fun fact: this whole thing about the mass-energy of the electron was basically what made people find out about the mass energy equivalence in the first place, they notices that if the EM field has momentum, effectively for a force to push a charge it needs to push the charged body *and* the electromagnetic field, making it have an effectively larger mass
it even lead to theories that all mass was actually this effective electromagnetic mass, aka that everything is charges with 0 bare mass but which have an effective mass given by the electromagnetic field (which has a big higgs field vibe tbh that's basically kinda how modern physics works)
Quite insightful. I think this “Renormalization” term can be used in the concept of god as well. Accepting that we don’t know everything and that is fine. We need not give definitions to something that we are not sure of, and acknowledge that. Cheers
Hi, this series is just great. If I'm getting ahead of schedule please tell me to be patient. But I had a question about this part:
"The genius (and the controversy) of renormalization is the assumption that we can tune the bare mass parameter to be infinite and negative to cancel the positive infinity contribution from the field loop corrections."
What does "tune" mean in this context? If, by chance, it means we measure the value in some set of experiments, does that make it a fundamental constant of nature? Like the elementary charge itself?
tuning means we acknowledge that our theory has parameters that we cannot calculate from first principles. Since we can't see the bare particle, we have to calibrate these parameters. We take a measurement in the lab (like the mass of an electron being 0.511 MeV), and we set the math so that the final result matches that measurement.
regarding your second question: physical (renormalized) values are fundamental constants The bare values are not fundamental. They depend on our renormalization scale (the cutoff).
I hope that helps. And yes, thanks for your appreciation. The series will likely have 20-25 articles. After discussing EFT next sunday, I will dive into QED, QCD, Curved Spacetimes in the future. So stay tuned!
Sameeet, your stories are wonderful fun. Have you encountered Left Brain Mystic’s substack? Similar kind of fun. I’m an old (88) year old psychologist that struggled with this stuff ‘til I found you. You may have found your life’s work. So I’m going to take the privilege of telling you something. Get your thesis done!!! A very similar thing happened to me - I lucked into a job that I loved before my thesis was done. Result was I barely got it squeaked in under the deadline. I had risked my whole career. And stressed me out!!! Just saying. And thanks again!
Thank you for your kind words. It's very encouraging for me to have a passionate reader of your age. Yes, I do know him; he recommends my work. And thank you for your advice!
fun fact: this whole thing about the mass-energy of the electron was basically what made people find out about the mass energy equivalence in the first place, they notices that if the EM field has momentum, effectively for a force to push a charge it needs to push the charged body *and* the electromagnetic field, making it have an effectively larger mass
it even lead to theories that all mass was actually this effective electromagnetic mass, aka that everything is charges with 0 bare mass but which have an effective mass given by the electromagnetic field (which has a big higgs field vibe tbh that's basically kinda how modern physics works)
thanks for the insight!
Quite insightful. I think this “Renormalization” term can be used in the concept of god as well. Accepting that we don’t know everything and that is fine. We need not give definitions to something that we are not sure of, and acknowledge that. Cheers
Thought provoking.
Hi, this series is just great. If I'm getting ahead of schedule please tell me to be patient. But I had a question about this part:
"The genius (and the controversy) of renormalization is the assumption that we can tune the bare mass parameter to be infinite and negative to cancel the positive infinity contribution from the field loop corrections."
What does "tune" mean in this context? If, by chance, it means we measure the value in some set of experiments, does that make it a fundamental constant of nature? Like the elementary charge itself?
tuning means we acknowledge that our theory has parameters that we cannot calculate from first principles. Since we can't see the bare particle, we have to calibrate these parameters. We take a measurement in the lab (like the mass of an electron being 0.511 MeV), and we set the math so that the final result matches that measurement.
regarding your second question: physical (renormalized) values are fundamental constants The bare values are not fundamental. They depend on our renormalization scale (the cutoff).
I hope that helps. And yes, thanks for your appreciation. The series will likely have 20-25 articles. After discussing EFT next sunday, I will dive into QED, QCD, Curved Spacetimes in the future. So stay tuned!
Thanks! Very cool of you to put the effort in.
Sameeet, your stories are wonderful fun. Have you encountered Left Brain Mystic’s substack? Similar kind of fun. I’m an old (88) year old psychologist that struggled with this stuff ‘til I found you. You may have found your life’s work. So I’m going to take the privilege of telling you something. Get your thesis done!!! A very similar thing happened to me - I lucked into a job that I loved before my thesis was done. Result was I barely got it squeaked in under the deadline. I had risked my whole career. And stressed me out!!! Just saying. And thanks again!
Thank you for your kind words. It's very encouraging for me to have a passionate reader of your age. Yes, I do know him; he recommends my work. And thank you for your advice!