🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <332@mtnmath.UUCP>, paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes...
>> 
>> This definition won't really work.  Shape is an intrinsic property.  The
>> wavefunction determines the probability distribution for the position of the
>> object.  Where an object is (or might be) does not determine it's shape.
>> And, as I said, the size of an object is best defined in terms of the
>> limiting cross-section as the wavelength goes to zero.  At very high energy,
>> a proton is still about 1 fermi across, while an electron is (to the best
>> of our knowledge) immeasurably small.
> 
>But size is as much of an `intrinsic' property as shape is. If you are going to
>consider the frequency as defining a size in some sense, then I don't see
>how you can exclude the spatial distribution of the wave function as
>defining a shape in a similar sense.  Of course the size of this `shape'

But that is not what I said.  The size of an object is not defined in terms
of wavelength.  It is the cross-section of the object in the limit of 
zero wavelenth - when the quantum-mechanical smearing is insignificant 
compared to the intrinsic size.  For an electron, this point has not yet
been reached in experiment - we assume that the electron is point-like.
For a proton, the opposite is the case.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas