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> The odd but customary way certain physicists understand this movement is that the electron moves because space is filled with electron-positron pairs momentar
by jakeva 5y ago
> The odd but customary way certain physicists understand this movement is that the electron moves because space is filled with electron-positron pairs momentarily popping into and out of existence. One such pair appears so that the positron (the electron’s oppositely charged antiparticle) is on top of the original electron, and they annihilate. This leaves behind the electron from the pair, displaced from the original electron. As there’s no way of distinguishing between the two electrons, all we perceive is a single electron moving.
I've never heard this idea before. I haven't finished the article yet but this is fascinating to me.
- tabtab 5y agoThat sounds more like a computer simulation: you don't directly "move" an object, you copy it first and then delete the original. "God" is the Matrix Server Admin?
- yborg 5y agoSo every powerline in operation is a high-intensity gamma ray emitter? This explanation seems to be missing something.
- minitoar 5y agoVirtual pairs virtually annihilate I suppose.
- akomtu 5y agoSo there's an entire virtual world that needs to exist, but only virtually, to support the real world? That looks like the modern Ptolematic system to me.
- minitoar 5y agoYeah, I think this is the basis for Hawking Radiation as well.
- Filligree 5y agoThey’re mathematical conveniences; they don’t really exist. There are formalisms such as quantum lattice models in which they aren’t needed.
- jd115 5y agoThis isn't really saying anything. What does exist then?
- ben_w 5y agoA dozen (17?) complex-valued (some scalar, some vector) fields, where the square of the absolute value of a field gives the chance of seeing a particle in a given state. I think. I’m still learning, and from MOOCs and YouTube not a university course.
- Filligree 5y agoThe phase space describing those fields, where the measure of each term of the universal wavefunction is equivalent to the amplitude of one point in this space. Your description suffices for pure states, IIRC. It’s been a while since I did physics.
- phreeza 5y agoI think the gamma gets absorbed when the next pair appears. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bhabha_S_channel.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bhabha_S_channel.svg
- doctoboggan 5y agoCheck out this video describing the “one electron universe” https://youtu.be/9dqtW9MslFk https://youtu.be/9dqtW9MslFk