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Thayer Watkins
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Articles on the Spins
of Subatomic Particles

Background

In 1922 the physicists Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach ejected a beam of silver atoms into a sharply varying magnetic field. The beam separated into two parts. In 1926 Samuel A. Goudsmit and George E. Uhlenbeck showed that this separation could be explained by the valence electrons of the silver atoms having a spin that is oriented in either of two directions. It has been long asserted that this so-called spin is not literally particle spin. It is often referred to as intrinsic spin whatever that might mean. However here in the material that follows it is accepted that the magnet moment of any particle is due to its actual spinning and the spin rate can be computed from its measured magnetic moment.

  1. The Momenta and Spins of Neutrinos
  2. The Spin of a Down Quark
  3. The Spin of an Up Quark
  4. The Relativistic Angular Momentum, Magnetic Moment and Spin of a Neutron
  5. The Relativistic Angular Momentum, Magnetic Moment and Spin of a Proton
  6. The Relativistic Angular Momentum, Magnetic Moment and Spin of an Electron
  7. Particle Spin and Relativistic Angular Momentum
  8. The Magnetic Moment and Spin of an Electron
  9. The Magnetic Moment and Spin of a Neutron
  10. The Magnetic Moment and Spin of a Proton

Conclusions

There is no problem in interpreting the spins of subatomic particles as being due to their actual physical spinning.


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