So what do you eggheads think about this? ;-) It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations "Matter is built on flaky foundations. Physicists have now confirmed that the apparently substantial stuff is actually no more than fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. The researchers simulated the frantic activity that goes on inside protons and neutrons. These particles provide almost all the mass of ordinary matter. Each proton (or neutron) is made of three quarks - but the individual masses of these quarks only add up to about 1% of the proton's mass. So what accounts for the rest of it? Theory says it is created by the force that binds quarks together, called the strong nuclear force. In quantum terms, the strong force is carried by a field of virtual particles called gluons, randomly popping into existence and disappearing again. The energy of these vacuum fluctuations has to be included in the total mass of the proton and neutron. But it has taken decades to work out the actual numbers. The strong force is described by the equations of quantum chromodynamics, or QCD, which are too difficult to solve in most cases. So physicists have developed a method called lattice QCD, which models smooth space and time as a grid of separate points. This pixellated approach allows the complexities of the strong force to be simulated approximately by computer. Gnarly calculation Until recently, lattice QCD calculations concentrated on the virtual gluons, and ignored another important component of the vacuum: pairs of virtual quarks and antiquarks. Quark-antiquark pairs can pop up and momentarily transform a proton into a different, more exotic particle. In fact, the true proton is the sum of all these possibilities going on at once. Virtual quarks make the calculations much more complicated, involving a matrix of more than 10,000 trillion numbers, says team member Stephan Dürr of the John von Neumann Institute for Computing in Jülich, Germany. "There is no computer on Earth that could possibly store such a big matrix in its memory," Dürr told New Scientist, "so some trickery goes into evaluating it." Crunch time Several groups have been working out ways to handle these technical problems, and five years ago a team led by Christine Davies of the University of Glasgow, UK, managed to calculate the mass of an exotic particle called the B_c meson. That particle contains only two quarks, making it simpler to simulate than the three-quark proton. To tackle protons and neutrons, Dürr's team used months of time on the parallel computer network at Jülich, which can handle 200 teraflops - or 200 trillion arithmetical calculations per second. Even so, they had to tailor their code to use the network efficiently. "We spent an enormous effort to make sure our code would make optimum use of the machine," says Dürr. Without the quarks, earlier simulations got the proton mass wrong by about 10%. With them, Dürr gets a figure within 2% of the value measured by experiments. Higgs field Although physicists expected theory to match experiment eventually, it is an important landmark. "The great thing is it shows that you can get close to experiments," says Davies. "Now we know that lattice QCD works, we want to make accurate calculations of particle properties, not just mass." That will allow physicists to test QCD, and look for effects beyond known physics. For now, Dürr's calculation shows that QCD describes quark-based particles accurately, and tells us that most of our mass comes from virtual quarks and gluons fizzing away in the quantum vacuum. The Higgs field is also thought to make a small contribution, giving mass to individual quarks as well as to electrons and some other particles. The Higgs field creates mass out of the quantum vacuum too, in the form of virtual Higgs bosons. So if the LHC confirms that the Higgs exists, it will mean all reality is virtual." It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations - physics-math - 20 November 2008 - New Scientist http://webcache.googleusercontent.c... fluctuation&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&prmd=ivns&strip=1
but this means that the properties of the vacuum are very real indeed. I remember reading that the increase in mass of a proton is due to quarks whizzing about at relativistic speeds.
I checked the internet on that and apparently, yes, the structure of the photon derives from the quantum fluctuation of fermion/antifermion pairs. I'm certainly open to correction on this by others far smarter than myself though. Of late I've been reaching the conclusion, long in coming, that the quantum vaccum is simply the mental substrate or cosmic Mind that underlies all physical reality. Since matter and even light appear to derive their very structure from this infinitely creative plenum, one MIGHT call it God, to the extent that there was ever anything that WASN'T God. But I would be hard pressed to make it fit into the tight anthropocentric mold of traditional godhood--typically a father figure or monarch ascribed emotions, thoughts, and moral qualities all driven by an especially pathological obsession with the human race. Why not? Well we could compare our consciousness to that of ant's. Do we have ant emotions, ant thoughts, ant morality, ant purposes, or even much interest in the existence of ants? No, we are far beyond that. That property I call "transpersonality"--of a mind so beyond anything local and human that it might as well be absolutely alien to us. I suspect that if we had the faintest idea of how many amazing beings there are out there that arise out of this great quantum fizz, we would be aghast that we had any special purpose at all. In the end maybe there IS no other purpose than this endless creation of novel forms and structures in an infinitude of possibilities. Would that be enough for us--being mere transient products of a mind entertaining itself like a child in front of a mirror? Maybe so, if we could grasp that at bottom there really is no difference between us and the richly prolific quantum vaccum.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!I have always known it. Light is a wave propagation through vacuum fluctuations and the vacuum is an absolute reference frame. Wait a second, dark energy also some vacuum? Or there is dark vacuum?
