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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: How long does a virtual photon exist ?
« on: 04/04/2019 13:51:41 »Virtual photons mediate action at a distance and come into play for instance when one magnet or electrically charged body attracts another hence they must have a non zero lifetime else their speed would be infinite
'Action at a distance' is a just another concept - like dark matter - whose name explains the inexplicable mechanism at work. It, dark matter and a host of other concepts, i.e. virtual particles, are waiting for scientific development to unravel their nature. They are 'apparent' concepts - meaning "it's as if the objects are interacting at a distance" or "it's as if there is far more matter in the galaxy than can be seen". Just waiting for Newton 2.0. As a matter of interest here's what he said to a friend on the matter - "so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. - Sir Isaac Newton. I, personally, concur.
Further, 'action at a distance' violates special relativity - in that information under this premise is capable of propagating at speeds faster than the speed of light. Nevertheless, experiments are being conducted that suggest action at a distance - but there is even some debate about the appropriateness of the research methodology. Here are the 2 links from Science News;
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/entanglement-spooky-not-action-distance?mode=blog&context=117
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-spookiness-survives-its-toughest-tests?mode=blog&context=117
The concept of field eventually 'moved in' to replace action at a distance but with no clearer idea of the mechanisms at work. Virtual photons, themselves are controversial, and would not be required - in the 'field' example you posit - when considering the nature/structure of spacetime - which displays continuous changing (warping) structure as we move away from the mass around which it is considered and where gravitational influence is communicated in the same way, diminishing with distance. Spacetime is very much like...dare I say...the aether it replaced. It's just different nomenclature. Of course, the true nature of spacetime is no more well understood as a mechanism than dark matter but, for me at least, the less clutter, the better.
BTW - how many posts before a newbie can start a topic?
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