Virtual particles aren't particles (2011)

The &quot;virtual&quot; particles are intended to avoid the &quot;action at a distance&quot; issue with fields. The virtual particles are place-holders for calculations.<p>They came about from looking at the philosophical problem of &quot;What is a field&quot;? A field between two interacting electrons changes the electrons trajectory.<p>OK... but what does it mean for the electrons to &quot;interact&quot;? Saying &quot;there&#x27;s a field&quot; is just a circular argument.<p>The better response is &quot;they exchange a photon&quot;. OK, but is the photon real? No... it&#x27;s just a place-holder to make calculations easier.<p>Do two electrons <i>actually</i> exchange virtual photons? No one really knows... All we can say is that the theoretical calculations match the experimental ones. What that <i>means</i> is a question for philosophers. :)

This is an amazing article that&#x27;s made a lot of things much clearer for me. To stop thinking of particles as &quot;things&quot; and start thinking of them as certain configurations of a field. Perhaps it makes sense to think of them as configurations that the mathematics ensures are somehow stable.<p>And then virtual particles and other interactions make a lot more sense. They are just other configurations.<p>My new understanding might not be correct but this article has certainly opened my eyes and suddenly a lot of previous things make a lot more sense!

Something that I found rather interesting but still don&#x27;t quite understand is the effect of the Uncertainty Principle in a vacuum. Apparently the Uncertainty Principle affects not only particles, but fields as well (which in my mind is possibly due to the mass&#x2F;energy equivalence?). This manifests as disturbances, which is what causes these virtual particles to &quot;appear&quot; in a vacuum.

thanks. Human language seems to be an impediment to understanding here due to previous definitions of terms. Sometimes, it is better to create a completely new term than overload an old already-understood term.

Didn&#x27;t read the article, but aren&#x27;t the &quot;holes&quot; as encountered in semiconductor physics also virtual particles? Or is this a new concept?

Wouldn&#x27;t &quot;emergent particle&quot; be a better term? The fact that it is a side effect of multiple particles doesn&#x27;t make its effects less tangible. It feels like object orientation is clouding our perception.

Programming analogy:<p>There are several ways to implement the laws of physics. Virtual particles are an implementation detail, you can factor them out of the code, but it makes it a bit more readable.