m.a. wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Flammarion" <peterdjones.domain.name.hidden>
> To: "Everything List" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:25 AM
> Subject: Re: Yablo, Quine and Carnap on ontology
>
>
>>
>>
>> On 16 Sep, 15:51, "m.a." <marty....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>>> the ocean of virtual particles which may give
>>> rise to all "real" particles exists somewhere between matter and thought.
>> I see no reason to believe that.
>
> I would be most interested in your view of vacuum fluctuations of virtual
> particles.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle
The Wiki article is rather confused and mixes metaphorical and heuristic uses of the term
virtual particle with the actual use in physics calculations. In Feynman diagrams there
are internal lines representing interactions mediated by virtual particles, i.e. particles
that are not on the mass shell. But these diagrams are just a way of getting all the
terms in a perturbation expansion. Single diagrams don't represent something that
happens. Most physicists (who bother to think about it) don't regard the virtual
particles as 'real' because they are, by construction, not observable. They are just a
calculational device.
Brent
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Received on Wed Sep 16 2009 - 14:01:05 PDT