do the particles ever collide in QED

Look at the two trefoils at the top of http://www.math.ist.utl.pt/~rpicken/tqft/ . They aren't the same. They can't be superposed. They have opposite chiralities. Think of the one on the left as the proton and the one on the right as the antiproton.

Huh? We talk about positive and negative charge purely by convention. The antiproton has the opposite charge to the proton like an anticyclone is the opposite of a cyclone.

 

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funny, (shakes head) i'm keen to your pretending and lack of comprehension.

 

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Actually you mean superimposed, a graphical concept

Superposition refers to the fact that a quantum system in a state S can be said to be simultaneously in states A and B such that S = A + B, where the state S is quite different from either A or B

Interestingly, if the measurement of the state A gives the value a, and the measurement of the state B gives the value b, then the measurement of the state S at different times is either exactly a or exactly b (usually weighted by some statistic)

 

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Yes, see the thread in which Farsight refused to produce the necessary justification to establish that his ideas can do as well as the physics that he insults.

That thread is a great example of how Farsight simply cannot do physics: he refuses over and over again to produce evidence.

 

Positron emission is a particular type of radioactive decay and a subtype of beta decay, in which a proton inside a radionuclide nucleus is converted into a neutron while releasing a positron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission

So there are anti-matter particles, positrons, inside nuclei of ordinary matter atoms.

Therefore it is also possible that there are ordinary matter particles, electrons, inside nuclei of anti-matter atoms.

It is too easy to see what is wrong with that picture, why do you ask? Matter particles are electron and proton.
Anti-matter particles are positron and anti-proton.

 

I'm sorry, but I just have to ask. Farsight, what do you think a neutron is?

 

Not specially. I stuck with krash's word because superposition also refers to "the overlapping of waves" and proton diffraction, demonstrates the wave nature of matter. There is no state S that's simultaneously in states A and B where A is a proton and B is an antiproton.

 

A "topological quantum field structure" that's only stable when braced by other structures. Think in terms of a slip knot which doesn't slip if you keep up the tension.

I played around with paper strips to try to visualize it. The picture below depicts Beta decay. The Weyl spinor symbol represent the antineutrino, the trefoil represents the proton, the Moebius represents the electron:

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If you make everything on the right out of paper strips, then undo the ends and tape them all together, what you get is the thing on the left.

 

Did you do the above with paper?

 

I think he plagiarized that picture, or at least the idea, from a website.

 

That would be pretty low.

 

I'll try to find the original. I'm pretty sure it was in a link he posted somewhere.

 

Actually James, speaking as a non-specialist in this area, I find "The electric field is a vector" is a fairly incomprehensible statement, whereas "The electric field at a point is a vector" makes everything crystal clear. So it's more than mathematical pedantry, I think.

 

Oh, so it's crystal clear is it? So which way is this vector pointing? Inward for an electron and outward for a positron? If so, when I've set down two particles that move linearly apart, why can't you tell whether they're electrons or two positrons? And when I set down an electron and a positron which move linearly together, why can't you tell which is which?

 

Do the photons radiate?

Explain why they don't.

 

According to the very-precise theory called quantum electrodynamics, electromagnetic force is said to be mediated by virtual photons. People think that these are real photons that pop in and out of existence like magic, but they aren't. They're "field quanta". It's like you take an electromagnetic field and divide it into arbitrary abstract chunks for the purposes of calculation. And this calculation works because when an electron and a proton move towards one another to make a hydrogen atom, they "exchange field" such that the hydrogen atom has very little field remaining. But they aren't throwing photons at one another. Virtual photons aren't real photons. They're field quanta.

 

Ya know Farsight, the concept of a "vector pointing" is something you should grown out of many years ago. Clinging to this childish notion is what leads you to your....er childish analogies.

I doubt you will bother reading the following, but others may (or may not) be interested.

A vector space \(V\)is defined as

1} a set of mathematical objects that is closed under arithmetic addition - \(u+v=w \in V\).....

2) ......together with a scalar field \(\mathbb{F}\) (usually but not always the Real or Complex numbers) such that \(\alpha v \in V\).

No mention of "pointing" or "direction". It follows that any object with these properties is a vector. Of possible relevance here, consider the Schrodinger wave function \(\psi\) in QM. Since these functions describe the state of a quantum system, and since they have all the properties above, they are called "state vectors". P.A.M Dirac introduced the notation \(|\psi\rangle\) for these state vectors and called them "kets"

The very notion of a state vector "pointing" is ludicrous, as I am sure you will agree.

BTW James - for miscreants who use the term "a vector/tensor" when they are referring to fields, the Math Police tend to allow them off with a caution, since their algebras are identical, at least for all practical purposes

 

Yes. It is crystal clear. To me, at least.