Timeline for Line constant in time in Feynman diagrams
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 18, 2016 at 1:30 | comment | added | Sreekar Voleti | @PeterShor could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by 'because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle'? I don't see exactly how the virtual particles follow from the principle. | |
| Sep 10, 2016 at 15:18 | comment | added | Peter Shor | It may not make it any more correct, but is it more useful for reasoning about what's going on? That's the real question. | |
| Sep 10, 2016 at 15:09 | comment | added | ACuriousMind♦ | @PeterShor That's an abuse of the uncertainty principle, for the correct interpretation of a time-energy uncertainty principle see this question. As to whether it is "much better for intuition": Yes, thinking about "virtual particles" is more intuitive for humans than about the abstract workings of quantum field theory. That doesn't make it any more correct. | |
| Sep 10, 2016 at 15:05 | comment | added | Peter Shor | I think it's much better for your intuition to think about lines between spacelike separated particles as "virtual particles", which can only exist for short periods because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Is this "true"? Ask a philosopher. | |
| Sep 10, 2016 at 15:04 | comment | added | Peter Shor | While in some sense this is true, this is also a terrible answer. If you adapt the philosophy "Nothing means anything; just shut up and calculate," you will never develop any actual intuition for physics, you will never truly understand physics, and you will never make any advances in physics research. | |
| Sep 10, 2016 at 12:46 | vote | accept | Sreekar Voleti | ||
| Sep 18, 2016 at 1:27 | |||||
| Sep 10, 2016 at 12:39 | history | answered | ACuriousMind♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |