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To: SpaceBar
Feynman diagrams clearly illustrate the convenience of treating complimentary elementary particles with opposite characteristics such as spin, charge or strangeness to be the compliment travelling backwards through time. If there is more to this model and not simply a conceptual convenience, then the idea of causality can be seriously questioned.

Feynman diagrams are just that -- a conceptual convenience. Anyone who has spent time expanding out the n-order approximation to a typical quantum field calculation will appreciate this .

21 posted on 01/24/2002 9:42:53 AM PST by UberVernunft
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To: UberVernunft
"Feynman diagrams are just that -- a conceptual convenience. Anyone who has spent time expanding out the n-order approximation to a typical quantum field calculation will appreciate this.

They are a conceptual convenience, but only insofar as they allow easy tracking of the integrals needed for the complete calculation. The diagrams and the integrals do represent reality however. The evidence is in the accuracy and precision obtained from the calculations in their description of reality. For instance the description of the lamb shift in the hydrogen atom.

The radiation from a black hole also indicates the validity of the reality behind the integrals represented by the Feynman diagrams. The radiation amounts to pair production out of the vacuum, where a net capture of antimatter occurs.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/605554/posts?page=70#70

34 posted on 01/24/2002 10:15:01 AM PST by spunkets
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