Clark, I'm not sure I understand what I'm reading, but I think there are "particles" that obey Bose statistics, and are indistinguishable; those are called bosons; then there are the distinguishable fermions which obey Fermi statistics. Apparently it doesn't matter how "complicated" the "particle" is; it can still be either a fermion or a boson. Fermions can't form Bose-Einstein condensates: too many aggregate states, or something. Bosons can. Furthermore (and I'm really not sure I've assimilated this properly) some isolated atoms are bosons and some are fermions. There was some element that they couldn't Bose-condense because the atoms were fermions, but diatomic molecules of the same element were bosons and condensed just fine. Who knew? On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 4:48 PM, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
This from a guy who can't even find the center of a triangle?
--Dan, who is just teasing.
Clark wrote:
<< Your PS raises a question. Are physicists now certain that each atom has an "individual identity" - that is, can we speak of a specific atom on the bottom of your shoe right now, and if so, will the "SAME atom" exist 100 years from now (assuming is hasn't split)?
_____________________________________________________________________ "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi." --Peter Schickele
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