The Electron Is Not a Particle, It Is a Process
Summary
The video features host Ashton Forbes reviewing a physics video by Mike Mala, which addresses the discrepancy between the theoretical 'classical electron radius' and experimental upper bounds on the electron's size. Mala argues that if the electron were a packet of material, it would explode, suggesting instead that it might be a trapped photon moving in a closed loop (circle or figure-eight).
Forbes endorses this view, noting that from the photon's perspective, the trajectory creates a boundary condition where the universe outside is not perceived, effectively resolving the infinite energy problem of classical models.
Forbes expands on Mala's concept by linking it to 'quantized inertia' and the idea that the electron acts as a miniature universe or boundary condition. He argues that this physical model restores a tangible reality to quantum mechanics, rejecting the Copenhagen interpretation's reliance on consciousness and wavefunction collapse. Forbes suggests that the electron's spin is actual physical movement within an extra dimension, constrained by a horizon similar to a black hole, which prevents the electron from interacting with the outside universe and thus contains its energy.
Key Claims (6)
The experimental upper bound for the electron's radius (10^-22 m) is approximately 10 million times smaller than the theoretical classical electron radius (10^-15 m), creating a significant anomaly in physics.
Evidence: No source cited; speaker's own argument.
Physicist Mike McCulloch argues that the electron cannot be a packet of charged material, because such a packet would fly apart and would need invented 'Poincaré stresses' to hold it together. Forbes agrees.
Evidence: Mike McCulloch's video
The electron may be a trapped photon moving in a closed loop (circle or figure-eight), effectively creating a boundary condition where the photon does not perceive the universe outside its trajectory.
Evidence: Papers by Jennison and by Williamson and van der Mark; Mike McCulloch's video
This trapped photon model resolves the issue of infinite self-energy in classical electron models by limiting the integration of the electromagnetic field to the radius of the electron itself.
Evidence: No source cited; speaker's own argument.
Quantum mechanics has taken a wrong turn by adopting the Copenhagen interpretation, which relies on consciousness and wavefunction collapse, rather than describing actual physical movement and spin.
Evidence: A remark by physicist John Cramer that quantum mechanics took a wrong turn; Mike McCulloch's video
The electron's spin is actual physical movement obeying macroscopic laws of physics, potentially involving an extra dimension, rather than a pristine quantum state.
Evidence: No source cited; speaker's own argument.
Theories Presented (2)
Video Details
- Published
- September 16, 2026
- Duration
- 12:31
- Views
- 9,901
- Claims Extracted
- 6
- Theories
- 3
- References
- 4
People Mentioned
Full transcript
Show
I want to go ahead and say Mike Mala. I like him. I like this guy. In fact, even though I don't think he's quite there, he is closer than basically all the other academic physicists and he seems like a smart guy. Slightly autistic, but there's no problem with that. I'm a little autistic, too.
Little tism. So, here he is. He does the opposite as a Sabine Hosenfelder. Instead of a five minute video with one minute of advertisements, we have what could have been a one minute video stretch out to 7 minutes. But it's worth it. Here we go.
I'll just speed it up a little bit. >> Radius is less than about 10^ theus 22 m >> which as you may we can work out the part. So but we do know the energy of the electron in in other ways. We know the momentum it carries that kind of thing. So we can work out the energy and so we can work out the radius it must have so that the electric field associated with it has that energy that we know is associated with the electron and the radius if we assume that is about 2 * 10 - 15 m which is >> okay.
So, Smartyp Pants here rolled up into his uh library, took his uh this, by the way, this is the most quintessential physics video there is. In fact, I'm jealous. You've got your perfectly horizontal video, high quality random physics equations up here. You got some text in the middle. You're just talking to yourself in the middle of the wall casually. Extend it out for way too long than it needs to be.
Perfect. Absolute quintessential physics video. I got to learn how to do this. This is where I have too much zoomer in me. I can't do this. I don't have this ability in me.
Wait, where is it? I lost it. Where'd it go? called the the classical electron radius. But several experiments have been done over the years looking at the electron scattering things from it. And these experiments have become more and more complex and accurate. >> Oh, I forgot to say here. So, what are we doing?
We're trying to figure out what is the radius of the electron. You say, what's that electron? The electron is this. First thing is we don't even know. We don't even know what the atom and the electron are exactly. We just know that there's energy there.
We think of it as uh a planet with a cloud of gas around it, electron gas around it, but that may not necessarily be accurate. So, what we're trying to figure out is what's the radius of it? What does it look like? What's its size? What's its shape? So we do some math and we figure out, oh, if we do this math, a bunch of energy math, we find out that his radius should be 10 the minus15.
So really, really small 10 theus5. That's a a period and 15 zeros and then a one very very small >> over the years. So that now we can be sure that the electron radius is less than about 10^ theus 22 m which as you may may notice is way smaller than the 10us5 m that theory predicts. So this is a huge anomaly. So it's about 10^ the 7 factor of 10 7 different. So NI says, "But wait, we got some new machines and they've tested the the radius of the the electron."
And they come back and they say it's 10 to the minus 22. That is uh way smaller. Add seven more zeros. Uh that's like saying, "Hey, it the earthquake was a magnitude one earthquake." And I'm like, "Are you sure it was magnitude one?" And they're like, "Oh, it's actually magnitude 7."
