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Scientists Are on the Brink of Discovering the Fifth Fundamental Force of Nature
(www.popularmechanics.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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I don't understand virtual particles. Everytime I ask someone for an explanation, they just tell me they "pop into existence" and I can't get anything specific on that. What is the energy that produces these particles?
Energy itself is a weirdly defined thing at those sizes. It's sort of a wavy property rather than a physical action.
Vacuum has a lot more energy than its "supposed to" have. This is a huge problem because Einstein says that energy equals mass (multiplied by a constant), so if there is no mass, how can there by energy?
The energy of vacuum is observable, but the mass is not. So the question really is "Where is the rest of this energy?"
The idea of virtual particles is then that the vacuum is full of these energy fluctuations that equals out without ever turning into actual particles with mass.
It's the energy of the quantum fields that permeate space. They're less "particles" per se, and more just the random jiggles in the quantum fields that aren't coherent enough to be a full-on normal particle of that field, so the ripple starts and then dies out.
https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/