This work presents a possible path for what 20th-century physics might have been like had it continued along the path initiated by Bohr and Heisenberg—discrete states—instead of what actually occurred: an ontology of quarks, gluons, and a force of strange behavior. Observed In 1900, Max Planck solved a serious problem in physics by changing the paradigm rather than patching classical theory with mathematical tricks 33. Thisarticle presents the Hypothesis of Confined Nuclear States (HENC for its acronym in Spanish) as an alternative ontology for nuclear physics that follows the same gesture:extending established quantum principles instead of introducing new ad hoc forces and entities. Proposed HENC proposes that nucleons in the nucleus exist as confined discrete quantum states, analogous to electronic orbitals, and that the S-matrix should be read as a map of energetic reconfigurations rather than as a microscope revealing pre-existing internal components. Facing six paradoxes treated asymmetrically by Physics, HENC keeps the standard mathematical apparatus (Hilbert spaces, operators, S-matrix, conservation laws, E = mc2 ) and changes only the ontological interpretation of what these objects describe. The aim is twofold: to offer a physically coherent and ontologically more economical reading of the same experimental data, and to sketch a counterfactual research program in the history of nuclear and particle physics. HENC is offered as one intermediate step toward a deeper and more coherent understanding of nuclear physics.
Daniel Avilés Hurtado (Fri,) studied this question.