top | item 47071458

(no title)

Drakim | 12 days ago

Don't they have different x,y,z positions?

discuss

order

antonvs|11 days ago

Yes, but the issue is that they don't have identity. The idea of assigning unique identifiers to particles is doomed because, basically, "there are no particles, there are only fields" (https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4616).

Particles are how quantized fields present themselves when probed by localized interactions. In general, they're also observer-dependent.

The idea of assigning an "ID" to an object reflects a macro-level notion of re-identifiable objects persisting through time. But at the quantum level, that kind of classical individuality - object identity - doesn't exist.