We are at the two thirds mark of our summer school. This week’s lesson: Quanta, Quanta Everywhere.
- Lesson 1: Classical Thinking: Why Does It Fail?
- Lesson 2: Curiouser and Curiouser
- Lesson 3: Enter Heisenberg, Exit Common Sense
- Lesson 4: Don’t Underestimate the Power of Virtual Particle Exchange
- Lesson 5: Let There Be Quantized Electromagnetic Radiative Energy
- Lesson 6: Quanta, Quanta Everywhere
- Lesson 7: Down the Rabbit Hole
- Lesson 8: One and One and One is Three
- Lesson 9: Like a Record, Baby
I’m a bit unclear on one thing. It seems from the explanation that a virtual particle from the moon will only have to travel far enough to interact with a virtual particle from the earth. Is that right? So it’s really 1/2 r in the bottom of each piece of the last equation, not r. Of course, the 1/4 part would get calculated into the constant and be meaningless, but it should mean (if I understand) that the force actually works at twice the distance you would expect it to from the virtual particle energy.
Or am I completely wrong, and if so, can you explain why?
Okay, I need to clarify that. The virtual particles don’t interact with other virtual particles.
Imagine an electron interacts with a proton by emitting a virtual photon. That photon only interacts with particles that have electric charge, and will not interact with other photons (as a particle; there’s still wavelike interference.) The virtual photon continues until it reaches the proton, and not a virtual photon emitted by the proton. That’s why the distance travelled is r. Does that make more sense now?
Ok, yes. This makes sense, and I think I remember the section where virtual particles were introduced mentioning the difference between charged and uncharged particles interacting. I just forgot.
Is there any instance where virtual particles are able to interact with each other? Strong force doesn’t require charged particles, right?
Strong force does require the strong force’s charge, which is called colour. Gluons have colour, which is why the strong force ultimately ends up with a limited range. They interact with each other. This is what leads to quark confinement. That’s the section Chad asked for clarification about last week.