[divs1210]

Particle spin explained:

Imagine a ball that’s rotating,

Except it’s not a ball, and

It’s not rotating.

(popular particle physics meme)

From what I understand of QFT, the Universe is made of fields of different types, and a “fundamental particle” is just an excitation (wave) in the corresponding field.

For example, a photon is a wave in the universal electromagnetic field, A charm quark is a wave in the universal charm quark field, etc.

I’m not a trained physicist, so I might be wildly wrong.

[binary132]

I get it but I still think these sorts of concepts are also just another level of mathematical abstraction that isn’t necessarily “really what it is” any more than a rotating ball or a math equation or any of the other ideas are “really what it is”

[lottin]

It's very frustrating. The idea that the universe is made of fields is nonsensical. I don't understand why so many physicists keep saying that.

[jiggawatts]

Spin is easy as long as you avoid trying to draw a direct analogy with ordinary rotation.

It’s just the statement that the object spinning is attached to its surroundings in a smooth and continuous fashion. Less rigid object, more a patch of space-time fabric spinning.

There’s a video here: https://youtu.be/LLw3BaliDUQ?feature=shared

[im3w1l]

It's worth keeping in mind that we don't yet have the sought-after Theory of Everything. We have a bunch of theories that mostly work in their domain of validity. These field theories are supposedly very accurate we don't actually know if they are the final word.