Quantum Mechanics makes two eye-rolling claims:
that elementary particles are actually excitations of fields
and that virtual particles come in and out of existence.
Does either of these physical interpretations make any sense? Should we not question these authoritative claims?
Excited fields
Quantum Mechanics has yet to tell the world WHAT a field is? There is no standalone physical object called field that anyone can place on the table. Not a single mathematical ‘physicist’ on planet Earth can bring a statue of a magnetic, electric, or gravitational field all by itself to the conference without hurting rationality.
A field is a mathematical abstraction that the mathematical theorists insert in their dissertations to provide some far-fetched semblance of a physical interpretation. The only purpose of the enigmatic word field is to get through the qualitative questions that a reporter is sure to ask at the end of the talk. Like the other buzz words of Mathematical ‘physics’ – energy, mass, time – the word field has no physical meaning or interpretation.
The result is that stating that ‘a’ field is excited or that it vibrates or that it waves also has no meaning. The word field provides no physical counterpart in our macro world that the mathematical ‘physicist’ can use to simulate his theory.
What the mathematical ‘physicist’ is required to do if he wishes to provide a mechanism for the workings of the invisible micro world is identify what physical object serves as the main actor in his proposal. Saying that a field vibrates tells us nothing if the mathematical ‘physics’ cannot illustrate WHAT a field IS. He could just as well have said that X is waving or jumping up and down. Is X a spider’s web, a stone, a number?
And this takes us to the crux of the problem. Mathematical ‘physics’ has no power or authority to tell the world what invisible agents Mother Nature uses to do her daily chores. Mathematical ‘physicists’ aren’t researching such matters and aren’t even interested in elucidating qualitative issues such as the ones raised in the instant question. Quantum ‘physics’ is circumscribed to measurement and equations. It’s all about magnitudes and Greek-letter names. WHAT it is that the ‘field physicists’ pretend to measure will remain hidden forever because identifying invisible mediators is not part of their job description. If you seek an explanation of the physical mechanisms that Mother Nature uses to do gravity, light, magnetism, and other phenomena, you came to the wrong door of the college campus.
In and out of existence
Most mathematical ‘physicists’ will likely identify as atheists. And then again, these same individuals have no trouble accepting spirits and black magic when it comes to providing physical interpretations to the world of the unseen. They sprinkle meaningless words of incantations in their sermons to sound intelligent no differently, we may add without fear of injury, than the priests and pastors of old.
What can it possibly mean for a virtual particle to ‘come in and out of existence’ if the virtual particle was already an integral component of the vacuum he uses as background? Did the God of Mathematics suddenly produce the alleged particle from absolutely nothing with His magic wand? Or did the God of Mathematics simply shove into the real world an existing particle that until then formed part of the vacuum? Is there a hole in the vacuum now?
If the virtual particle is not created from nothing, does a virtual particle leave a hole in the vacuum when it pops momentarily into the detectable world?
To get to the bottom of such queries, we merely have to look up the word ‘particle’ and see what it means for the purposes of Quantum Mechanics. It turns out that a particle – any particle – is defined or introduced as an excited field. And this takes us back to Square One.
So far we have:
The vacuum is made of particles or particles ‘fill’ the vacuum (…whatever the vacuum is).
A particle came into existence.
But the particle was already there comprising the vacuum.
A particle is actually an excited field.
No one has any idea WHAT a field IS.
Whatever a field is, it was already vibrating before coming into existence.
The mathematical ‘physics’ realizes that he now has to define the word exist for else his entire presentation is reduced to nonsense. It is then that he operationally or functionally defines existence as whatever he detects or measures. He has no idea whether he is measuring a flying rock, an ocean wave, a bundle of energy, a spooky ghost, or a collapsed wave-function, and it makes no difference to him one way or the other. The phrase ‘came into existence’ simply means that he detected some invisible thump with some instrument. He’s satisfied with that. The mathematical ‘physicist’ henceforth calls this invisible unknown: virtual particle or excited field or X. This X is simply a name he gives to a value in his equation. That’s all that X means to him. The corollary ‘came into existence’ is merely shorthand for ‘you can explain anything with Math’. It’s up to each individual in the crowd to decide for him or herself whether they can live with such mind-blowing replies.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/13157/what-is-a-field-really
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/155608/what-is-a-quantum-field