… except the team I just cited and quoted which found pairs of photons appearing from vacuum and…
Nevermind.
Dodonov came later to report that virtual particles are not ignored by him.
Indeed:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/424111/first-observation-of-the-dynamical-casimir-effect/
No they did not make such a claim, if so they would not be taken seriously. Whilst the team did claim they had turned virtual particles in to real particles (but see the quote below as to the problems with this point of view), it is clear they were detecting real particles.
No. There is no reason to postulate a deity; the default assumption is that one does not exist.
I’m not sure of the relevance of the quote, nobody is disputing the predictions of the dynamical Casimir effect. Again though he doesn’t reference virtual particles. He does reference “quantum fluctuations” which are not the same as virtual particles:
http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/physfaq/topics/vacfluc
It’s a POV, but as I say there’s problems with it.
Just to be clear, what i mean by this is that they did not claim they had detected virtual particles as such a thing would be impossible even if you take them as being ontologically real.
Of course there are, and in Quantum mechanics my head just explodes, however I do think that experimental results are more interesting regarding this issue, more research is needed as usual, but so far, what was reported is very interesting.
Seriously stop asking for videos and stating your confusion. Learn something.
I think what we are seeing is the difference between the experimentalists, who may or may not be so aware of the problems associated with this point of view, and the theoreticians, who should be acutely aware of the problems. There’s no dispute as to the predictions or the experimental results in this case. What you don’t see very often is someone come out actively against the arguments for virtual particles not having a firm ontological existence.
Really? The infinitive? Is that how they do that? I would have thought «ласкай» would be the appropriate form.
The polyglot Google translate disagrees with you
Yes, but I look at history on this, this reply looks to me like the reproach made to Galileo on the advise of many that recommended him to leave those light balls and the heavy balls just resting there because Aristotle told us all that there was to be known about what falls faster, but then eventually we have to find what happens actually when we drop the balls.
GIGObuster: what you said made me think of the following from Alexei Panshin:
“. . . The peripatetic stars relieve unknown urges by moving in nine directions at the same time. (It may be ten: the theories of V. H. Rainbird [1293-1447] concerning the movement of the metagalaxy through the universal amnion, unfortunately left incomplete at the time of his death at the hands of Nominalist critics who objected to his experiments on the grounds that the universe might not survive them . . . )”
I would not say that at all, the actual predictions or results are not in dispute. This kind of issue would be of more concern to a theoretician, because if you were to try to formulate a theory involving virtual particles, without being aware of their theoretical basis, it may tumble down like a house of cards.
A lot of the time asserting the firm ontological existence of virtual particles is simply done out of confusion or ignorance. It’s one thing to assert their ontological existence, it’s another thing to come up with an argument against those that are counter to their ontological existence.
For example calculations in the quantum field theory of the strong force, QCD, are rarely done using peturbative methods because peturbation theory only has a limited use when applied to the strong force. Consequently virtual gluons are rarely even useful in calculations AFAIK.
You dont need to explain something like that to be a real atheist.
Its like saying you cant be a deist unless you can explain which came first - the chicken or the egg? Or, how far is infinity? Who was your deist’s mother, or was it’s existence accidental?? How can someone be a REAL deist when they cant explain this?
The burden to produce explanations is on the deist.
Science in general, and physics in particular, long ago distanced itself from ontological claims. Scientists create models, those models are used to make predictions, and we gain confidence in a model as it makes more correct predictions (and still has made no incorrect predictions). While we have confidence in a model it is incorporated into our description of the universe.
It’s beside the point, and indeed unknowable, what’s “really” happening.
In the case of virtual particles, this model has been used to make many correct predictions so it makes sense to include it in our description of the universe. Whether they are real or just a mathematical abstraction is, again, beside the point and unknowable until there is some concrete predictive difference between “real” and “mathematical abstraction”.
I believe there is a city called Ulan Bator in a mountainous place called Mongolia. I have no personal evidence of this, other than satellite photos, but can I even trust that? And in the end, does the belief or skepticism about the existence of that city make any difference to me?
Similarly, does belief or disbelief in a deity offer anything of value to me? The real question is why should I believe in a god? What difference could it possibly make?
Various atheists have various opinions on this. Personally I don’t think there ever was a moment when the universe wasn’t. So the whole notion of matter coming out of nothing is inapplicable to my view.
I wouldn’t call it “faith”, and I don’t see it as a problem. I was educated in one branch of science, so I know how people go about becoming experts and specialists. I know that there are a lot of checks on the quality of one’s work before your peers will accept it. Cosmologists go through the same process. I can therefore take their word on their specialty, and they can safely take the word of experts in my field. Their peers will check up on them, and mine* will check up on me.
*disclaimer: I didn’t get an advanced degree. I’m not really an expert in my field. But I do know who the experts in my field are, how they got to be experts, and therefore, why they can be trusted to turn out good science results.
This is a tired old refrain from the religious and it simple is not true. You or I may not have the education and brains to make advances in cosmology or any other area of science but the work of those men and woman is very, very well documented and checked and double checked by thousands of scientists eager to find the tiniest mistake. Yes, it would take some effort to understand that body of work but there are plenty of sources of information and plenty of people willing to explain if one is interested enough to make the effort. That’s the thing, you do not have to take the word of a scientist on faith and you shouldn’t. Only religious leaders ask you to never question them.