Robert Thibadeau
2 min readJan 18, 2025

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In my humble opinion (and it is humble) I have always found this "explanation" of attraction and repulsion no explanation at all. It is just positive or negative (i.e., +1 or -1). That does not explain how the attraction or repulsion works, except that it does exist and the attraction and repulsion must be perfectly symmetric. I believe some mechanical analogies exist that do suggest ways to understand this more deeply. The path integrals are simply 'lipstick' on a pig where we do not see the actual pig. The fact that there is a symmetry in the enhanced pigs as well as the plain one does not explain why the symmetry exists in the plain pig. Maxwell and others in the 1800s had similar ideas that have long been ignored in motivating the math. Defining 'virtual photons' as photons that can never be observed as to why the masses are attracted or repelled is more of the same nonsense. Similarly saying 'virtual photons are not photons'. I believe there are ways to say they are indeed the same photons and that virtual ones cannot be observed for a (mechanically explanatory) reason. There is a question, however, which Maxwell explicitly recognized, that sometimes a sensical part of the explanation may not be necessary for the math. On the other hand, it may suggest new opportunities for discovery. Again, a point of explanatory consistency: one criticism of string theory was that you could not directly observe strings. Yet, it's ok that you cannot, even in principle, observe virtual photons. I think a bit more (mechanical, non imaginary) wave and a bit less particle bias might be in order (as Maxwell and others thought). At least to discuss in the open for people trying to conceptualize the reality that might underly the mathematical analogies.

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Robert Thibadeau
Robert Thibadeau

Written by Robert Thibadeau

Carnegie Mellon University since 1979 — Cognitive Science, AI, Machine Learning, one of the founding Directors of the Robotics Institute. rht@brightplaza.com

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