Re: I'm sure this is a silly question

In article <pan.2006.02.18.23.06.56.667864@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
David Mitchell <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

... but I was thinking, the other day.

Given that it's canon that particles appear and disappear from the
"quantum foam", all the time, (with a nod to Heisenberg so that they Don't
Really Count), and that gravity is always positive.

What happens to the mass of all those particles?
IOW, pick a point, any point, draw a line in any direction to the edge of
the universe. Along that line there are particles appearing and
disappearing all the time.

So why don't we notice the mass of all those particles?
Is it that they cancel out?
Or that they are only around for so short a time that they don't count?
Or am I missing the point?

You've basically discovered the cosmological constant problem. Different
types of particles can cancel each other out (in supersymmetry, for
example), but that doesn't seem to do nearly enough (by many orders of
magnitude) in our world.

There really aren't any good theories about what's going on with the
cosmological constant. Some people have even speculated that there are
zillions and zillions of universes and we live in one where things
coincidentally cancel out because it's hard to imagine life in a
universe with a large cosmological constant.

Aaron
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OBarr: Math is not Physics.
    ... charged comb moving an oppositely charged ... It only predicts relativsic motion in ... and disappear that makes it difficult to treat in a ... Virtual particles are just place holders. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Im sure this is a silly question
    ... :: Given that it's canon that particles appear and disappear from the ... and that gravity is always positive. ... :: So why don't we notice the mass of all those particles? ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: Im sure this is a silly question
    ... Given that it's canon that particles appear and disappear from the ... Well, probably the main thing to keep in mind here is that of the four fundamental interactions, gravity is by far the weakest. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Im sure this is a silly question
    ... Given that it's canon that particles appear and disappear from the ... "quantum foam", all the time, (with a nod to Heisenberg so that they Don't ... So why don't we notice the mass of all those particles? ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)