Field Quanta Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [4]

Gribbin (1989: 259):

Virtual photons — and indeed, ordinary photons — can also create electrons, as virtual electron–positron pairs, provided they, too, are short-lived and exist only within the confines set by the uncertainty principle.  And those electrons have their own clouds of virtual photons, and so on, ad infinitum.  The froth of activity around an electron, or involved in the repulsion, or scattering, of one electron by another is a far cry from the tranquil image most people associate with the word "vacuum".  But by applying the principles of quantum theory to the electromagnetic field in this way, physicists have been able to come up with a theory of quantum electrodynamics, and a living vacuum, that describes the interactions of electrons, photons, and the electromagnetic field in quantum terms.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the creation of virtual electron–positron pairs by photons or virtual photons is the instantiation of electron–positron matter potential as particles, and the clouds of virtual photons around a virtual electron are instantiations of its electromagnetic potential — all in line with the probabilities of such potentials.