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View submission: What are virtual particles? How are they theoretically real yet undetectable?
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Comment by reedmore at 13/01/2019 at 06:03 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To me the scientific american article is wrong and follows the same superficial reasoning of other pop sci explanations.
If you read the answers of the experts in this thread carefully you should come to only one conclusion: Virtual particles are a mathematical tool, which can be used to calculate the value of some observable. The fact that it works in no way implies they are real, there are other methods that don't use them and in certain regimes work much better. The fact that they can have imaginary masses alone should be enough to illustrate their non-real nature.