Attractive Forces: Understanding Particle Exchange

[Sneil]

I'm having trouble understanding how the exchange of particles, wether it be in weak, Em, or Stong interactions, can cause an attraction between matter particles. Or how glueons produce such a stonger interaction with the strong force then say photons in the EM force. Can someone post a link or two describing the process or give an expanation? I'm asking this question as a first year undergrad student, so I have no higher education regarding this at all...
thanks

 

[jtbell]

Maybe this will help: Some Frequently Asked Questions About Virtual Particles, part of the Usenet Physics FAQ.

 

[Sneil]

Thanks for that, I had a feeling it was going to be a lot more complicated then to get a simple layman explanation. I guess that's a good thing as I can ask questions and get a (hopefully) deeper understanding of the process. I haven't studied wave functions in QM so I'm having difficulty grasping what they really are. Are they similar to the wave function decribing a classical wave,
ie. SHM in classical physics in a spring?

as in: y(x,t) = A sin [2pi/lambda (x-vt)]

I know complex-numbers are needed for QM wave functions, but is the idea behind them still just a description of the particle's wave motion or position of particle? From what I understand a QM wave is finding the probablility of finding the position of a particle within a possible wave/sinusoidal area..

So, with this statement from the article,
"Suppose, for simplicity, that the charged particles' wave functions are initially Gaussians at rest, that is, normal bell-shaped, real-valued functions, and that they are lined up along the x axis. You can think of the wave functions, schematically, as looking like this:

...... ____ ......... ____
.... /...\ ......./...\ ...x -->
..._/...\_ ...... _/...\_
0 _______/....\_________________/.....\__________"

For me I wouldn't expect the wavefunction to look like half a wave, but in sinusoidal form, that is if my I'm understanding of the wavefunction being a particle's mode of vibration and probability of finding the particle in a definite space is correct...

maybe I'll stop there for now. can anyone point me in the right direction regarding the wave function. Am I at all on the right track at all or a lost cause .

I must be a lost cause because this completely throws off my train of thought:
"I can also define wave functions in 'momentum space'" momentum has a wavefunction?

sorry for my ignorance, I hope someone can put up with me and take the time to point me in the right direction.
thanks
Neil

EDIT: sorry i guess it's not that hard for me to find info on the wave function. I'll do some reading and if I have anymore question's regarding that article I'll ask. Thanks again jtbell for the article.