How physicists corrupted the word particle

As a comment to the above twit:

The transformation of the word “particle” is not a simple case of physicists changing the meaning of an English word to create a new physics jargon.

Loading the word "particle" with new meanings has fundamental implications in physics. This is not a matter of linguistics.

The definition of the word “particle” defines our understanding of the world.

Let's look at what Newton meant by the word “particle” . Newton assumed a material world and said:

God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable movable particles.

(Isaac Newton, Optics, 1704, Book III, page: 375)

Newton defines "particle" as an indivisible spherical unit of matter with a finite radius.

There is no ambiguity in Newton’s definition. A Newtonian particle is not “an excitation of the field”; it is not “a statistical bump in data”, it is not “quanta”; it is a spherical object with a finite radius. This has been the definition of particle since Democritus.

If you call anything which is not a sphere with finite radius a “particle” you will be guilty of corrupting the word “particle” by redefining it.

"Particle" is not only the name of a physical entity but it is the symbol of a worldview. "Particle" represents the materialist world view. Materialism is the Newtonian doctrine that defines the world as discontinuous, particulate and forceful. According to this doctrine the world is discontinuous (not continuous like a field) and made of indivisible units called particles which are set in motion by supernatural forces the cause of which is God. This is the physical(!) world physicists believe in. 

This particulate, discontinuous and matterful world has been physics dogma since Newton. But with the development of the electrical sciences, physicists started to find "particles" in electric beams. Accordingly, physicists who specialized in electricity started to call themselves "particle physicists."

Again, the word "particle" here is a symbol of a worldview. If you see the world as particles (and forces) you’ll be assuming without question the particulate world defined by Newton.

But these "particles" physicists started to see in their electrical experiments showed that the world is not really particulate. The closer they looked, they did not see smaller and smaller spheres but instead they saw that the world is made of fields. Their experiments contradicted their beloved Newtonian dogma of a discontinuous world.

At this point the right thing to do for physicists was to give up the Newtonian particulate worldview and accept that the world is not particulate. But Newton's authority in physics is such that Newton cannot be contradicted by any experiments. Physicists are members of the Cult of Newton and none of them had the courage to deny the Newtonian doctrine and assert the authority of their experiments.

As good scholastics physicists chose to load the word particle with new meanings which contradicted the original historical meaning of the word "particle".

It is clear that the word "particle" no longer means "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable movable" units of matter. But it may mean "quantized field fluctuations." Quantized means something like standing waves; they may look like particles but they are not particles in the Newtonian sense.

In order not to give up the Newtonian particulate worldview physicists started to play on words and defined the word "particle" as many times as necessary to describe quantum phenonema. Quantum is not particle. Physicists call a quanta "particle" in order not to give up their sacred Newtonian particulate world doctrine.

An "excitation in quantum field" is not a particle in the Newtonian sense, physicists call it particle because they don't want to give up their Newtonian doctrine. They choose to fit experiments into their Newtonian doctrine.

The world is not particulate. This is what quantum observations show.

Phyiscists who call themselves particle physicists prefer to fit the world into their professional title rather than accept that the world is not particulate.

This is why physicists chose to corrupt the good old world "particle" by loading it with contradictory meanings.

This is not merely an English language question, it is a fundamental question. Is the world particulate? Or is the world made of fields? If the world is fields, give up your Newtonian doctrine and stop calling the field a particle.