Modern Physics as Virtual Physics

Recents posts explore the possibility of extending the RealQM model of an atom, built by a positive nucleus attracting a negative electronic charge density around itself by the electromagnetic force, to a analogous model of a nucleus simply by switching the roles of proton and electron. 

In this model a nucleus is held together by the same electromagnetic force keeping an atom together, which is the electromagnetic force of classical physics as a force transmitted by an electric potential or field. This goes back to an idea naturally presenting itself as soon as an atom model was formed in the 1920s. But the idea was given up after the detection of the neutron by Chadwick in 1932 kicking out the electron from the nucleus preparing for the development of the Standard Model in the 1960s as the current model of a nucleus as part of StdQM. 

In the Standard Model a nucleus thus consists of protons and neutrons (not protons and electrons as in RealQM) each built as a triple of quarks held together by a strong force transmitted by force carrying particles named gluons (because they are supposed like a glue). From classical physics point of view this is a mind boggling model with both quarks and gluons beyond experimental detection thus as truly virtual and not real as detectable.

To make the Standard Model credible with its quarks and gluons, the ground-breaking idea of force carrying particles is extended to the old electromagnetic force, so well described as transmitted through electric potentials/fields, into a new explanation in terms of virtual photons as force carrier depicted by Feynman in this illuminating diagram explaining repulsion between two electrons through a $\gamma$-wiggle:

The argument is that if the well known electromagnetic force in fact is transmitted by photons (as depicted in Feynman diagrams), then it is not so strange to think of the strong force keeping a nucleus together by force carrying gluons. By expanding a fantasy story it can be made more credible, in the same way a big lie can be more credible than a small. 

A basic trouble with the Standard Model is that it contains more than 20 parameters, which have to be determined experimentally but that is impossible.

On the other hand, the only parameter in RealQM is change of scale between atom and atom nucleus (in the range $10^5$) which is possible to measure experimentally. 

We understand that modern physics with its virtual photons as force carriers of the electromagnetic force depicted in Feynman diagrams, can be be seen as a form of virtual physics fundamentally different from classical physics as real physics. 

Keep an eye on new post on RealQM as an alternative to the Standard Model for atomic nuclei.