Recent content by bhobba

As do I The more I read Fields and Their Quanta: Making Sense of Quantum Foundations, the more I like it. I must emphasise that the book clearly states that it assumes fields are real, and particles are 'excitations' of those fields. That is an interpretation. A commonsense one, yes, but an...

That's why I used the word compelling. One can still maintain the fields of QFT as just a calculational aid. Indeed, the Effective Field Theory view of QFT can be used as evidence for such a view. But then we are faced with the reality of particles themselves. Sure, all we have and can...

Well, since this has touched on Realism, I suggest reading Fields and their Quanta by Art Hobson. https://www.amazon.com.au/Fields-Their-Quanta-Quantum-Foundations-ebook/dp/B0DLNLLG7Y It gives a very compelling case for Realism. Thanks Bill

Why do we think Quantum Fields exist, and they imply the creation and annihilation of actual particles similar to the harmonic oscillator? I found a nice paper explaining it. Admittedly, beyond the intermediate level (even the book I am reading on QFT for mathematicians doesn't go into the...

You can't throw an electric field at your head either, yet, according to Wigner's no-interaction theorem, it must actually exist. Thanks Bill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashes It's almost like religion here in Australia. You may think cricket is genteel and boring. Then you see a fast bowler in action. I saw Jeff Thomson at his prime in Brisbane when England had no idea what hit them - frightening. Thanks Bill

Jingle bells, jingle bells. Darn Christmas time, good cheer, merriment and all that. I just got a copy. The only problem is, I have three books (worth over $500 in total this month, using the "it's Christmas" excuse). You can't take it with you (at least that's my reasoning anyway) I...

You're not kidding. On occasion, I have tried to explain it that way only to be greeted with something like - it must be wrong - it can't be like that. I have read all the popular accounts when I was young, and that assumption always seemed strange. The first serious one was using the POR and...

Yes https://slavakurilyak.com/posts/zig-and-gpus Thanks Bill

Art has written some popular accounts with Rodney Brooks. It's not cheap, but it's Christmas time, and I am 70 now - you can't take it to the grave. So I got a copy - thanks for the recommendation. I think Alesa may be a professional philosopher, and so far, it does have that flavour...

From over 30 years of programming as a profession, I would start with Python because it is widely used and easy - evidently, even elementary school students are being taught it. Its issue is efficiency, as it is an intermediate bytecode language; it does not compile to machine code. Machine...

Whoops. I found a link to a paper that definitely works as a link and gives more detail. Original post updated. Thanks Bill

As always, Peter, thanks for the clarification. If QFT were actually, in the Einstein SR sense, non-local, then it would be in big trouble - but of course it isn't. It's just being 'loose' with language. Thanks Bill

I mentioned in a post some time ago now that, at present, the renewable energy debate here in Australia is mired in economic issues, not technical issues this forum is concerned with. It still is, but a new twist has appeared - the need for synchronous condensers...

What we mean is like what we see around us every day - tables, chairs, computers, etc. That said, for a more nuanced view, read the first few chapters of Feynman's Lectures on Physics, where he discusses the example of a flat surface. For example, when Gell-Mann proposed his quark model, he...