3 ms·
Not a physicists either, These "non-physical redundancy" you are referring to can't be picked out totally at random. They do have some interdepencencies. My u
by 21 9y ago
Not a physicists either,
These "non-physical redundancy" you are referring to can't be picked out totally at random. They do have some interdepencencies.
My understanding is that at each point in space you can pick a DIFFERENT gauge transformation, but there are some constraints. And if you do a sort of integral through a path of these points, the sum of that thing represents EXACTLY the electo-magnetic field along that path.
A very famous physicists made an economic analogy, using currency exchange rates between countries as gauge fixings:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6753 https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6753
- danbruc 9y agoThat is also my understanding, you can of course not make absolutely arbitrary choices or you could trivially turn two distinct physical states into each other but as far as I know you still have huge freedoms. I read the paper some time ago but I don't remember it as especially enlightening. Maybe I will take the opportunity to read it again over the weekend, maybe I can get something new out of it now that I missed the first time.