Message-Id: <v01540b1eb05b255fb3fc@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 14:47:13 -0800
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: pauld@exploratorium.edu (Paul Doherty)
Subject: Re: Matter in a vacuum
The particles that appear and then vanish in a vacuum have measurable
physics effects.
Two metal plates separated by a vacuum experience a force pushing them
together, this has recently been experimentally measured.
If I choose to not bring in the Higgs field
I tell my students that we have to reword the law of conservation of energy
(where I include mass as a form of energy)
It isn't that the
energy of a closed system never changes
instead is that
you cannot measure the change in the energy of a closed system.
Particles with mass appear for a time that is so short that you cannot
measure that their mass violates the law of conservation of energy.
Paul D