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There are a few purgative terms be adrift around in the world that are deceptive piddling buggers . These jargon idiom seem to succinctly key a subject , encapsulating a complex process or interaction into a goodly , easily digestible nugget of information . But they ’re liar . The concepts they ’re intend to communicate are actually radically unlike from what the jargon would indicate .
Take , for exercise , " practical corpuscle . " The term is supposed to answer a very old question : How , exactly , do particles interact ? lease ’s say we have twocharged particle , and let ’s call them Charles and Charlene . Let ’s continue to say that both Charles and Charlene are negatively charged . perhaps they ’re electron ; maybe they’remuons . Does n’t matter . What matters is that if Charlene comes racing toward Charles , they bounce off each other and end up going their separate agency . [ 5 secret Particles Lurking Underground ]
How did that bounce hap ? What made it possible for Charles and Charlene to transmit with each other so that they knew to head in a Modern direction when the collision was all said and done ?
This is a fantastically basic inquiry , so it seems that if we could satisfactorily resolve it , we could unlock Deep and Important Mysteries of the Universe .
The modern perspective of quantum arena possibility recognizes photon — bit of lighting — as the carriers of the electromagnetic military force . Charles and Charlene are charged particles , so they interact with igniter . But obviously , Charles and Charlene are n’t shooting optical maser at each other , so the hackneyed explanation for their brief dalliance is that " they exchangevirtual photons . "
What in the name of Feynman ’s ghost doesthatmean ?
Enter the field
get ’s take a measure back . Back in the olden - day ( i.e. , the 19th century ) panorama of physics , each charged particle sire anelectric field , which is essentially an instruction sheet for how other particle can interact with it . In the case of a particle , this theater of operations is strong nearby the subatomic particle and weaker farther out . That athletic field also point out in every commission away from the particle . [ The 9 grown Unsolved Mysteries in Physics ]
So our Charles corpuscle produces afieldthat interpenetrate all of space . Other particles , like Charlene , can read this field and move consequently . If Charlene is tiptop - duper far by from Charles , the field she interpret has very , very small numbers , so she scarcely notices any effect from Charles . But when she gets confining , her field reader go off the charts . Charles ' electric field of operations is very intelligibly saying " GO by , " and she hold .
In this view , thefieldis just as real and important as theparticle . The universe is full of clobber , and the line of business secernate that poppycock how to interact with other poppycock .
Revenge of the field
In the early to mid-20th one C , physicist realized that theuniverse is a much , much stranger placethan we had envisage . Marrying special relativity with quantum mechanics , they developed quantum theater hypothesis , and countenance ’s just say the results were n’t what anybody expected .
As the name indicate , thefieldgot a furtherance . Instead of just being the bookkeeping twist that showed how one atom should interact with another , it became — and here come some italics for emphasis — the primary physical aim . In this modernistic , sophisticated opinion of the world , the electron is n’t just a lonely particle . Oh no . alternatively , there ’s anelectron arena , permeate all of space and time like Milk River in French pledge .
This field isit — it ’s thething . particle ? They ’re just twitch - off snatch of that field . Or , more accurately , they ’re excitations ( like , wiggle ) of the field that can travel freely . That ’s important , and I ’ll get back to it presently .
A particle party
Here ’s where things start to get bleary . A particle traveling from one spot to another does n’t exactlystaya speck , or at least not the same form of particle .
Let ’s go back to Charles , the charged particle . Since he ’s charged , by definition he interacts with light , which is theelectromagnetic field . So wiggles in the electron field ( a field made up of electrons ) can affect squirm in the electromagnetic discipline . So , literally , as Charles zips around , he drop some of his time as an negatron - champaign wiggle and some of his fourth dimension as an electromagnetic - field wriggle . Sometimes he ’s an electron , and sometimes he ’s a photon — a bit of the electromagnetic ( EM ) athletic field !
It gets worsened . path worse . Charles - turn - EM - wriggle can becomeotherwiggles , like muon wiggles . For every rudimentary corpuscle in the universe , there ’s a comparable field of battle , and they all talk to one another and wiggle back and away constantly .
The summation of all the wiggles and sub - wiggles and sub - sub - wiggles lend up to what we call " an electron travel from one speckle to another . " [ Video : " What does it mean for particles to subsist ? " ]
It all becomes really nasty mathematically very speedily , but folk like physicist Richard Feynman came up with handy tricks to get some science body of work done .
Virtually speaking
Now , after tons of backstory , we can get to the principal interrogation . The fields jiggle to and fro ( and sometimes fro and to ) . If the wriggle persist and travelling , we call them " particle . " If they drop dead off quick , we call them " practical particles . " But essentially , they ’re both squirm of fields .
When Charles encounters Charlene , they ’re not like two piddling bullet quick to slam into each other . alternatively , they ’re complicated sets of squirm in all sorts of fields , phase in and out from one type of field to another .
When they do get close enough to interact , it ’s … messy . Very mussy . squirm and counter - wiggle , a manic mishmash of intermingling . The machinery of quantum field theory — after many tedious calculations — does indeed bring home the bacon the right result ( Charles and Charlene saltation off each other ) , but the particular are vexation - inducing . [ I break it down in more item in this picture . ]
So , the shorthand — " they exchange practical particles " — rolls off the tongue quite easily , a little slip of jargon to package up a very complicated process .
But , unfortunately , it ’s not very exact .
see more by listening to the episode " What are virtual particles ? " on the Ask A Spaceman podcast , usable oniTunesand on the Web athttp://www.askaspaceman.com . Thanks to@TanyaDavis , @AstroMatt99 , Tomas A. , Rae N. , and many othersfor the question that lead to this piece ! Ask your own question on Twitter using # AskASpaceman or by come Paul@PaulMattSutterandfacebook.com/PaulMattSutter .
