21–30 of 46 posts
The article says that resisivity in normal metals follows a quadratic curve, but the article also says that it follows an exponential curve. Does anyone know which it right?
From the other responses, it sounds like "none of the above". It's more like a "polynomial curve" that is only sometimes quadratic. Is "polynomial curve" a thing? "Power curve" / "power function"?
so electrons are just like photons being a wave/particle? The article seems to suggest in strange metals their particle properties are absent and only 'electron field' gradients move, like if electrons exhanged their 'charge'.
Electrons are not just like photons. It's tempting to say that, but there are some significant differences that can lead you in error if you think in this picture. First of all, if you think of a photon as some small ball, not that's not what it is. Mathematically a photon is defined as a state of the EM field (which has been quantised into a set of harmonic oscillators called "normal modes") in which there is exactl…
So superconductivity is a laminar flow of electron goop? Ok, it's different in that liquid flows through pipes and electrons flow through crystal lattices or whatever, so electrons go between and around the material while liquid is bounded by it. It makes me speculate that electron flow through a metal is sort of like liquid flowing through a compressible boundary tube, whereas flow through a non-metal has rigid wall…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electrons are not just like photons. It's tempting to say that, but there are some significant differences that can lead you in error if you think in this picture. First of all, if you think of a photon as some small ball, not that's not what it is. Mathematically a photon is defined as a state of the EM field (which has been quantised into a set of harmonic oscillators called "normal modes") in which there is exactl…
Why don't photons have a position operator?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A regular particle isn't really emergent, it corresponds 1:1 to the excitation of the field Maybe 'emergent' was the wrong word here. I meant that particles are convenient ways of describing behavior of the fields in many (but not all) cases, with the fields themselves considered to be the (more) fundamental description of reality.
Eh, in the wave-particle duality wars you may have been swayed a bit too strongly into the wave camp. Quantization exists and isn't just a convenience.
Reminds me of the elephant and rope adage: young elephants are trained with small chains, which as they mature they outsized and could easily break but don't.
Though to give credit to researchers, those new experiments of "listening" for electron perturbations seem amazing. That's just a brilliant idea. Theorists often like to pretend they're better than the experimentalists, but without proper data the theorists get stuck in dead ends. ;)
IANAP, but I thought that quantum field theory (which isn't incredibly controversial) already treats particles as merely emergent convenient ways to describe common excitations of the fields. I'm surprised it isn't mentioned here at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electrons are not just like photons. It's tempting to say that, but there are some significant differences that can lead you in error if you think in this picture. First of all, if you think of a photon as some small ball, not that's not what it is. Mathematically a photon is defined as a state of the EM field (which has been quantised into a set of harmonic oscillators called "normal modes") in which there is exactl…
Why don't photons have a position operator?
Since it lives and dies in the same instant, it can't have a position—because the moment it exists and the moment it doesn't is exactly the same time.
It takes time—even for light—to get from point A to point B. However, the measurement of any positions—relative to the photon itself—will always be the same. It's related to that property of quantum physics that allows two particles to exists in two different places at the same time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh, in the wave-particle duality wars you may have been swayed a bit too strongly into the wave camp. Quantization exists and isn't just a convenience.
What? QFT doesn't preclude quantization at all . You're attacking a weird straw man here.
so electrons are just like photons being a wave/particle? The article seems to suggest in strange metals their particle properties are absent and only 'electron field' gradients move, like if electrons exhanged their 'charge'.