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I have long been fairly disinterested in quantum physics. I tend to not pay much attention to it. Lately though, it has seemed worthwhile to start learning more of it, as many of my interactions are with people involved in the field. I have learned some fairly interesting things, though nothing has truly surprised me in my readings until today. I just read a piece by
Cosimo Bambi and Katherine Freese, and it baffles me. I am hesitant to speak much on it, due to my general lack of expertise in the field, but it seems like complete bunk. I would appreciate it if someone could either confirm my suspicions, or explain how this makes sense:
Quote:
One might worry about the contribution of long-lived virtual (1) classical macroscopic objects, (2) sub–Planck mass particles with super–Planckian energies, or (3) super–Planck mass particles to dangerous physical processes;
Points one and three seem effectively the same, and do not seem right to me (how is it legitimate to use the Feynman rules?). Point two just seems silly. I do not want to assume this piece is as flawed as it seems to be, but this paper seems to be bunk.
Could anyone help clarify this for me?
I'd say it's extremely unwise to ignore quantum mechanics. Indeed, it's impossible to develop a fundamental understanding of the universe without it.
At any rate, I agree with you: this paper is absurd, as are many of the ones it references. I disagree with it at the outset. The 'minimum length' arguments aren't very well motivated, especially the one insisting general relativity has a localization problem. The scale the authors speak of are only important, however, because we're forced to develop a quantum theory of gravity to handle gravitational interactions of electrons at this scale. Incidentally, this is also the scale that corresponds to natural units (quite a lovely coincidence).
The integral one incurs while computing the energy stored in a quantized electromagnetic field diverges. We can cap it by assuming there's a minimal length scale. I think the problem is more pathological than this, though.
(1) and (3) aren't the same either. Super-Planck mass particles can still be on the quantum scale.
Ultimately, I think their initial arguments aren't very convincing and I think their worries are similar to those regarding the destructiveness of the LHC experiments.
I'm curious, though: why this particular paper? If you're investigating quantum mechanics there are far more basic and less peculiar ones to start with.
