunited with respect of energy conservation. Because of this energetic
but not mechanical wholeness, it is not possible anymore to explain this division process in the sense of
mechanics or of the atom hypothesis. So if one takes this interference condition physically serious, the
atom hypothesis fails proveable in the experiment. Although the experiment then unambigously demands
an physical explanation in which the elementary structures of light and matter must be able to perform
a holistic division process and its reversal (which would demand a complete new physics), such an explanation and modeling of the double-slit experiment is intentionally not only not given by quantum
mechanics, moreover, it is strictly excluded on principle, even because it is impossible to give an
contradiction-free physical explanation with the underlying atomos hypothesis or the body term of
mechanics. This kind of view and handling of the greatest problem of theoretical physics is not reasonable, neither experimentally nor theoretically; it is only a problem-avoiding interpretation with the intention to rescue the atomos paradigm, at least in a fictive, ad-hoc postulated „classical“ realm. Given by Bohr,
Heisenberg and Born in 1927 it became famous as the quantum mechanical interpretation of quantum
theory. To rescue the atomos hypothesis, mechanics, and all the other theories and models of physics
against experimental evidences, they arranged themselfes with the unsolved wave/quantum-paradox
and declared the impossibility of contradiction-free physical models of reality „on principle“.
Mario Wingert „Quantum Top Secret - Die Lösung des Quantenrätsels. Metamorphose eines Weltbildes“ (ISBN 978-3000-242526 / 2008)
„The one thing everyone who cares about fundamental physics seems to agree on is that new ideas are needed...
We are missing something big... Clearly, someone has to... recognize a wrong assumption we have all been making...“
(Lee Smolin: The Trouble with Physics, 2006)
Thus the stagnation and crisis of temporary physics is caused on the one hand by the unreasonable sticking to the atom and elementary particle hypothesis, erroneously supposed to be experimentally well founded, on the other hand by the proclaimed „on principle“- renuncation of cognition
by the quantum mechanical interpretation, an utterly disconcerting convention for a science of Nature.
Because Bohr's attitude has been tolerated and accepted by the overwhelming majority of physicists
over 80 years without any (!) resistance, it became a convention, a social agreed barriere of cognition.
Because of the deep conceptional and foundational problems of modern physics, which are not
realized currently by a lot of physicists, it should be of vital interest for physicists and chemists, but also
for biologists, to revisit the genesis of their most important scientific concepts and ideas on the basis of
original papers - and to question them critically and creative in the light of contradictions and modern
insights. As an important example here Avogadro's original hypothesis is presented (german translation
by Wilhelm Ostwald 1902 / English source: http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/ea/AVOGADROann.HTML);
but this also effects Maxwell's works about the kinetic theory of heat, the dynamics of the electromagnetic field, and Einstein's quantum hypothesis of light. Especially in the connection of the two last mentioned theories becomes clear that Einstein had postulated an hitherto - and until today - unknown structure of the electromagnetic field, which should consist similar to the molecular theory of matter of qualitatively whole structure elements. But, to be in agreement with the double-slit experiment, those elementary structures of the electromagnetic field, called light quanta, should be characterized both as a
whole (as whole energetical acting units) as well as divisible entities (at the double slit) - a problem
that even Einstein was not capable to solve with a new physical model, free of contradictions. A constitution of this kind is even not understandable within the known (old) models of reality, neither with the
body term of mechanics, nor with the atomos hypothesis, nor with Maxwell's wave model (which is not
capable to understand and modelize pointlike absorption events, and a non-continous field structure).
Mario Wingert „Quantum Top Secret - Die Lösung des Quantenrätsels. Metamorphose eines Weltbildes“ (ISBN 978-3000-242526 / BOD 2008)
Because of the experimental failure of the atom and elementary particle hypothesis at the doubleslit the atomic assumption has to be replaced physically by holistic division and fusion processes
of fields, characteristic also for matter structures. And this is really possible, as is shown also by
Avogadro's original hypothesis: Avogadro had noticed a considerable deficiency in Dalton's atom
concept - it was not compatible with the experiment: Avogadro recognized that Dalton's atoms must
divide themselfs during chemical reactions to match Gay-Lussac's experimentally well founded gas
volume equations. Because this fact contradicts the atom concept, Avogadro coined the term „molecule“
as relevant elementary unit for chemical reactions of gaseous matter, which now posseses the needed
quality of divisibility. This divisibility hypothesis was Avogadro's real brilliant, experimentally forced
insight. It founds its expression in the hypothesis that gases consist ever of the same number of constitutional molecules (qualitatively whole, essential or „elementary“, but potentially divisible units) at the
same temperature, pressure, and volume. This insight forms until today the most important basis of
physical chemistry, molecular theory, and thermodynamics. But it is interpreted still mechanistic in the
sense of the atomos hypothesis. Because of this it is hardly ever mentioned that Avogadro's hypothesis
also implies that there must be a dependence of the number of essential elementary structures on
volume, pressure, and temperature, and that this divisibility property does not depend from matter
theories whatsoever. Instead of the philosophical atomos assumption the essential part of Avogadro's
hypothesis is the division process of qualitatively whole structures, which is experimentally well founded.
Therefore the divisibility quality must be the main part of any kind of matter theories. Avogadro's
hypothesis is not only completely independend from the atom hypothesis; moreover, the divisibility
property contradicts the atom paradima, that is why Avogadro consequently avoided the term atom. He
showed that only a division & doubling process allows an quantitative understanding of the simple
whole number proportions of gas volumes in reactions, which otherwise would remain a wonder
of nature. To make the imagination easier he made the proposal to consider the divisibility of molecules
as if they consist of „elementary“ components, in which they decay. Cannizarro set them equal conceptionally with Dalton's atoms in 1860, so that molecules now appear mechanistic as double atoms. Since
then Avogadro's molecule theory seems to be compatible with the atom hypothesis. But, that that divisibility quality were to attribute to some pre-composition of the molecule was already an ad-hoc assumption by Avogadro, probably to give a plausible picture for the strange division process. But the atom
hypothesis is neither deriveable experimentally by the volume proportions of chemical rections, nor it's
needed. Imagineable is just as that molecule structures were created by holistic division processes
of „atoms“ (of qualitatively whole chemical units, in the first step a homogenous molecule without
structure). Therefore this quality and physical property is not understandable as atomic anymore,
but only as cell-like (like in Biology). Although Avogadro himself had mentioned that his hypothesis
would be compatible with Dalton's mass concept after the introduction of division and fusion processes,
the physical importance of his divisibility principle lies deeper: Today we know, because both of the
failure of the body term of mechanics in quantum physics and of the indivisibility assumption at
the double slit, that we need holistic division and fusion processes to understand the qualitative
constitution of matter & fields physically. If we realize that, the holistic division and branching process
becomes a numerous experimental proved physical principle - in physics, chemistry, and biology (named
cell divison there), and is to understood as basic physical principle of structure generating in nature,
which leads us directly to an universal field branching and fusion theory of light and matter.
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