4 ms·
Just to add a nitpick here, apart from them sharing some wave-like descriptions at some levels in the theory, there is not that much in common between photons a
by l33tman 6y ago
Just to add a nitpick here, apart from them sharing some wave-like descriptions at some levels in the theory, there is not that much in common between photons and electrons. Fundamentally they play different parts in the theory (one being a matter particle the other a force carrier) and mathematically they are represented differently and behaves very differently (one being a fermion and the other a boson). In particular the boson/fermion distinction is usually glossed over in popular treatments of QED (because it's so unintuitive and messy).
- jiggawatts 6y agoMeanwhile, in a very real sense the following equation holds: electron + positron = 2x photon So it's somewhat (very?) false to say that they're fundamentally distinct, when both leptons and photons are fundamental components of electromagnetic phenomena, and are even interconvertible! If you squint hard enough, it looks like leptons behave like sufficiently energetic photons self-interacting to the point that they form a localised circulation. This requires a charge separation to be stable, hence the requirement for a pair of oppositely charged leptons to be formed from a photon.