Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 4:36 pm
same difference. point is it's discrete rather than continuous. "particle-like" rather than "wave-like" if you prefer.johanfprins wrote:So it means that different entities with energy an momentum are being recorded: Why are they undefined "particles" and not localized waves?happyjack27 wrote: please don't insult me. i don't know all of the experiments. there are a lot. i do know that a photodetector behind a photomultiplier under very low light produces discrete "clicks" as it were.
i don't know the details. but i know the taylor expansion (or some sort of expansion) has terms that are in units of probability per unit time of - let me put this as generally as possible - changing the quantumn numbers of an "entity" (as well as the numbers of) without changing the spatial locality. e.g. a photon decaying into an electron and positron w/time instantaneous probability c. with the position (absolute) momentum and energy all being conserved. these are "particle-like" behaviors in that it's like classical mechanics of billiard balls and it's localized in space and specifically among a small number of entities that meet in space, rather than all entities over a distributed field. this is what i mean by "particle-like interactions".Perturbation theory assumes waves; so how can it imply undefined "particles"?i also know they've experimentally measured the fine structure constant, i believe by the time it takes an electron to travel a certain distance across a voltage gradient? not sure of the setup there, but the implication is that perturbation theory is correct here, and perturbation theory implies particle-like interactions.
i'm happy to drop this one.Two waves with opposite magnetic fields will obviously be able to share the same space, while two waves with parallel magnetic fields will repel: Where do undefined "particles" come into the picture?also they've verified the pauli exclusion principle and entanglement.
are you familiar with l'hopital's rule? point being that infinities and infinitesimals come up all the time in calculus, and they're actually quite easy to deal with and it's all very reasonable and "real", as it were.A theory which is built on subtracting infinity from infinity to get the electron's mass is obviously fudged to get the answer you want: This cannot be real physics.many things predicted by QED. in fact, EVERYTHING predicted by QED from my understanding.
potato, potato. (uh, picture those with different "a" sounds.) though by "localized" you realize that's a major understatement. the localization is singular. i.e. it's a limit case. hence i say particle-like. wave-like would imply non-localized, and certainly not singularly-localized. but like i've said if you're representing the complete density function they're just different representations of the same thing. as far as interpretation is concerned it's just a matter of which one is simpler and more intuitive.This means that there is an entity with a center-of-mass; why call it "a particle" if you cannot define what a 'particle" isalso, oh, and here's a big one: the tracks in a bubble-chamber! in modern day we use solid-state analogs.. So why is it "a particle". A localized wave with a center-of-mass will do the same.by their curvature you can tell their charge-to-mass ratio * velocity, via the lorentz force. what happens is as they pass by other particles they impart energy to them, and then it is that energy that you see... well i suppose you can read more about how the original versions worked
i know. i've already said that. multiple times by now. the question is why choose one representation and not the other? well you choose whatever helps you the most for the particular problem you're working with.None of your examples cannot be explained by a wave which moves slower than the speed of light and thus has mass energy and a center-of-mass.so there are a few examples.
now the question is how do you construct a mathematical apparatus that correctly predicts all these outcomes, using as few assumptions as possible? obviously it's going to involve spatial fields w/moving singularities, because that's, well, what we're seeing. e.g. a photograph ("spatial field") w/a black line on it ("singularity"). and this line is a "track" through time, i.e. the "singularity" moves through time. so you see this is a very direct consequence. we're adding nothing here.
you see i've already answered this to. because it happens to make the math simpler for the given problem. (i answered this first when i said "its a convenience") it's not always the case that the particle picture is more useful, of course. but in the case of just a gestalt visual intuition, it's certainly easier for me to see and reason with.
I am afraid you just want to use the term "particle" for behavior which can just as well be modeled in terms of a wave. Why make this distinction if you cannot even define what a "particle" is?