Do virtual particles exist or not?

[tiny-tim]

As your tiny sized text at the bottom says, they aren't real(which I agree with), so why is this even an issue?

because the main advantage of Feynman diagrams is that they have an intuitive description in terms of "virtual particles"

an intuitive description helps understanding (and memory)

but it's important to know what the limits of the description are

(eg, most aspects of quantum theory have a classical analogue with the same name … giving the same name helps understanding … but occasionally the analogy doesn't work, and it's important to remember when)

 

[byron178]

in each observer's time, everything travels toward the future

if it had its "own time" (like a human), it could travel toward the past in its own time while traveling toward the future in the observer's time, in other words the observer would say it was getting younger

but it doesn't have its "own time"hi Drakkith!

it depends what you mean by "travel" …

(eg in general relativity, do we say that an object travels along its world-line, or merely that it has a world-line? )

each observer certainly regards it as traveling (from A to B or from B to A), but since different observers can't agree (for faster-than-light travel) on the direction, is it really traveling (or is it really only "being exchanged")?

(of course, i repeat: virtual particles aren't real, they're just mathematical artefacts that help in the calculations )

Ive asked around and have been told that virtual particles are real,whats the real with that?Tiny-Tim,I still don't understand,so what your saying is that virtual particles don't travel backwards in time?