The Trouble with Tribbles.....

In physics, a virtual particle is a transient fluctuation that exhibits many of the characteristics of an ordinary particle, but that exists for a limited time

The concept of virtual particles arises in perturbation theory of quantum field theory where interactions between ordinary particles are described in terms of exchanges of virtual particles. Any process involving virtual particles admits a schematic representation known as a Feynman diagram, in which virtual particles are represented by internal lines. [1][2]

en.wikipedia.org...


At issue would be exactly where virtual particles go to when they cease to exist as far as we understand it.

Are virtual particles really constantly popping in and out of existence? Or are they merely a mathematical bookkeeping device for quantum mechanics?

www.scientificamerican.com...

An issue would be that virtual particles when the pop out of the Universe as we understand it end up at some other level. At issue would the Strange Quark and its function to the structure of the Proton.

Which in scientific evaluation is at least 1%.

Date: June 30, 2006

Source:Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

Summary:
Nuclear physicists have found that strange quarks do contribute to the structure of the proton. This result indicates that, just as previous experiments have hinted, strange quarks in the proton's quark-gluon sea contribute to a proton's properties. The result comes from work performed by the G-Zero collaboration, an international group of 108 physicists from 19 institutions, and was presented at a Jefferson Lab physics seminar on June 17.

www.sciencedaily.com...

To be honest anyone who would consider that 1% as irrelevant to the structure of a proton is pretty much out of touch with reality, far as I know.

Without the process of the Strange Quark, Protons in would collapse.

Any Thoughts?

a reply to: Kashai

Any Thoughts?

I really wish that I did but sadly everything I just read went completely over my head and has left behind nothing but a dull dripping noise, not a thought to be found.

This result indicates that, just as previous experiments have hinted, strange quarks in the proton's quark-gluon sea contribute to a proton's properties.

This is them boiling it down and simplifying it???

Im gonna S&F though because the link has lots of big words and alot of smart people are very excited about something so Im guessing it must be important

a reply to: IkNOwSTuff


One way of understanding it is like the Strange Quark is akin to a heart beat.

Except it beat runs about 10 millionth of a second (feel free to correct me if I am wrong). During the "negative interval", it does not exist as we understand it. During its positive interval, its mass has a gravitational effect upon the rest of the fundamental aspects of the Proton that are a part of substance but are not Virtual.

Further...

All Matter is made of Virtual Particles

physics.stackexchange.com...

In context time is a factor in that decay is in of an itself, indicative of a virtual status and in general to all matter.

This simple picture depicts pairs of strange quarks as they pop into and out of existence alongside the permanent quark residents of the proton. Nuclear physicists have found that strange quarks, though present for just tiny fractions of a second at a time, also contribute to the proton's properties.

After reading the article on Strange Quarks, it became very apparent that the Strange Quarks create the dynamic equilibrium within a proton. Dynamic is the key word here because without the Strange Quarks, the internal force of the proton would decay through the flow of time. The Strange Quarks contribute a disequilibrium, a counterequilibrium and then back into balanced equilibrium and so on, within the nucleus to maintain the strong force throughout the flow of time. All of this is infinitesimal but it represents a proton's inner functioning as a non-temporal identity - relatively speaking. Of course, consciousness plays the most vital role in all of this - and unfortunately, modern science seems very reluctant to allow such an understanding of reality to seep into the bedrock of its mechanistic paradigm...

www.simurgh.net...

originally posted by: Kashai
www.scientificamerican.com...

An issue would be that virtual particles when the pop out of the Universe as we understand it end up at some other level. At issue would the Strange Quark and its function to the structure of the Proton.

Which in scientific evaluation is at least 1%.

Where are you getting this 1% related to strange quarks from? If it's in your source I missed it.

originally posted by: Kashai
To be honest anyone who would consider that 1% as irrelevant to the structure of a proton is pretty much out of touch with reality, far as I know.

Without the process of the Strange Quark, Protons in would collapse.

1% of the mass of the proton is made up of 2 up quarks and 1 down quark, so that 1% is significant, and it can and does have other quarks pop in and out of existence. The source you cited doesn't even mention strange quarks though so I'm not sure where you're getting this 1% whatever related to strange quarks. It would be nice if you would cite a source that had some relation to what you're talking about.

a reply to: Kashai

Here are my thoughts on the specific issue of virtual particles seeming to pop in and out of existence. Its hooey.

The chances are that virtual particles do not merely appear and disappear, but instead just become tangible for a time before becoming intangible, visible for a bit then invisible. Think of it in this way:

When a highway is in good order, it is unlikely that anyone will see bollards put out, and men working on the surface of the highway. When the highway surface has been damaged or is in need of repair, you will see these individuals. They are always somewhere, there is never a day that goes by when they are not working somewhere along a stretch of road, but they are not always present wherever you happen to be driving at the time.

Similarly, virtual particles only show themselves when their presence is necessary, and they go off about whatever other business they may have in other places. So rather than going from existence to non-existence, it is probable that they merely find themselves going from place to place, location to location. Since nothing in the universe is ever expended or destroyed, only changed or moved, it is more likely that these virtual particles simply shift locations, as opposed to coming in and out of existence.

After a while I got bored with the need for scientist to have everything as a particle and gave up.

Why can we not think of reality as a probability field that is controlling what will be manifested and care more about what field shapes that is being manifested than having to invent particles to save outdated ideas.

I do have a problem visualizing how entanglement should be represented as a field shape. And then I give up on visualization and just say everything is computer code anyway and entanglement is stored as a list of pointers to other quanta object. Makes it so much easier.

