|
dirac sea
Link |
by
on 2006-04-14 20:15:25 |
can someone please explain the dirac sea, I was reading on wikipedia and it made no sense and now i'm curious  |
|
Re: dirac sea
Link |
by
on 2006-04-15 12:07:29 |
|
well, without a substantial background in quantum mechanics, im afraid no explanation will be satisfactory. without going too deep, i will do my best: in 1928, Dirac came up with this equation called the Dirac Equation. The funny thing about it is, it predicted negative energy states for electrons. So, he puzzled over it for a couple of years, then proposed the Dirac Sea as an explanation. The "sea" is the vacuum, consisting of infinite particles of negative energy. Holes in the sea are positrons. The prediction of positrons, and their later discovery are one of the greatest achievements of modern physics. 
|
|
Re: dirac sea
|
|
Hehe, I sure can't, but I wouldn't worry about it. For every quantum mechanical theory proved right, predictions of a load more are made. There doesn't seem to be any simple explanation for this concept.. |
Aramis|
Re: dirac sea
Link |
by
on 2006-04-15 17:11:32 |
|
well, the sea of dirac is very widely looked upon as an unsatisfactory model. there is a model called the "Standard Model" which, as the name implies, is fairly standard.
|
|
Re: dirac sea
Link |
by
on 2006-04-27 01:12:37 |
|
gendou what does your signature thingy mean? thanks, i guess |
|
Re: dirac sea
Link |
by
on 2006-04-27 16:47:31 (edited 2006-04-27 16:48:30)
|
|
its a perl regular expression. it matches two b's or not two b's. read out loud it would sound like "too be or not too be", thus the pun.
|