It's like, uh, the difference between a magnitude one and a magnitude 7 earthquake, chat. Yeah, it's a lot different. Actually, I don't know if that's uh, man, I might be bad at my math here right now, but you get the point. A lot different. >> 10 million times smaller than expected. So, that's that's a big anomaly. So what's what's up here is >> a million times.
There we go. Thank >> better model we could have rather than this idea of Lenston an electron is a a pack of of negative material which is problematic anyway because surely it would tend to explode. So you have to invent what are called ponar forces to keep it packed in. So which >> so it can't be material either. It can't be packed material because if the electron is packed material it's going to explode. See, I like this guy.
Smart. >> Does sound a bit like a a galaxy rotation problem, doesn't it? For the electron. So, there are certain intriguing papers that have been written about this suggesting that an electron could be a trapped photon. So, I've read interesting papers by Jennis Netal. I read that one a few years ago. And recently, somebody on my Patreon suggested that I look at another one by Williamson and Vandermark. [snorts] And what they say is that perhaps the electron is a trapped photon.
So a photon that has somehow become trapped in a specific volume and is going round and round. And there are various routes that it could take. It could go in a circle. It could go in a figure of eight for example. And these papers discuss discuss that. But in in these papers they don't give a reason as to how the photon could have become trapped.
But quantized inertia might offers a way to to do this because if you have a photon and you you cause it to move in a circle then because it's traveling at the speed of light the horizon that it sees as it goes in a circle will be the radius of the circle. So this photon will suddenly not see any of the universe outside it. It won't be able to see any or perceive or detect any of the universe outside it.
So it would be able to become a completely independent uh entity. [clears throat] So the other thing is that if >> so that's a pretty beautiful thought. one of the most beautiful physics thoughts that I have heard in a while, which is what if the electron is actually just a photon that's been trapped in a circle? And from a relativistic perspective, from the perspective of the trapped photon, it doesn't even see the boundary. Remember, everything's just moving straight all the time. It's spacetime that's curving. So you can imagine spacetime curving back upon itself on a tiny scale trapping this photon.
What I love about this is this sets a cut off for scale invariance. Scale invariance is this idea that everything that's big can be made small and everything that's small can be made big. But if you get to a certain point there's a cut off. What's the cut off? Well, when light becomes trapped just like a black hole, that's your cut off. Maybe that's the cut off on the big scale and the cut off on the small scale too.
We do that. Then we go back to the integral we had before. Now instead of integrating from the radius of the sphere, the electron sphere out to infinity, we would the integral would effectively be from the radius to the radius. It would so it would effectively be zero. There would be no energy contained in the field because as far as the electron or the photon if you like is concerned there is no outside that that radius.
So the only energy that will be carried by the electron will be contained in the photon itself as it goes around because of its wavelength and that that kind of thing. And you can. >> So, we're trying to resolve. We said a second ago, it can't be a whole bunch of stuff because if there's a whole bunch of stuff in the electron, it would explode. But now we're saying, wait a minute, maybe if this photon is spinning around here, maybe now its potential energy is now zero. Maybe now the energy that we thought before was infinite when we did this equation.
Maybe now we can explain it. Maybe this is how it's this trapped electromagnetic wave in this resonance. Kind of picture this like like this. So you've got the the photon trapped in a a circle or whatever it is. And the horizon as you can see is u is along the trajectory. So there's nothing effectively outside that.
So in this way quantized notion might enable us to to produce a boundary condition that that would help to explain these theories of Jennison and Williamson and Mark that the electron is a >> chat. There's our favorite word boundary condition. Everything's about manipulating the boundary condition, right? That's what we learned when the orbs converged. That's what we learned from the Casmir effect. But we always wonder what the hell does boundary condition mean.
Well, we can make virtual boundaries of space. Many many universes. This is a miniature universe. This photon of light is trapped in a miniature own its own little universe that it can't escape from. And from its own perspective, nothing looks abnormal. And that's how that becomes possible.
What I love about this is that we are now, if we connect this back to the last live stream, we're making quantum mechanics physical again. John Kramer at one point said quantum mechanics took a wrong turn. And I always wondered what did he mean by that. I thought I'd have to become a genius to understand what that meant. Now I think you know what he meant. He meant when they went in this Copenhagen the wavefront collapses when your consciousness understands it theory.
That's not what's going on. It's not these quantum spin. Quantum spin isn't some pristine state in the quantum world. It's actual spin. Now we can go look at the quantum realm. We can say no, there's actual movement.
It's obeying the actual same laws of physics that the macroscopic world obeys. We just didn't understand it. We didn't understand there was this extra dimension. And so quantized inertia, Mike McColla's theory is essentially zero point energy but without using zero point energy. And so this the reason why I like it I mean is that there's not it's not inconsistent with what we're saying. It's just a different perspective. kind of like how Roy D.
Herbert, he has a theory where he says time is the originator of everything. And I think he's probably right. But the problem with that perspective is that now you have to reimagine everything that we already figured out from a math perspective or look at it through a different lens or it's really all the still the same and you're just looking at from the perspective of time is the originator. In which case, not really advancing the math anyway. So >> a trapped trapped photon a horizon could be the thing that is trapping it. Okay.
So I hope this this short has managed to shed some light on the problem of the the electron and I look forward to doing another one for you tomorrow. Goodbye. >> Okay, cool. There you go, chat. If you want to stalk him, here you go. Stalk away chat. Check out his work.