Timeline for QM and Renormalization (layman)
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2, 2013 at 15:17 | history | edited | Dilaton |
This question is not specifically about QED, so the QED tag is not needed and QFT is good enough. In addition, the OP seems as hinted by the term layman in the title be looking for a popular explanation.
|
|
| Aug 2, 2013 at 11:28 | comment | added | user26143 | actually renormalization does not appear in QM, it only appears in QFT... | |
| Aug 2, 2013 at 9:12 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Aug 2, 2013 at 13:18 | |||||
| Mar 4, 2012 at 1:24 | vote | accept | John | ||
| Mar 3, 2012 at 20:39 | answer | added | Arnold Neumaier | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jan 12, 2012 at 15:55 | comment | added | John | @MurodAbdukhakimov it was in the context of unification of the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces in QM, before string theory. | |
| Jan 12, 2012 at 8:47 | comment | added | Murod Abdukhakimov | @John What kind of symmetry do you have in mind? Supersymmetry? | |
| Jan 10, 2012 at 20:58 | comment | added | Ron Maimon | @r.g.: My issue with the description is that the "divergent integrals" are only divergent at large k, i.e. at small lattice spacings, and this divergence usually does not reflect any problem in taking the small spacing limit. The perturbative and nonperturbative renormalization are different ideas, and nonperturbative renormalization is more fundamental. When you have a continuum quantity, you have to define it as a limit of something regularized, like a lattice, and this is as true in calculus as it is in quantum field theory. But people forget they did it in calculus! | |
| Jan 10, 2012 at 17:47 | history | edited | John | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added a blurb about symmetry.
|
| Jan 10, 2012 at 17:16 | answer | added | Murod Abdukhakimov | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jan 10, 2012 at 16:10 | answer | added | Ron Maimon | timeline score: 32 | |
| Jan 10, 2012 at 14:09 | answer | added | Vladimir Kalitvianski | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jan 10, 2012 at 7:58 | comment | added | r.g. | Couldn't one think of it as a divergence of integrals we do not want to diverge? | |
| Jan 9, 2012 at 23:09 | comment | added | Ron Maimon | @Chris: Renormalization can be easily given a lay-explanation, if you just say what it is in modern Wilsonian terms. The infinity/infinity explanation you give above is not good, because it isn't true--- the infinite quantities are just not particularly interesting or relevant, the final thing is a finite object. | |
| Jan 9, 2012 at 22:35 | comment | added | Chris Gerig | The problem I don't like with this question, is that I don't think any "layman explanation" will do justice to explaining renormalization... I mean, even trying to explain QM in layman terms is horrible. In essence, renormalization has no use of "simple terms", but if you want to be very vague, then you can say "well if you take an infinite quantity, and divide it by infinity, it's not necessarily infinity anymore and can be a finite number"... and that's what renormalization "kind of does". | |
| Jan 9, 2012 at 20:31 | history | edited | Qmechanic♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
removed greeting; retagged;
|
| Jan 9, 2012 at 20:28 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackPhysics/status/156472443333124096 | ||
| Jan 9, 2012 at 20:08 | history | asked | John | CC BY-SA 3.0 |