On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 1:08:33 AM UTC-6, Bruce wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 4:57 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected] > <javascript:>> 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 >
How then do you interpret the Casimir Effect? Isn't it used to experimentally establish the existence of virtual particles? AG -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9c3104f9-9841-4342-841b-fc9c849585b6%40googlegroups.com.
