Question

To Rabbi Doctor Michael Abraham,
Greetings.
My name is Y., and I am studying for a bachelor's degree in physics at the Open University.
I have read several of your books (Two Carts and a Hot-Air Balloon, God Does "Not" Play Dice, and others) and have been deeply influenced by them. Your writings opened up new and profound ideas for me, alongside reflections and questions that call for an answer.
 
I would like to hear your opinion regarding a question that has been bothering me for some time in connection with physics. I am convinced that the breadth of your knowledge in physics and beyond will be of great help to me. The question is not really physical in the strict sense, but relates more to the history of physics, and it also has a philosophical aspect. Therefore, I am sure that your rare combination of knowledge in these various fields will be very useful.
 
And now to the question:
 
Modern physics is based on ideas about the existence of atoms and the various particles of matter, such as electrons, protons, and the like. It is impossible even to begin talking about the newer theories that were developed, such as quantum theory, without accepting their existence as a solid fact.
 
My problem is that I still have not heard even the slightest shred of evidence that proves their existence. What mainly bothers me is the idea that all electrons are identical, all of them having exactly the same mass and exactly the same electric charge. Similarly, all atoms (of the same type of material) are identical, and so on. It seems completely naive to me to think that all matter appears in such a uniform way. It is like claiming that all stars have exactly the same mass and exactly the same shape. I realize that this is one of the most basic ideas in physics, and that one cannot begin studying modern physics without accepting these ideas. But precisely for that reason, it troubles me greatly.
 
True, I have heard of experiments such as Thomson's experiment that "proved" the existence of the electron, and Rutherford's experiment on the structure of the atom. But in my eyes these experiments do not prove at all what I am looking for.
Take Rutherford's experiment, for example, in which he sent a beam of alpha particles toward a target made of a thin sheet of gold and discovered scattering in many directions, with some of the particles even bouncing back. Rutherford concluded from this that the positive charge of the atom (that is, the protons) is all concentrated in the center, in a very small volume.
 
But why on earth assume that all atoms are identical? From this experiment I would conclude that in the gold foil there are certain places where charge is concentrated there (say, protons), but it is possible that some atoms are built like Rutherford's model and others are built differently.
 
The very search for a model of the atom seems puzzling to me. It is like searching for a uniform model of the planets, instead of thinking that it is quite possible that great chaos prevails, and that there are atoms with all kinds of strange sizes, with charges different from one another and completely different charge distributions.
 
To my mind it would have made much more sense to try to formulate statistical laws that would describe the average structure of the atom, or of any other particle.
 
What especially amazes me is that they did in fact develop an entire theory—statistical mechanics and thermodynamics—that describes what happens in a large number of particles. And there they did not try to give a uniform model for all particles; rather, they understood that there is one big mess. But for some reason, when they moved down to smaller scales like the atom and its components, it was somehow obvious that there had to be a uniform model for all particles. That is very strange, especially since, as far as I know, statistical mechanics was formulated at roughly the same time. So why didn't they use those same ideas to describe experiments like Rutherford's, for example??
 
I have the impression that all the ideas of quantum theory, with all its many oddities, originate in these ideas about the existence of uniform particles.
After all, if I am right, then one could explain radioactivity, for example, in a statistical way (each atom has a different charge, and therefore its internal interaction is different, and therefore each atom decays at a different time), instead of arriving at ideas such as the uncertainty principle and the like.
 
In short: wouldn't it seem much simpler and more reasonable not to believe in the existence of this or that kind of particle, but rather that there is a continuum in the energy levels, mass, and charge of the various particles, with all kinds of sizes and shapes, and to formulate statistical laws that would describe the situation only statistically?
 
I would be happy to hear your opinion. Am I mistaken, and are there some convincing pieces of evidence that prove quantization, the existence of the electron, the proton, and so on???
 
Thank you very much, and sorry for the bother.