In article <48473bcd$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > assumption has always been that virtual particles are not "real" in the
 
> > same sense as normal ones, 
> 
> I wasn't aware of that.
> 
> In any case, I can't follow what you're talking about. It's either too 
> far from the terms that everyone else uses, or too vague for me to have
 
> any idea what you're trying to say.
> 
> 
I mean real in the sense that they "stay put", instead of vanishing 
again. You know, like a "virtual" thing that isn't always there? I 
presume that is what they mean, otherwise you wouldn't have a vacuum 
very long, particles would keep popping into it until it was full again. 
So, one alternative to the idea that they *are* virtual, is that they 
are in fact not popping into existence at all, they already "do" exist, 
but that its the absence of a lot of, comparitively, dense materials 
that allows "existing" particles to sometimes "show up", with a greater 
odds of doing so, in the vacuum. However, since there is also nothing to 
stabilize them in that location, they "pop" back to their original range 
soon after, since there is nothing to keep them in the vacuum and the 
attraction of the other particles where they where before is greater. 
Sort of the opposite of dispersion you see with most things. Instead of 
being attracted to places that 'do not' contain the substance, like with 
osmosis, in this case, the lack of anything to attract them means they 
can't stay there, even if they do occasionally "jump" into the empty 
area very briefly.

But, just speculating. After all, the point, if you have one experiment 
that doesn't make sense, and you can't resolve the difference, is to try 
to unify the results, and that "may" mean reconsidering your assumptions 
about what particles "appear" to do normally, rather than presuming that 
you have just found some odd special case.


-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message