Virtual particles are not real. In fact off-shell particles or their mass-energies are just dummy variables of integration in the computation of Feynman diagrams. In the BCFW formalism off-shell condition can be dispensed with entirely. These integration variables are in effect removed and they signify massive gauge redundancies.
LC On Sunday, August 29, 2021 at 8:40:57 AM UTC-5 [email protected] wrote: > On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 10:23 PM spudboy100 via Everything List < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> *> So, if there is no computational or physical back drop to the vacuum >> or false vacuum, then what of the effects of Virtual Particle >> observations? I am looking at an article astronomer article by Ethan >> Siegel, indicating the reality of virtual particles. The have to initiate >> from somewhere, correct?* >> > No, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle you can sneak in > under the radar of the law of conservation of mass/energy and create stuff > from nothing, but only for a very short amount of time, and the larger the > amount of mass/energy there is the shorter the amount of time you are > allowed to violate that law. So virtual photons can pop into existence from > nowhere, they can't be detected directly but they do produce changes in > things that we can detect, such as in the detailed examination of the > spectral lines of hydrogen, an even better example is the Casimir effect. > > If you place two flat uncharged mirrors close together then there can NOT > be virtual photons of every wavelength in the vacuum between the mirrors as > there are outside, only a wavelength equal to the distance between mirrors > are allowed, or half that wavelength, or a third or a fourth etc (it's the > same reason a organ pipe will not make any sound but only sounds that > resonate inside the pipe). But outside of the mirrors there is no such > restriction and the virtual photons can be of any wavelength. Thus there > are more virtual particles in the vacuum outside the mirrors pushing them > together than there are between the mirrors pushing them apart. So the > mirrors will attract each other. > > This attractive force was predicted to exist in 1948 but it wasn't until > 1997 that it was confirmed in the lab to actually exist with just the > strength Casimir said it would have. If the Vacuum outside the mirror has > zero energy then the space between the mirrors must contain negative > energy. > > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> > gop > > > -- 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/4d04f5b7-b7ee-431b-881c-3c3208845135n%40googlegroups.com.
