The spin of fundamental particles determines if they are bosons or fermions. The atoms also have bosonic or fermionic behavior, for example $\require{mhchem}\ce{^4He}$ has bosonic and $\ce{^3He}$ has fermionic statistics. Which quantity of atom determines its statistics?
119320
I am supremely confused when something has spin or when it does not. For example, atomic Hydrogen has 4 fermions, three quarks to make a proton, and 1 electron. There is an even number of fermions, and each fermion has a 1/2 spin. Since there are an even number of fermions, the total spin value is an integer. This spin number is the "intrinsic" spin number that cannot be changed, but its orientation "up" or "down" can be changed.  For atomic Hydrogen, it is a Boson because it has integer spin, however it also has a single electron. I read on physics forums, , that the spin of atom comes from the electrons and not its nucleus. I also read on here, , that the spin of atomic Hydrogen is 1/2! The answer says atomic Hydrogen has spin 1/2 because it ignores the nuclear spin.  This is one thing that is confusing me. Shouldn't atomic Hydrogen have an integer spin because of the nuclear component? So does atomic Hydrogen have spin and is affected by a magnetic field? Nuclear spins are affected by magnetic fields, but they aren't as affected as electrons according to the discussion on physics forums.  Why do we ignore nuclear spin sometimes? Also, can someone help me out here with all the possibilities?  Is there a Boson with an half integer spin value? (Surely, there must not be) However atomic Hydrogen is one of those cases! (It seems...) (Why don't we cancel out the nuclear spin with the electron spin?)  Say we have another atom that is a Boson, It has unpaired electrons in different orbitals, so what determines whether or not electrons fill in orbitals as spin up or down? Does spin down nuclear spin cancel out a electron up spin?
114252
In quantum mechanics any two level system can be mapped onto effective spin variables. If the system is defined by two energy levels, $|E_1\rangle$ and $|E_2\rangle$, the Hamiltonian is  $$ H = \left(\begin{array}{cc} E_1 &amp; 0 \\ 0 &amp; E_2 \end{array}\right) \, .$$  This can be recast as  $$ H = \frac{E_1+E_2}{2} 1\!\!1 + \frac{E_1-E_2}{2} \sigma_3\, .$$  $1\!\!1$ is the identity operator and $\sigma_3$ is the third pauli matrix. This is very nice because we can now apply our knowledge and intuition of spin dynamics to any two level system.  My question is the following: for a real spin I can measure expectation values of $\sigma_{1,2}$ by physically rotating my system and align its $x$ or $y$ axis with my measuring apparatus. How do I do this (in the lab!) with a pseudo-spin system? Imagine I am looking at a cold atom and I want to know if the system is in an symmetric or anti-symmetric superposition of $|E_1\rangle$ and $|E_2\rangle$, how do I do it?
37015
It seems to me that we could change all the current spin values of particles by multiplying them by two. Then we could describe Bosons as even spin particles and Fermions as odd spin particles. Is there some consequence or reason why we can't simply change 1/2 as the smallest unit of spin into 1?  It just seems prettier this way. In fact, there's almost an interesting relation to even and odd functions in that if you switch any two bosons around the wave function stays the same while if you switch any two fermions around the wave function becomes negative.
41786
Electrons have spin 1/2, and as they are charged, they also have an associated magnetic moment, which can be measured by an electron beam splitting up in an inhomogeneous magnetic field or through the interaction of the electrons's magnetic moment with an external magnetic field in spectroscopic measurements.   On the other hand, a photon is neutral - how can one measure its spin if there's no magnetic moment? How do we know it has spin 1?
81873
A deuterium nucleus is composed of a proton and a neutron. Both have spin $\tfrac12$ so I would expect the deuterium to have two possible spins: $1$ for the triplet and $0$ for the singlet. But apparently deuterium always has spin $1$ and the spin $0$ state doesn't exist. Why?
18848
I am starting to study physics in detail and as I read about physical quantities, I was puzzled why mol (amount of substance) is taken as a physical quantity.  A physical quantity is any quantity which we can measure and has a unit associated with it. But a mol represents the amount of substance by telling the number of particles (atoms, molecules, ions, etc.) present. So it is a pure number and numbers are dimensionless. So mol should not be considered a physical quantity.  Also, fundamental physical quantities should be independent of each other. I am wondering whether mass and mol are independent. This is so as they surely affect each other as we can evidently see while calculating the number of moles and using the mass of that sample for calculation.  So how is the mol a fundamental physical quantity and independent of mass?
