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I guess (again, I'm showing my ignorance here) my question is related to some boundary (?) between science and math. I've always imagined or believed that scien
by bmcn2020 6y ago
I guess (again, I'm showing my ignorance here) my question is related to some boundary (?) between science and math. I've always imagined or believed that science was founded on testability? If it "fits" the model but it isn't directly testable, that passes the sniff test?
4+x=9 -- there are a lot of options for x, some much more convoluted than others, and a lot more impractical, and I guess all mathematically "viable" (?) But when it comes to physics, shouldn't it be more connected to reality than that?
- ephimetheus 6y agoWe can infer specific properties of the virtual particles. Mass, spin, charge among others, depending on what we’re talking about. If those properties match up with expectation, we consider this strong support of the theoretical formalism. We can even measure more fancy stuff like virtual loop contribution to transition processes. This mostly works by measuring the transition probabilities with extreme precision, and then comparing it with higher-order theoretical predictions of the probabilities.