Beware of this one guys. The properties of the vacuum are very real indeed, and lattice QCD is serious stuff. But things like "all reality is virtual" is just sensationalist woo. Magical Realist, the structure of the photon does not "derive from the quantum fluctuation of fermion/antifermion pairs". See http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604169 for something more robust.
It's about 4 years old, but even then the underlying facts are decades old and not specifically news. For example the quark masses from 1995 pdg.lbl.gov/1995/q123.ps ( 1.5 MeV ≲ u ≲ 5.9 MeV, 3.7 MeV ≲ d ≲ 11.1 MeV ) tell much the same story as today pdg.lbl.gov/2012/listings/rpp2012-list-light-quarks.pdf ( 1.8 MeV ≲ u ≲ 3.0 MeV, 4.5 ≲ d ≲ 5.5 MeV ) [ Results quoted in the literature at μ = 1 GeV have been rescaled by dividing by 1.35. ] Masses of quarks are funny things because there is no such thing as a free quark so talking about the mass of a free quark is a fuzzy concept that requires a model to refine its definition to be meaningful. Regarding progress in Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics: pdg.lbl.gov/2012/reviews/rpp2012-rev-lattice-qcd.pdf And I think the paper being referred to by New Scientist is this one: http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.3599
Would you say reality is digital or analog or it's not neither of these things? That was the question in a thread in another forum, I think... http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?104787-10-000-question-Is-reality-digital-or-analog/page4
Analog. I'm an IT guy, I know about digital computers and information, and I'm confident that reality is nothing like that. The quantum of quantum mechanics where h always applies in E=hf regardless of wavelength is not some "digital" thing. It's related to the nature of space, but it isn't anything to do with space being in some way digital.
Well, it's good to meet someone who is expert in IT industry, but what analog really means, I wonder if math/physics can describe what analog is, is there any definition to this term "analog"? How would you explain to someone what is analog? I hope there is an definition of that in physics?
Analog: A continuous distribution of values. As opposed to discrete, quantized quantities. The best example of an analog quantity is an angle, measured in radians. Like the hands of an analog watch. Compare this to a digital watch, which can only display certain values. We often assume that space and time are also analog, but that remains to be seen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units
See what eram said. I've said this before, but I think it's worth repeating: when it comes to quantum mchanics, action h in E=hf is the same for all wavelengths. Imagine I call out "Lights camera action!" and you start winding the handle of on old-style movie camera. There's a pen sticking out of the end of the handle, drawing a line on a moving scroll of paper. That line traces out a sine wave. Regardless of how fast you wind the handle, your action is the same, and the sine wave is always the same height. Look at the circular action in the depiction on the wikipedia wind wave article. Electromagnetic waves are something like wind waves where regardless of frequency, all the waves are the same height. And the waves are sine waves, smoothly continuous rather than stepping up and down or moving towards you in steps. There's nothing digital about any of that. I'm afraid to say I think the whole idea that reality is somehow digital is just garbage.
The waves aren't digital, but electromagnetic radiation itself is. Planck's Law my friend. The energy of electromagnetic radiation is quantized, discrete, digital. A.k.a. Photons. Matter itself is quantized into atoms. So is charge. And spin. Quantum theory and all of particle physics. So are we not living in a digital universe?
No, eram. A photon can have any wavelength you like, you can vary that wavelength smoothly, so energy can vary smoothly too. Electromagnetic radiation isn't digital, it merely has a quantum nature wherein the action is the same regardless of wavelength.
true, in quantization of charge, it is discrete values, but for quantization of light it can take upon multiple values, but in discrete quantized packets. This quantum nature means that its digital. Just like all matter is made of the Standard Model particles.
