Timeline for Mental picture of interactions in QFT
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 17, 2020 at 3:03 | comment | added | Edouard | Your visualizations are stimulating and seem plausible (with the treatment of thrown objects seeming reminiscent of pop. sci., and lectures, by Feynman), although I lack sufficient education to address them as adequately as other respondents. I did happen to hear of some conversational advice of Einstein that the relation between different concepts should be considered more important than their relations to "us", which has seemed useful in arriving at a few visualizations of my own. | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 14:39 | comment | added | doetoe | @Javier very nice article | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 3:21 | comment | added | Prof. Legolasov | @AlfredCentauri I believe its not just that interacting QFTs don't admit particle interpretation except for the asymptotic states, but they aren't even well-defined at the present time. However, it doesn't seem like a big deal if you accept that QFT is incomplete and must be corrected by something else on the fundamental level. | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 1:39 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @Javier, yes, this is more or less the way I see things too but are you not uncomfortable that this is "just what physicists usually mean"? I have several QFT books in my library and not one, that I'm aware of, touches on this. (yes, this thread should definitely go to chat) | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 1:34 | comment | added | Javier | @AlfredCentauri: Nowhere, it's just what physicists usually mean by finite: much larger than all other relevant scales. And particles are very small, and things happen very fast, so infinity doesn't need to be particularly large. | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 1:32 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @Javier, I'm thinking that's the correct answer too but where have you seen that stated? | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 1:30 | comment | added | Javier | @AlfredCentauri: I would say that infinity here means much bigger than the spatial and temporal scales of interaction, which are extremely small for the LHC. So you could take "infinite" to mean "at least $1\ \mathrm{cm}$ or $1\ \mathrm{s}$". | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 1:28 | comment | added | Javier | See this excellent article about virtual particles. I think the moral is that your should pay attention to the field viewpoint too. | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 1:25 | comment | added | user108787 | This sounds silly, but as I self study I need to do it when I read QFT books. At the top of every page I write " what are my assumptions" very slowly. Mental pictures, you can't stop them coming into your head, but if you question the assumptions behind them, they are a help, in my opinion. | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 1:20 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | "I was thinking that maybe a useful picture would be to still think in terms of point particles, but their interaction is through a field" - as far as I understand it, there is no particle interpretation for interacting quantum fields except effectively in the asymptotic limit of 'infinite' past or 'infinite' future. I recently asked the professor of the QFT class I'm currently taking what is effectively infinity since our detectors in, e.g., the LHC, are clearly not at temporal or spatial infinity. Sigh... At least he responded that it was a good question. | |
| Nov 9, 2016 at 0:07 | answer | added | Prof. Legolasov | timeline score: 5 | |
| Nov 8, 2016 at 23:35 | history | asked | doetoe | CC BY-SA 3.0 |