On 16 Sep 2009, at 23:01, Brent Meeker wrote:
>
> 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.
OK.
> 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.
Hmm... That is not clear for me. It would mean that the Everett non
collapse view has a different status according to the position/
momentum quantum uncertainty relation and the energy/time quantum
uncertainty relation. In my opinion this is a difficult problem which
eventually necessitates a correct quantization of time, and thus of
space-time, and thus of gravitation, which is still an unsolved
problem. Simple interference terms have also been considered as
"calculational" by those who want to think the "other universes" are
less real ....
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Thu Sep 17 2009 - 16:42:56 PDT