tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-613387965721174471.post1387000534343896306..comments2024-03-04T02:03:29.708-05:00Comments on the Wood between Worlds: The Dirac Sea: Turtles All the Way DownReecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10691425406901685427noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-613387965721174471.post-84246381479615679932015-09-21T20:52:37.795-04:002015-09-21T20:52:37.795-04:00'Pure' math doesn't completely avoid t...'Pure' math doesn't completely avoid this sort of thing.<br /><br />I was always bothered by the 'fact' that 0!=1. I get why we made that definition by the various analogies to how we *use* factorials, but I was super excited to learn about the gamma function later on in my undergrad time.<br /><br />But it turns out that's just even worse. I don't like talking aboutMelkarionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03379147188794766001noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-613387965721174471.post-12082285466559561642015-04-01T22:26:28.371-04:002015-04-01T22:26:28.371-04:00In my humble opinion the QFT explanation isn't...In my humble opinion the QFT explanation isn't very much better. It does get rid of the Hilbert Hotel problem in the Dirac Sea, but apart from that, it mostly just replaces the infinitely-many-and-everywhere stack of electrons with infinite energy everywhere.<br /><br />Asking Bill_K's same question, how does that infinite vacuum energy transform under Lorentz transformations? It would Reecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10691425406901685427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-613387965721174471.post-46310452044642253762015-04-01T16:01:05.777-04:002015-04-01T16:01:05.777-04:00I also stumbled upon this when I first read about ...I also stumbled upon this when I first read about Dirac Sea. I have found something on this matter, hope this resolves your problem. <br />"...there is no Dirac Sea. This was an early idea that turned out to be incorrect. They were not antiparticles, they were supposed to be normal particles in negative energy states, and antiparticles were the vacancies ("holes"). But Quantum Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15838544863602791802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-613387965721174471.post-4722036636357374732015-02-05T13:15:05.355-05:002015-02-05T13:15:05.355-05:00"Turtles all the way down" is a joking r..."Turtles all the way down" is a joking reference to a story reported by Stephen Hawking. He claims he once gave a lecture on astronomy, and at the end, an elderly lady told him his presentation was very nice, but wrong. "Everyone knows the world really sits on the back of a giant turtle," she told him. He slyly asked what the turtle is standing on. She replied, "Don&#Reecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10691425406901685427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-613387965721174471.post-86208157124512536492015-02-04T18:22:42.259-05:002015-02-04T18:22:42.259-05:00You lost me at " Currently we are covering th...You lost me at " Currently we are covering the "hole interpretation" of negative energy solutions to the Dirac equation."<br /><br />I am twisting my brain trying to figure out what turtles have to do with electrons and the speed of light, lol!Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08518721883501003254noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-613387965721174471.post-21061762438616685192014-04-30T20:36:34.921-04:002014-04-30T20:36:34.921-04:00I assume the "turtles all the way down" ...I assume the "turtles all the way down" stuff is a reference to the intro to "A Brief History of Time".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com