I How Does Quantum Field Theory Address Zeno's Paradox of Touch?

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How is the contact, or the interaction of electrons, if, according to Zeno's paradox, the distance between objects is divided into infinite points?
 
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I don't understand what problem you think there is with treating spacetime as a continuum, which is basically what you are referring to. Quantum field theory, which is our best current theory describing the interactions of electrons and other particles, works perfectly fine with spacetime as a continuum.

Zeno didn't understand how a continuum works. We have learned a lot in the 2500 years since.
 
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PeterDonis said:
I don't understand what problem you think there is with treating spacetime as a continuum, which is basically what you are referring to. Quantum field theory, which is our best current theory describing the interactions of electrons and other particles, works perfectly fine with spacetime as a continuum.

Zeno didn't understand how a continuum works. We have learned a lot in the 2500 years since.
Do you want to say that electrons come into contact and do not need any discrete space?
 
Philipsmett said:
Do you want to say that electrons come into contact and do not need any discrete space?

No, since that's not what quantum field theory says.
 
PeterDonis said:
No, since that's not what quantum field theory says.
But what QFT says about that?
 
Philipsmett said:
what QFT says about that?

This is way too broad a question; you're basically asking for a course in QFT. That's beyond the scope of a PF discussion. You will need to take some time to learn QFT from a textbook.

Thread closed.
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
If we release an electron around a positively charged sphere, the initial state of electron is a linear combination of Hydrogen-like states. According to quantum mechanics, evolution of time would not change this initial state because the potential is time independent. However, classically we expect the electron to collide with the sphere. So, it seems that the quantum and classics predict different behaviours!

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