Quote:
Originally Posted by astroron
So if it was two men passing the ball,would have that made any difference 
Was the illustration wrong or irrelevant in your opinion Steven?
Albert Einstein was also very prolific in his popularizing of physics and at times was also frowned up on by Mainstream Science.
He used props to demonstrate his point.
Cheers  |
Ron,
At very best the analogy shows that similar charges repel as shown by Girl B recoiling after she receives the photon. So basically the analogy is a demonstration of electrostatic repulsion not Quantum Electrodynamics or QED.
The analogy misses out on a fundamental point, why the photon is created in the first place which is the heart of QED.
Here lies the problem, the creation of photons is so counter-intuitive that it is virtually impossible to illustrate with an analogy.
Its the case of having to rely on the power of mathematics to explain the creation of photons.
Physicists take the mathematics and break it down into pictorial representations known as
Feynman diagrams. To the untrained eye these diagrams look like squiggly drawings but contain a wealth of information about particle interactions.
These drawings are about the closest one can get to analogies.
While they simplify the job for the theoretical physicist, Feymann diagrams doesn't make life any easier to explain QED to the man in the street.
For example a positron is an electron with a positive charge but in a Feynman diagram they are electrons moving backwards in time.
While this makes sense to a particle physicist, the man in the street would probably see it as science fiction at work.
To set the record straight, in case there was any misunderstanding, I actually applaud the efforts of Cox and co. by taking science to the masses.
The problem is they are walking on a tightrope by making the science understandable to the public at the possible risk of misrepresenting it.
Regards
Steven
