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'''Spin''' is the intrinsic angular momentum carried by a fundamental particle. In the standard account it is a quantum property with no classical counterpart: it is not, and is not to be pictured as, the particle turning about an axis.

The idea entered physics from spectroscopy. In 1925 Samuel Goudsmit and George Uhlenbeck proposed that the electron possesses its own angular momentum and magnetic moment, which would explain the doubling of certain spectral lines and the Zeeman effect; the Stern–Gerlach experiment of 1922, in which a beam of silver atoms split into two discrete parts in an inhomogeneous magnetic field, was read in the same way. Their original suggestion was a literally spinning electron, and it was abandoned almost at once for a reason still quoted in textbooks: for a sphere of the classical electron radius to carry angular momentum ħ/2, its surface would have to move faster than light. Wolfgang Pauli described spin instead as a "classically non-describable two-valuedness", and Dirac's 1928 relativistic equation produced it automatically, together with a gyromagnetic ratio of very nearly 2. Quantum electrodynamics later computed the small departure from 2 — the anomalous magnetic moment — in agreement with measurement to about twelve significant figures, which is the most precisely tested prediction in physics. Spin also underwrites the division of all particles into fermions and bosons, and hence the Pauli exclusion principle and the structure of the periodic table; in practice it is the basis of nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetic resonance imaging.

The mainstream position is thus that spin is real angular momentum but not rotation of anything. Whether that is an explanation or a refusal to give one is precisely the question the literature collected here presses.

==On this wiki==

The researchers catalogued on this wiki very largely reject the point particle, and once a particle has extent, spin can be mechanical again. The recurring move is to fix the geometry so that a circulation at the speed of light — not faster — reproduces the measured spin and magnetic moment together.

The most developed version is the '''spinning charged ring''' of [[Common Sense Science]]. In [[Spinning Charged Ring Model of Electron Yielding Anomalous Magnetic Moment]] (1990), [[David L Bergman]] and [[Paul Wesley]] fix four parameters — ring radius, half-thickness, total charge, and a tangential velocity equal to ''c'' — so as to return the electron's mass, charge, spin of ''h''/2 and magnetic moment; the ring comes out at the rationalised Compton wavelength and rotating at the Compton frequency. Their central claim about spin is that the factor of two in the gyromagnetic ratio, which Dirac's theory supplies formally, here follows from the geometry. [[Domina Eberle Spencer]], [[Uma Y Shama]], [[Philip J Mann]] and Terri Mascardo test the configuration's stability in [[The Stability of a Spinning Charged Ring]] (2007), comparing Maxwellian and New Gaussian electromagnetic theory. Bergman's [[The Stable Elementary Particles]] (1992) extends the same treatment to the proton, [[Positron|positron]] and antiproton.

[[Jaroslav G Klyushin]] assigns the two rotations of a torus separate jobs: in [[Neutron Construction]] (2006) and [[On a Toroidal Model of the Neutron]] (2006), the equatorial rotation of the torus defines electric charge and the meridional rotation defines spin, with the handedness of the two angular-velocity vectors fixing the sign of the charge. [[Robert L Carroll]]'s [[The Toroidal Electron]] (1991) obtains electrons and positrons each with two kinds of spin by admitting half-integer separation constants in the wave equation for matter. [[Thomas N Lockyer]] derives spin angular momentum in [[The Precise Positron and Electron]] (2010) from conservation of the structure photon's linear momentum in his particle geometry. [[Mitch Emery]]'s [[Electron Spin and the Emission of Photons]] (2007) proposes a ''dual'' spin, one axis perpendicular to the other, and uses it to account for photon emission and for the speed limit ''c''.

A second family makes spin a property of a wave rather than of a body. [[Milo M Wolff]]'s [[The Wave Structure of Electron Spin]] (2008) identifies spin with a '''spherical rotation''' in quantum space by which the inward waves converging on a wave-centre become the outward waves — a rotation described by SU(2) algebra, which Wolff reports agrees completely with Dirac's spin and exposes the physical origin of the Dirac equation. [[Martin Kokus]]'s [[Spherical Rotation, Particles and Cosmology]] (1996) applies the same generalised rotation to particles and to cosmology. [[Martin Rivas]] occupies a middle position in [[The Spinning Electron]] (2005): the charge stays at a point, but that point circles at the speed of light about a centre of mass that does not coincide with it, so spin arises from ''zitterbewegung'' plus rotation — a model he reports satisfies Dirac's equation on quantisation.

[[Robert J Heaston]]'s [[Quantum Gravity and the Structure of the Electron]] (2005) builds on the assumption that the electron's surface spins constantly at ''c'', and proposes quantum gravity as the lockstep between relativistic mass-energy change in translation and quantised spin compensation. [[Robert F Beck]]'s [[A Heuristic Paper on the Nature of Mass]] (2007) reverses the usual dependence, making [[Mass|mass]] itself derive from spin.

==See also==

* [[Electron]]
* [[Mass]]
* [[Standard Model]]
* [[Common Sense Science]]
* [[Quantum Mechanics]]
* [[Positron]]

[[Category:Particle Physics]]
[[Category:Quantum Theory]]
[[Category:Structure]]
[[Category:Toroidal Ring]]

Spin - Revision history

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