3 ms·
An example that comes up in semiconductor is the 'hole' virtual particle. It is the absence of an electron. It is not a real and independent phenomenon. But you
by burnished 4y ago
An example that comes up in semiconductor is the 'hole' virtual particle. It is the absence of an electron. It is not a real and independent phenomenon. But you can treat it like a particle just fine
- gizmo686 4y agoElectron holes are quasi particles, not virtual particles.
- burnished 4y agoAh hell, guess I have to start treating the stuff I learned in undergrad into the unreliable narrator category. Thanks for the correction!
- cwillu 4y agoVirtual particles are not particles. Virtual particles are all the disturbances in a field that don't behave like particles do. It's really a terrible name to have entered the lay vocabulary: “virtual memory is something that behaves largely like real memory” is _exactly_ wrong, it's more like “virtual memory is all the circuitry that doesn't perform any memory function, but is still made of silicon”.