89742
Quantum Mechanics is very successful in determining the overall statistical distribution of many measurements of the same process.  On the other hand, it is completely clueless in determining the outcome of a single measurement. It can only describe it as having a "random" outcome within the predicted distribution.  Where does this randomness come from? Has physics "given up" on the existence of microscopic physical laws by saying that single measurements are not bound to a physical law?  As a side note: repeating the same measurement over and over with the same apparatus makes the successive measurements non-independent, statistically speaking. There could be a hidden "stateful" mechanism influencing the results. Has any study of fundamental QM features been performed taking this into account? What was the outcome?    Edit: since 2 out of 3 questions seem to me not to answer my original question, maybe a clarification on the question itself will improve the quality of the page :-)  The question is about why single measurements have the values they have. Out of the, say, 1000 measure that make a successful QM experiment, why do the single measurements happen in that particular order? Why does the wave function collapse to a specific eigenvalue and not another? It's undeniable that this collapse (or projection) happens. Is this random? What is the source of this randomness?  In other words: what is the mechanism of choice?    Edit 2: More in particular you can refer to chapter 29 of "The road to reality" by Penrose, and with special interest page 809 where the Everett interpretation is discussed - including why it is, if not wrong, quite incomplete.
65939
If photons are spin-1 bosons, then doesn't quantum mechanics imply that the allowed values for the z-component of spin (in units of $\hbar$) are -1, 0, and 1?  Why then in practice do we only use the $\pm 1$ states?  I have been told that this is directly related to the two polarizations of the photon.  This seems to be more of a classical argument however, arising from the fact that Maxwell's equations do not permit longitudinal EM waves in a vacuum.  I have also heard that it is related to the fact that photons have no rest mass, although I understand far less of this reasoning.  What I'm looking for are elaborations on these two arguments (if I have them correct), and perhaps an argument as to how these two are equivalent (if one exists).
31105
The identification of an electron as a particle and the positron as an antiparticle is a matter of convention. We see lots of electrons around us so they become the normal particle and the rare and unusual positrons become the .  My question is, when you have made the choice of the electron and positron as particle and anti-particle does this automatically identify every other particle (every other fermion?) as normal or anti?  For example the proton is a particle, or rather the quarks inside are. By considering the interactions of an electron with a quark inside a proton can we find something, e.g. a conserved quantity, that naturally identifies that quark as a particle rather than an antiparticle? Or do we also just have to extend our convention so say that a proton is a particle rather than an antiparticle? To complete the family I guess the same question would apply to the neutrinos.
49222
In quantum mechanics, one makes the distinction between mixed states and pure states.  A classic example of a mixed state is a beam of photons in which 50% have spin in the positive $z$-direction and 50% have spin in the positive $x$-direction.  Note that this is not the same as a beam of photons, 100% of which are in the state $$ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}[\lvert z,+\rangle + \lvert x,+\rangle]. $$ It seems, however, that at least in principle, we could describe this beam of particles as a single pure state in a 'very large' Hilbert space, namely the Hilbert space that is the tensor product of all the $\sim 10^{23}$ particles (I think that's the proper order of magnitude at least).  So then, is the density operator a mathematical convenience, or are there other aspects of quantum mechanics that truly require the density operator to be a 'fundamental' object of the theory?  (If what I mean by this is at all unclear, please let me know in the comments, and I will do my best to clarify.)
49185
I read Griffiths EM today and it says something very interesting but a little bothering to me. It states for an atom, the position of center of mass of an electron cloud lies in the center of the proton.  But my question is why? What will happen if this is not true?
35480
Why should two sub-atomic (or elementary particle) - say electrons need to have identical static properties - identical mass, identical charge? Why can't they differ between each other by a very slight degree? Is there a theory which proves that?  Imagine an alien of size of order of Milky-way galaxy examining our solar system with a probe of size of 10's of solar system dimension and concludes that all planets are identical.
56706
Quark doesn't constitutes more fundamental particle and proton and neutron consist of quarks. Now come to beta decay.      $n \rightarrow p + e^{-} + \bar{\nu}_e $    How can  an electron  emit from an neutron whereas electron is a fundamental particle? Is the electron created from gluon?
23433
Aren't the states of two identical particles always entangled even if they are not interacting? The states of two identical particles are either symmetric or antisymmetric i.e., cannot be written as product states.
24597
I often hear about the wave-particle duality, and how particles exhibit properties of both particles and waves. However, I wonder, is this actually a duality? At the most fundamental level, we 'know' that everything is made up out of particles, whether those are photons, electrons, or maybe even strings. That light for example, also shows wave-like properties, why does that even matter? Don't we know that everything is made up of particles? In other words, wasn't Young wrong and Newton right, instead of them both being right?
113173
Angular momentum is definitely quantized in elementary particles and electrons in atoms. Molecules also have characteristic rotation spectra.     Is it true that all angular momentum is quantized, including big things like automobile tires, flywheels and planets? If so what is the largest object for which this quantized rotation has been verified/observed/measured?
3925
Why is it that unlike other quantum properties such as momentum and velocity, which usually are given through (probabilistic) continuous values, spin has a (probabilistic) discrete spectrum?