Soliton Waves VS. The Particle Paradigm: The Elementary Nature of the Physical World

Abstract

Whether the physical world is composed of indivisible atoms, or alternatively is an infinitely divisible continuum, is a long standing question in natural philosophy. The proposition that the world is composed of atoms (the smallest particles) is a natural extension of the physics of macroscopic solid bodies to a microscopic domain. Solid bodies are the tangible constituents of the macroscopic world, whereas commonly observed waves (e.g., in water) occur as the concerted, oscillational motion within a physical medium apparently consisting of material particles in the liquid or gaseous state rather than as a solid. Thus waves have been regarded as a phenomenon in physical systems rather than the fundamental basis of the physical world. Specifically Newton postulated that light is composed of a stream of particles, and after the discovery of the wave properties of light (diffraction and interference) it was thought to be a wave motion within some underlying medium (the “ether”).