• xkforce@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If what theyre seeing is real, it could indicate the presence of unknown particles. Not necessarily a force but something. Essentially quantum mechanics predicts that the magnetic moment of the electron, muon etc. are a little bit off from what would be expected without interactions with the quantum foam. Space isnt empty, there are virtual particles popping into and out of existence constantly over short time periods that still manage to interact with other things before they dissappear. This quantum foam’s effects on the magnetic moment of electrons, muons etc. depend on what particles are in that quantum foam. The standard model can be used to predict the magnitude of these effects given what particles it predicts should be in that foam. But if there’s more particles there that it doesn’t predict should be there, the magnetic moment measurement won’t quite match predictions. I.e if there is stuff in the quantum foam that we don’t know about, we can infer their existence through indirect effects.

    • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I don’t understand virtual particles. Everytime I ask someone for an explanation, they just tell me they “pop into existence” and I can’t get anything specific on that. What is the energy that produces these particles?

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        1 year ago

        Energy itself is a weirdly defined thing at those sizes. It’s sort of a wavy property rather than a physical action.

        Vacuum has a lot more energy than its “supposed to” have. This is a huge problem because Einstein says that energy equals mass (multiplied by a constant), so if there is no mass, how can there by energy?

        The energy of vacuum is observable, but the mass is not. So the question really is “Where is the rest of this energy?”

        The idea of virtual particles is then that the vacuum is full of these energy fluctuations that equals out without ever turning into actual particles with mass.