Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Mass & Velocity

I just had a web storm in my brian , as I searched the internet
on google using the following terms.

is a virtual particle real yes or no

I used yes or no because everything I read did not include
anything that could be defined as saying that there actually is or is not a virtual particle.

then I started reading things saying that a virtual particle really is nothing at all , but is the result of other particles and fields.

so why does it even have the word particle at all.

and if it is a result of actual ( real ) particles and fields
then it isn't even virtual at all.

a virtual particle is just an effect caused by the ( real world ) not a mystical
or magical thing found only in QM.

therefore , thus , and hitherto , your squib thing was most
likely nothing more than an effect of the virtual mirror
and the fields that vibrate it.

nothing more , nothing less , just classical stuff there , orac.

I think that the QM staff needs to reconsider the way they use
words in the story line if they expect people to believe what
they are trying to produce.

in this thread alone we see plenty of evidence that the QM editor staff is lacking.

I just got round to reading the articles about the mirrors.

Let's see if I have come even close to understanding what all this really means.

Virtual particles, that are not really particles, but are transient disturbances in their associated fields, come into being as particle/anti particle duos, by borrowing energy from the vacuum.

This energy has to be repaid in a minute fraction of a second, and this comes about by the annihilation of the two particles.

Photons are their own anti particles, so annihilation takes place as with other particle pairs.

In this experiment, energy is transferred to the mirror to make it vibrate.

Some of this energy is transferred to some virtual photons so they remain in existence even after they repay the energy borrowed from the vacuum. In effect, they become real photons.

The experiment is conducted at very low temperature and in a vacuum, so friction is eliminated as a cause of the appearance of the photons. I.e. they are not sparks of some kind.

Paul, I found this quite valuable in thinking about virtual particles.

http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-an...-what-are-they/

You may well not agree with it, but it might help to clarify what you are disagreeing with.

this is from the top line on the below web page that orac posted
links to.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110603/full/news.2011.346.html





why do you think they would call it sparks?
sparks are usually tiny pieces of something like metal.

electricity can cause sparks to fly off but the sparks or arcs
such as in welding are actually carrying tiny pieces of metal
with them.

so I suppose that the sparks are made of some type of material.

it may be that the electronic devices are breaking down
and this is where the sparks are coming from.

personally, I highly doubt that anything is comming from the vacuum.

yes , I came across that one earlier today while trying
to find out what a virtual particle was.



the green part is supposed to be the virtual particle.

that image says it all to me.

and the description sets it deeper into the stone.



that's all classic stuff in my opinion Bill s
I kind of get the opinion that you feel the same way.

?

No not real and I agree perhaps they should drop the word partcile for layman so it doesn't cause issues but things move slowly in science it took 30 years to get the word "virtual" put in front of the word particle as it was.




And I agree with you completely you see a rainbow all the time it is an effect that you can visually see but its not real but also not magic.


I think however you are still saying there are REAL particles you are just adding in some as virtual, QM and I don't accept that there is any such thing as a real or solid particle they are all these virtual ones.




And if we have got even you to that position so that you aren't at least denying QM exists and you want that as your understanding I think it is better than it was before.

As I sort of illustrated with the transistor QM is not some out in space theory that can't be rigorously tested like General Relativity and that why it brings even great scientists down like Einstein and Hawking.

It think the issue is this




And that I totally agree with until we teach and publish QM in a better way it will have these issues.

Thats close enough for a layman the bit you are missing is if you zoomed in on the electrons they themselves are also also virtual particles and like like tight packed green rings

but we call it a rainbow , not a virtual anything because
it actually is light.

if it were not light we would not see it at all.

what QM is doing here in this case is they are calling something that is real "virtual" see what I mean.



you just lost me again!

ok , so everything we see is made up of particles that are not real?



well as is common in all new thing's there will be a lot
of tweaking as the years fly by , as long as you guys don't adhere to the einstonedian theory's your alright in my book.

but how can I feel all this virtual stuff?

Because the editors of the piece are idiots who in trying to simplify this to layman go a step to far.




And now you are back to denying experiments ... these experiments and work have been checked and will be checked by thousands of scientists now and your answer is I know better.

See I use your approach I don't believe the bible I know better

Correct ... is it really that much different that the Bohr planetary atom where everything is made of space between these like little planetary system.

Get it its the same thing the universe is basically lots of open empty space ... the only advantage the bohr atom had was it people could relate to the solar system because they lernt that school.

They are just different descriptions of the same thing ... I don't get whats so attractive to people about the Bohr atom.

Spot on Bill.S

so your not really saying that everything is virtual actually.

you just teach that in QM everything is considered as virtual.

No the whole world is built from virtual things and I am sorry even in your bohr world it was.

Ahhh is that whats so attractive about the bohr model it blurs the line between real and virtual and they think that the world is solid because atoms are solid?

You realise thats an illusion paul why couldn't I simply get two bohr atoms and push them thru each other like say two galaxies colliding



You are now relying on some mythical force between the atoms to stop that happening and this makes the world more solid for you does it?

You do realize even in the Bohr model where that mythical force comes from don't you ... bet they didn't teach you this bit at school.

I will save you a lot of googling and reading around Paul this is the same problem as the transistor.

There has never been any other explaination to stop the atoms collapsing inside each other besides Quantum Mechanics it's a sticky problem you face.

You are in good company Einstein had the same problem he desperately didn't want to believe in Quantum Mechanics but you can't hold the atoms apart without it

I did warn you that QM is not like many other airy fairy theories it is complicated and confronting but your entire modern world from electronics through to the latest medical scanners like MRI are built around it.

There are some extensions of QM like multiverses etc you can definitely be critical of but the core bits of QM are just not things any sane person can ignore given what hangs off it.

I just question everything I feel I don't understand, and that's a lot of things, both classical and QM.

Possibly a major difference between us is that I don't feel the need to prove anything wrong. I don't necessarily agree with other people's ideas, but I always want to know why they hold them, and why they feel they are better than my ideas.

Good for you Bill. I unfortunately have a tendency to get kind of annoyed at you for harping on things that don't seem to me to be any problem, but at least you don't just throw things out. That is a lot better than just refusing to believe that they are real.

Bill Gill

ok, thats where I leave this discussion , because the reason
I was in the discussion was to try and understand QM.

I find no possible reason to want to learn anything that claims
that everything is virtual ( not real ) so you guys enjoy the
discussion on fantasy.

Let me guess; one of those things is the nature of infinity.

Here's a worrying thought for you: the more I find out about QM, the more I think my idea is right!

Yep, there you go Bill S. But even so sometimes your quest for understanding opens up some new insights for me. So don't let me stop you. Keep on trying to figure it all out.

Bill Gill

My wife says: "Whatever makes him think he could stop you? I could soon disabuse him of that idea."