On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 4:57 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> But if virtual particles don't exist, if they're based on conceptual
> errors, what's the basis for claiming the vacuum is not a vacuum of
> nothingness? AG
>

Virtual particles are a useful heuristic for evaluating a perturbation
series. The conceptual error is to reify the terms in this series,
particularly the virtual particles. Quantum foam, or the picture of virtual
particles fluctuating in and out of existence, everywhere, and all the
time. Is a major conceptual confusion. There are no such things as quantum
fluctuations in the requisite sense. Disconnected Feynman diagrams do not
contribute to physical processes -- this is an elementary text-book result.

Bruce

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