The Enigmatic Electron: A Doorway to Particle Masses

This book offers a new look at the electron. It was the first elementary particle discovered, is probably one of the simplest, and yet is possibly one of the most misunderstood. The author presents here a straightforward classical model that accurately reproduces the main spectroscopic features of the electron, and also its principal quantum aspects. The key to this model is the relativistically spinning sphere, RSS, which has been clamoring for recognition for decades. Although its electrical charge is point-like, the electron itself is Compton-sized, and is composed mainly of non-electromagnetic "mechanical" matter. The bridge between the electron and the other elementary particles is provided by the fine structure constant alpha~1/137, as manifested in the factor-of-137 spacings between the classical electron radius, electron Compton radius, and Bohr orbit radius. An expanded form of the constant alpha leads to equations that define the transformation of electromagnetic energy into electron mass/energy, and, via the electron doorway, to the formation of higher-mass lepton and hadron ground states. An alpha-quantized mass-generation grid extends accurately from the electron all the way to the top quark t, and leads to a corresponding alpha-quantized particle lifetime grid. The mathematics used in these studies is standard, and the calculations are guided by fits to the experimental elementary particle data. This book is written for all scientists who are interested in recent developments in fundamental particle physics.