From: "JACK L. URETSKY (C)1998; HEP DIVISION, ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB ARGONNE, IL 60439" <JLU@HEP.ANL.GOV>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 11:05:25 -0600
Hi Glenn Carlson-
But the observable effect is that the charge increases as the
distance goes to zero. If you calculated this effect on a lattice,
as opposed to perturbation theory, you would not ascribe it to "virtual
particles", would you?
You wrote
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I would not go so far as to say virtual states are "fictional" if that
means they do not exist. They exist in the sense that, though not
directly observable themselves, they have or lead to observable
effects, (I do not intend to get into a discussion of whether
theoretical objects really exist.), e.g., vacuum polarization and
black hole radiation. Isolated quarks are not observable even in
principle, yet the existence of quarks is confirmed by many
observations of effects attributable to quarks.
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Regards,
Jack
"I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
to wit, how the milk gets into the cow. Both of us
had marveled over that mystery a long time. We had
followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
that color."
Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
Autobiography