> Arkani-Hamed, a leader of the effort, called quantum fields “a convenient fiction.” “In physics very often we slip into a mistake of reifying a formalism,” he said. “We start slipping into the language of saying that it’s the quantum fields that are real, and particles are excitations. We talk about virtual particles, all this stuff — but it doesn’t go click, click, click in anyone’s detector.”
There you go. Anytime someone insists on HN that virtual particles are real, you can just tell them that Arkani-Hamed disagrees with you and that he is also smarter than you.
There you go. Anytime someone insists on HN that virtual particles are real, you can just tell them that Arkani-Hamed disagrees with you and that he is also smarter than you.