"The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory concerning the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions, as well as classifying all the subatomic particles known". Since it includes electromagnetism, at least an aspect of the model has a classical limit, namely Maxwell's equations. Is this the only aspect of the model that has a defined classical limit?
Asked
Active
Viewed 77 times
1
-
2Well, the Standard Model has a classical Lagrangian, from which the classical equations of motion can be derived, including e.g. Maxwell's equations. – Qmechanic May 09 '16 at 18:26
-
The standard model is a description of matter and radiation. We don't have a classical theory for matter. If you want to be "anal" about it, Newtonian mechanics contains an implicit statement which says "Matter exists. Matter has mass, shape, density and chemical composition.". All that classical mechanics can do is to acknowledge the existence of matter, but it can't say anything about its internal structure, which is why we usually don't talk about that much (we leave it to the chemists!). Sometimes we say "matter can't be created or destroyed", which is clearly false. – CuriousOne May 09 '16 at 22:55