Article The secrets hiding in the vacuum

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The secrets hiding in the vacuum - C C - Aug 21, 2024

https://www.universetoday.com/168157/the-secrets-hiding-in-the-vacuum/

INTRO: Empty space is nothing but. According to the weird rules of quantum mechanics, it’s actually filled with an endless amount of energy, known appropriately enough as vacuum energy.

Quantum mechanics is super weird. One of the lessons of the quantum is that particles, like electrons and photons and neutrinos and whatnot, aren’t what they seem to be. Instead, each of the particles that we see in nature is actually just a piece of a much larger, grander entity. These grander entitles are known as quantum fields, and the fields soak every bit of space and time, all throughout the universe.

There is a quantum field for every kind of particle: one field for the electrons, one for the photons, and so on. These fields are invisible to us, but they make up the fundamental building blocks of existence. They are constantly vibrating and buzzing. When the fields vibrate with enough energy, particles appear. When the fields die down, the particles disappear. (Another way to look at this is to say what we call a “particle” is really a localized vibration of a quantum field). When two particles interact, it’s really just two pieces of quantum fields interacting with each other... (MORE - details)

RE: The secrets hiding in the vacuum - Magical Realist - Aug 30, 2024

Whew! At first I thought it was an article about dust mites! Smile

RE: The secrets hiding in the vacuum - Zinjanthropos - Aug 31, 2024

Quote: When the fields vibrate with enough energy, particles appear

Just thinking of wave function collapse and wave/particle duality.

Is there some relationship between fields vibrating with enough energy and observation, when it comes to particles? Are high energy vibrating fields waves, when not observed? Are low energy fields waves also, just thinking if not a particle then they might not be?

IDK… it’s this kind of stuff that confuses the hell out of amateur non scientists like myself.

RE: The secrets hiding in the vacuum - confused2 - Aug 31, 2024

There's more than one 'interpretation' of quantum mechanics (magic*).

Quoting PI AI which kind of agrees with what I think I know (I'm with Copenhagen)..

Pi Wrote:Some interpretations of quantum mechanics, particularly the Copenhagen interpretation, posit that particles only have definite properties (like position or momentum) at the point of observation or measurement.
According to this interpretation, until a particle is observed or interacts with something, it exists only as a probability wave, with different probabilities for having different properties. It's only when the particle is observed or interacts with something that the probability wave collapses into a single, definite state, and the particle takes on well-defined properties.
So, in a sense, you could say that particles only really "exist" as particles at the point of decoherence or observation. Before that point, they exist only as waves of probability.
Of course, this is just one interpretation of quantum mechanics, and there are other interpretations that view particles and waves in different ways.

From the OP..

Quote:When the fields vibrate with enough energy, particles appear.

Is just an interpretation.. there is no 'truth' (so far) in quantum mechanics.

Edit..
* This isn't like Earth magic or trickery .. the bits that aren't completely impossible .. are also completely impossible.

RE: The secrets hiding in the vacuum - Secular Sanity - Sep 7, 2024

But some people can’t bear the uncertainty.