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From: don@allegra.UUCP (D. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: What is Energy
Message-ID: <2382@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Apr-84 00:25:16 EST
Article-I.D.: allegra.2382
Posted: Thu Apr  5 00:25:16 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 01:29:35 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 25

Mr. Wyant is asking difficult questions.  I have some comments on
replies:

First, particles are not wave packets, although they can come in
packets.  If you shine light, one photon at a time, through a pin hole,
a spherical wave emerges on the other side.  However, if that wave hits
a piece of photographic film, all of the photon will be absorbed at a
point and expose one grain.  It is very counter-intuitive.

Second, quantum field theory does not "deal with particles".  You are
seeing pictures of "Feynmann Diagrams" which look like pictures of
particle tragectories, but they are just a form of notation for terms
in a series.  Don't take them literally.

Third, I would not say Fermions are matter and Bosons are radiation.
Some bosons are massive (the W particles) and some fermions travel at
the speed of light (neutrinos).

"Particles" have many parameters used to describe them: location,
momentum, energy, spin, charge, color.  What does "location" mean?  You
just think you know.  Mathematically, it is no better understood than
energy.

			Apparently-From:
			Don Mitchell