Re: The Electron

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

        Well, it's a free country.  The words "something existing as
such", however, carry no meaning for me.  There is a long literature about
hidden variable theories by people trying to give meaning to such a
notion; they all ran afoul of Bell's Theorem.
        The words "conditions or ordinary space" do, however, carry
meaning for me.  See, e.g., Casimir's experiment and "vacuum energy".
                                        Regards,
                                                Jack





On Tue, 11 Nov 2003, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

> I think that it should be pointed out that there is an over-simplification
> in identifying these elemental fields as "conditions of ordinary space" -
> they are conditions of a multi-dimensional configuration space spanning the
> coordinates/variables of all concerned system constituents.  They are
> calculational algorithms yielding probability amplitudes - I cannot (except
> perhaps for a single particle, spinless, system) conceptually identify these
> fields as something existing as such in ordinary space.
>
> Bob Sciamanda
> Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (Em)
> http://www.velocity.net/~trebor/
> trebor@velocity.net
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Larry Cartwright" <exit60@CABLESPEED.COM>
> To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 2:24 AM
> Subject: Re: The Electron
> > . . .
>
> > essay by Steven Weinberg, whose Nobel prize is one testimony to his
> > grasp of the topic:
> > "The Standard Model is a field theory, which means that it takes the
> > basic constituents of nature to be fields - conditions of space,
> > considered apart from any matter that may be in it, like the magnetic
> > field that pulls bits of iron toward the poles of a bar magnet . . .
> > Larry

--
"Don't push the river, it flows by itself"
                                Frederick Perls