Spin is described as an intrinsic property of particles; it is measured as for angular momentum. Originally thought to result from particle spin, the idea was abandoned when it was realised that the outermost content of electron particles would have to be moving at near 10 times the speed of light. The term spin however prevailed.
When electrons are in motion in a coil you get a magnetic field with a North and South magnetic dipole. On that basis an electron in orbital motion around a nucleus will deliver a magnetic field. Reduce the circle and electrons down to a single electron with a spin property and the story is that it too will deliver a magnetic field like that of a miniscule bar magnet. If in an external magnetic field those orbital and spin related fields will want to align with it. The magnetic dipole moments that result are related to spin angular momentum.
The problem I have with the above story is that it is confined to what electrons are doing, treating them as acting independently and without purpose, whilst in reality they exist to serve proton and hence nucleon energy desires. Paired electrons serving protons not only balance there vibrating motion energies but also their spin energies. They cancel one another out leaving unpaired electrons to deliver noticeable energy effects.
My living energy view has no external forces. Particles are not pushed here, there and everywhere; they either want or don’t want energies coming their way and cooperate to satisfy energy desires. The charge attraction is the desire an electron has to serve a proton the energy it wants. Coulomb’s equation F = q1q2/4πr2 works at the macro level but not in atoms where desire diminishes and reverses as electrons approach protons whose energy wants become energy rejections. Electron and proton particle vibrations result from the decisions they make in controlling photon energy flows to nucleons.
circle moving charges.
We say magnetic energy fields circle moving charges but where do they come from? The circling field energies are source pressure related, growing and diminishing accordingly, yet science fails to see that those energy fields spiral out from and back to moving charges. Any changes to such fields are either at the expense of or adding to the electric field associated with the moving charges and thereby explaining inductance.
Maxwell intuitively linked the magnetic field changes, not to the moving electrons, but to the changing electric field. His equations output light speed giving authenticity to his intuition and giving us our electromagnetic view of light. He was, however, calculating light speed at the point of emission where increasing or decreasing electron movements deliver those magnetic field changes. Photons pulses of energy travel at emitted light speed. Absorbing particles red or blue shift them so as to process them at light speed.
When we create permanent magnets, we rigidly arrange and line up unpaired electron to proton links along its length. The still vibrating particles produce a pulsed directional photon low energy flow that we describe, not as electric, but as magnetic, photons going into space from one pole and being attracted at the other. This, like the spiralling field earlier blurs our separation of electric and magnetic fields.
Angular momentum and action
In the Stern Gerlach experiment, illustrated below, the tiny bar magnets of unpaired electrons, when passing through a magnetic field that is more concentrated on its north side and weaker on its south side, are said to interact with it, their dipole moments seeking to be parallel or antiparallel to it and so causing the up or down movements of the parent silver atoms, with nothing in between.
I have described above how paired and unpaired electrons will be serving protons, either moving toward them and delivering the energy they want or away from them as they rejects further energy. The unpaired electron to proton energy flow will be like that of the permanent magnet described above, but alternating. Were it to enter a uniform field it would be encouraged one way and then the other but the field isn’t uniform and its state at entry into the field determines how the silver atom’s energy subsequently moves..
Spin is measured as for angular momentum (momentum x distance) but its units are also those of of energy x time, a product known as action and as minimised in the principle of least action. Planck’s h has units of action. It is a constant (6.626 x 10-34 joule seconds) and his h = E/f, where E is photon energy and f time related frequency, means that all photons have the same energy pulse content x duration time. Surely confirming the living behaviour of particles.
The vibrating (up and down) electron and proton interactions are deliver photons of fixed action h so it must surely be the case that the spiralling energies, associated with such actions and as described above, are similarly fixed.
Science chose as a matter of mathematical convenience to replace the Planck equality that has h = E/f with ћ (h bar) = E/ω because it mostly dealt in radians per second and not in cycles per second. The equality is the same with the proviso that ћ is a constant = h/2π (1.055 × 10⁻³⁴ Joule seconds) used when working in radians.
If the up and down motions of the electron to proton interactions are the same then in action terms (units of energy seconds or angular momentum) they must be equal to ± h/2 if using cycles per second or± ћ/2, if working in radians. They are values often referred to in quantum terms as spin ± 1/2.
How much of the pulse action resulting from the electron proton linear interaction also spirals in a pulse manner delaying the pulse output action I know but it clearly plays its part and its output must cause some reacting rotation of the electron’s energy content.
Science still links spin to individual particles and not to their interactions with other particles as I have done. Yet the later discoveries and treatments of the fine structure and hyperfine structure splits in spectral energy lines do involve electron links to nuclei. Such treatments recognise that electrons gain mass as they approach the nucleus and that nuclear magnetic effects and electron shielding of the nucleus contribute to energy levels.
In a Scientific American article a Charles Sebens, philosopher of physics says that Pauli and Lorentz, who had much to do with the spin property, were half-right in that there is no spinning particle. He argues the case for a spinning field, far larger than the point like electron and thereby able to account for a real rotation.
We talk of orbitals as fuzzy electron clouds but they are the living proactive actions of electrons getting surround energy in a time related manner and satisfying limited nucleon desires via protons in an energy balanced way. The p, d and f orbital space volumes are indicative of the restricted supply routes to protons and to the more open access to the space energies sought. The s orbitals are where electrons have much greater access to the nucleus and freedom to make orbital motions, but not circling.
The whole energy scenario of particles and structures is complex but what else is to be expected when living particles are ever deciding how they will spend their energy and time (action) so as to best perform their energy roles.