Re: Virtual Particles

From: FrediFizzx (fredifizzx_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/03/04 

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:03:01 +0000 (UTC)

"Igor Khavkine" <k_igor_k@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.09.29.14.07.24.452560@lycos.com...

[snip]
| 1) Do some perturbative calculations that involve scribbling diagrams on
| paper with solid and wavy lines that look awful lot like photons and
| electrons, and evaluating integrals associated with them.
|
| 2) Concoct some large matrix representation of your states and operators,
| then go to your futuristic supercomputer and make it solve some matrix
| differential equations.
|
| 3) Write down the path integral formulation of the same problem and go off
| to another futuristic supercomputer and make it crunch some numbers to
| evaluate this integral.
|
| If you did your calculations right in the end you get the same answer with
| all of the above. However, virtual particles only come up in method (1),
| they are an interpretation of the calculation steps that conveniently
| involve drawing very suggestive diagrams. But other methods have their own
| interpretations. In (3) you picture a particle wandering around in all
| possible paths and averaging contributions from each path you arrive at
| something close to the classical path with some corrections. In (2) you
| note that as the state (wave function if you will) evolves with time it
| becomes a superposition of states representing classically exclusive
| alternatives, but only finitely many of them since you matrix
| representation is necessarily finite-dimensional.
|
| I'm sure you've at least heard of the above interpretations of
| quantum-mechanical and field-theoretical calculations. So if you start
| asking yourself about the reality of virtual particles, I think you
| should start asking yourself whether the paths taken by electrons in the
| path integral and the superpositions and finite dimensionality of the
| matrix approximation are real.
|
| Well, are they?

If they are all representing the same thing and get the same answer, why
wouldn't they be real? IMHO, (1) can explain all three. Can a real
electron swap with a virtual one? If so; this explains (3). Is there an
infinite number of virtual particles per small volume of space? Doubtful.
This explains (2).

FrediFizzx

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