don@allegra.UUCP (D. Mitchell) (04/05/84)
Mr. Wyant is asking difficult questions. I have some comments on replies: First, particles are not wave packets, although they can come in packets. If you shine light, one photon at a time, through a pin hole, a spherical wave emerges on the other side. However, if that wave hits a piece of photographic film, all of the photon will be absorbed at a point and expose one grain. It is very counter-intuitive. Second, quantum field theory does not "deal with particles". You are seeing pictures of "Feynmann Diagrams" which look like pictures of particle tragectories, but they are just a form of notation for terms in a series. Don't take them literally. Third, I would not say Fermions are matter and Bosons are radiation. Some bosons are massive (the W particles) and some fermions travel at the speed of light (neutrinos). "Particles" have many parameters used to describe them: location, momentum, energy, spin, charge, color. What does "location" mean? You just think you know. Mathematically, it is no better understood than energy. Apparently-From: Don Mitchell