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### The exchange of photons gives rise to the electromagnetic force [duplicate]

Pardon me for my stubborn classical/semiclassical brain. But I bet I am not the only one finding such description confusing. If EM force is caused by the exchange of photons, does that mean only when ...
6k views

### Using photons to explain electrostatic force [duplicate]

I am trying to understand the idea of a force carrier with the following example. Let's say there are two charges $A$ and $B$ that are a fixed distance from each other. What is causing the force on \$...
6k views

### Deriving Coulomb's law from quantum electrodynamics [duplicate]

Is it possible to derive the Coulomb's law using the principles of quantum electrodynamics? How?
749 views

### How can photons cause charges to attract? [duplicate]

Photons are the force carrier of the electromagnetic force. I do not see how this could result in a transfer of momentum that attracts objects together.
259 views

### Photon as a mediator of electric field [duplicate]

How can a photon (which has momentum) from one electrically charged particle to an oppositely charged particle cause these particles to be pulled toward each other - or how can a magnetic field cause ...
149 views

### Do positively charged particles exchange photons? [duplicate]

I learned in this video and in this answer that electrons repel from each other by exchanging photons. This makes sense when it comes to electrons, but what happens when two protons or two positrons ...
104 views

### Why are virtual particles said to be non-real, non-existent? [duplicate]

Can we say that virtual (hypothetical, imaginary, belonging to fantasy) particles are observed when measuring a static force field? I.e., that their effect is observed? Which means that we indirectly ...
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### Is the quantum analogue of electrostatic field photon? What will be its wavelength then? [duplicate]

When two charges are separated there is an electrostatic field between two. Quantum mechanically, is it actually the discrete energy packet or photons that's travelling from one charge to another? If ...
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### Quantum mechanical photon exchange [duplicate]

Background: While trying to understand the Standard Model I stumbled on a paper that explained it in very simple terms. I recognized that I don't even understand the quantum mechanical way of the ...
35 views

### Quantum mechanical explanation of electrostatic force [duplicate]

Feynman diagram explains repulsion of electrons by means of photon exchange. Similarly can we explain repulsion of protons and attractions between protons and electrons?
34 views

### Force-carrying particles for electrostatic force [duplicate]

As I understand, Nuclear Fusion occurs when the nuclear forces overcome the electrostatic forces that act repulsively. But, what are these electrostatic forces? Are there force-carrying particles just ...
18 views

### Where does electrostatic interaction come from? [duplicate]

Naive view of particle physics The interactions come from fermionic particles exchanging bosons. Specifically, electromagnetic interactions result from charged particles exchanging photons. Question ...
1k views

### Can virtual particles be thought of as off-shell Fourier components of a field?

I just found this blog post, which gives an interpretation of virtual particles I haven't seen before. Consider a 1D system of springs and masses, where the springs are slightly nonlinear. A "real ...