Wow. This really went over my head...

What does this have to do with Tribbles?

Are they eating the virtual particles as they pop into existence?

Are they eating the quarks and wrecking the protons?

Confusing...

a reply to: Arbitrageur


I should have taken more time when I was writing that and if memory serves the 1% amount has to do with the structure of the atom not the proton.

Again you caught me with another reference I learned about 20 years ago.

a reply to: TrueBrit


I agree completely that they are going somewhere but that begs the question as to why and where.

Alternatively they could be experiencing decay but then how is it then how is it that they are reconstituting.

Your analogy implies intelligence which is as well my position though not certain you meant it that way.

a reply to: gspat




The title relates to the enigmatic nature of strange quarks like the born pregnant tribbles in the star trek series.

To elaborate strange quarks are simply not their and then there inside the proton of an Atom. This activity keeps everything running but as to what exactly happens to it when it is not there is a mystery and despite that the atoms would collapse without this activity.

Otherwise virtual particles are theorized in relation to Dark Energy.

Dark energy has topped cosmologists’ “most wanted” list since 1998, when astronomers noticed that the expansion of the universe is speeding up rather than slowing down. The entity responsible—whatever it is—must be incredibly powerful, constituting nearly 70 percent of the universe. Figuring out the identity of this dark energy is “arguably the most important problem in physics,” said Clare Burrage of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

Now a team of physicists has directly tested one option for dark energy using not powerful telescopes or satellites, but a vacuum chamber fashioned on a tabletop.

The most straightforward explanation for dark energy is that it is the energy inherent in the vacuum of space itself. In this model, every teaspoonful of space brims with the same amount of dark energy, a value known as the cosmological constant. But there’s a major flaw in this simple solution. Physicists’ best calculation of this energy, which is thought to be due to the constant appearance and disappearance of “virtual” quantum particles, overshoots the actual observed value by a factor of 10 to the power of 120..

www.scientificamerican.com...


Further...

en.wikipedia.org...


Also...

quantummechanics.ucsd.edu...

Time results in decay which changes information and in relation to Dark energy such changes could be happening a lot faster that we are used to.

Why it reassembles could have something to do with the fact that information cannot be destroyed and the Holographic Principal.

In which case from some frame of reference whatever happens to matter what is was is intact.

a reply to: Kashai

Oddly enough, I was not suggesting that these things express intelligence or self determination of any kind. What I am suggesting however, is that they operate along lines we cannot see, only intersecting with our awareness of them on the rare occasion that we force particles to interact with one another, in ways not often seen in nature, or at least, not seen locally without human intervention.

The idea that these things have anything like intelligence is intriguing, but in no way has the data as it stands suggested as much to me.

The interpretation here of how the strange quark relates to the structure of the proton is completely out of the window. No idea where you are getting it from Kashai.

From CKM mixing in the standard model it is conceptualized that when a quark interacts, it is not really a singular quark but a mix of Eigen states relating to the different quarks. This is important in determining interactions and decays of the quarks. So how does it relate to nuclear structure? Well in a nucleon the quarks can be considered exist in a forever interacting probability distribution function, ultimately this means that for correct consideration of a nucleon, it needs to contain interactions of ALL quarks.

HOWEVER

Due to the relative masses of the different quarks, it is unlikely that charm, bottom (beauty) and Top give large contributions since they are energetically disfavoured.... the strange however, is closer and thus can have a small but significant role.

So it would fit in by further considering the interactions between nucleons, which would in a way be like considering the interactions of different PDFs...

Its not super new thinking nor is it a revelation to science, it is likely in as a second or third order correction

a reply to: ErosA433

Introduction to eigenstates

Because of the uncertainty principle, statements about both the position and momentum of particles can only assign a probability that the position or momentum will have some numerical value. The uncertainty principle also says that eliminating uncertainty about position maximises uncertainty about momentum, and eliminating uncertainty about momentum maximizes uncertainty about position. A probability distribution assigns probabilities to all possible values of position and momentum. Schrödinger's wave equation gives wave function solutions, the squares of which are probabilities of where the electron might be, just as Heisenberg's probability distribution does.[1][2][3]

en.wikipedia.org...

So although the researchers did measure the virtual strange quarks in the proton, it appears that these quarks either don't dally long enough inside the proton to have a significant effect on its properties before melting back into strong force energy or don't get far enough away from each other to be seen (i.e. they could have an effect separately, but as a close pair, any effect they would have cancels out).

www.jlab.org...

Strange quarks are virtual particles as verified with particle accelerators.

Admittedly my argument it is fringe but the main issue of discussion is significant from the sense of the fundamental.

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: gspat




The title relates to the enigmatic nature of strange quarks like the born pregnant tribbles in the star trek series.

To elaborate strange quarks are simply not their and then there inside the proton of an Atom. This activity keeps everything running but as to what exactly happens to it when it is not there is a mystery and despite that the atoms would collapse without this activity.

Otherwise virtual particles are theorized in relation to Dark Energy.

Back when I watched that episode I was reminded of the Einstein mission.

"If science, like art, is to perform its mission totally and fully, its achievements must enter not only superficially but with their inner meaning: into the consciousness of people"

Art inspires interpretation in diffuse conflicting ways that can often set patrons at odds against each other as to the artists true intent. The profusion of theories provides a resonant understanding of the subject matter that can appeal to a much wider audience than might be possible if stricter conventions were applied.

Practice probably goes back to the Pythagorean practice of inner and outer resonant circles of understanding.

a reply to: Slichter


It is possible you would really like this...

The Elegant Universe

www.pbs.org...