Microcosmology Atom in Jain Philosophy and Modern Science

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 61

Atom in Modern Science
43 the masses also increase in a well-defined way within each scquence. These regularities suggest an analogy to the excited states of atoms. The similarities between the atoms and hadrons suggest that the latter too are composite structures capable of absorbing energy to form a variety of patterns.
Now, it should be clarified that the classical notion of "composite objects" consisting of "constituent parts" cannot be applicd to subatomic particles. For example, two protons when they collide with high velocities, can break up into 'fragments", but there will never be fractions of a proton among them. The fragments will always be cntirc hadrons which are created out of the energies and inasses of the colliding protons. The decomposition of a hadron into its "constituents" depends on the energy involved in the breaking-up process. In the sixties, therefore, when most of the presently known particles were discovered, most physicists concentrated their efforts on mapping out the emerging regularities rather than finding out the constituents.
The notion of symmetry played an important role in this search. All material processes are governed by conservation laws. There are roughly twelve conservation laws and most of them can be called the laws of symmetry.2 E.g. all interactions are symmetric in space and look exactly the same whether they take place in Bombay or Sydney; they are also symmetric in time and will occur in the same way on any day of the week. The law simply states that the "total momentum and the total energy (including masses)" will be exactly the same before and after the interaction.
1. There are twelve Conservation Laws: (1) Energy (ii) Momentum (iii) Angular
momentum (iv) Charge (v) Electro-family number (vi) Baryon family number (vi) Time-reversal (T) () Contined space in version and charge conjugation (PC (1x) Space inversion alone (P) (x) Charge conjugation alone (C) (xi) Siran geness and (xii) Isotopic Spin.
Strong Interactions are restrained hy all the twelve. Electromagnetic inter actions by all except the last. Weak interactions lose (xi) Strangeness (x) Charge conjugation and (ix) Space in version but the Combination PC remains valid
2. Something is symmetrical if certain aspects of it remain the same under
varying conditions. A mirror reflection is the most common case and one half of a circle always mirrors the other half. Regardless of how we tum a circle the right half always mirrors the left half. The position changes but the symmetry remains.