Hypothesis of Collective Nuclear States (HENC). A Path That 20th-century Physics Could Have Taken.

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 Collective 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.