Virtual 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

Virtual 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”.