This diagram represents the the light of a neutron star passing through an area of space where vacuum birefringence, a theory of quantum electrodynamics, is occurring. The light's magnetic and electric fields (red and blue arrows) are altered and aligned as they pass through the empty space near a neutron star, suggesting the intense magnetic field there creates virtual particles that affect the light.
About 400 light-years from here, in the area surrounding a neutron star, the electromagnetic field of this unbelievably dense object appears to be creating an area where matter spontaneously appears and then vanishes.
Quantum electrodynamics (QED) describes the relationships between particles of light, or photons, and electrically charged particles such as electrons and protons. The theories of QED suggest that the universe is full of "virtual particles," which are not really particles at all. They are fluctuations in quantum fields that have most of the same properties as particles, except they appear and vanish all the time. Scientists predicted the existence of virtual particles some 80 years ago, but we have never had experimental evidence of this process until now.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:01PM
Capture the particles and use them to fuel the burger flipping machine! Then fire all the workers and toss them out into the gutter!
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:16PM
I agree, let's shoehorn in class struggle to every piece of news.
Only borgies care about science for expanding human knowledge, amiright?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:42PM
Science has been a hobby for idle rich lords ever since Sir Francis Bacon invented the scientific method. There is no shoehorning needed when class struggle is inherent in science.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:02PM
You're welcome.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:49PM
And leftists wonder why liberals are liberals instead of leftists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @01:27AM
I guess I don't know enough rabid leftists, do they really get offended and shocked when you don't agree with everything in the typical leftist media stance?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:11PM
No, they're definitely more inclined to the resigned acceptance(at least until their glorious revolution) that no one takes their ideas seriously.
What sucks for them is that I dosorta take their ideas seriously until the anti-intellectualism hits and I have to say "Do you want Stalins? Because that's how you get Stalins."
They, like libertarians, tend to get ultracrepidarian about non-economic issues, and it's obnoxious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:15PM
Because the US doesn't have any leftists. Left of fascism isn't left, its just not as extremely far right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:55PM
See the violence inherent in the system!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @02:34PM
Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:22PM
My college physics course said that we had already observed particles popping in and out of existence. Maybe they were real particles, not the virtual ones?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:01PM
Did he say we'd observed them (or their effects) or did he say we'd inferred their (brief, virtual) existence?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:26PM
You can get much more and better info from a science website [eso.org] about this.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:32PM
We all know that the curvature of the gravity field affects light; do we need "virtual particles" to explain that extreme distortions of the magnetic field can affect the electromagnetic waves travelling inside?
It's great when an observation apparently matches a really old theory, my question is why they need to introduce "virtual particles" instead of just saying that the local environment is so warped as to act as if discontinuous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:41PM
Because:
the universe is full of "virtual particles," which are not really particles at all. They are fluctuations in quantum fields that have most of the same properties as particles, except they appear and vanish all the time.
they appear to be particles except they disappear pretty quickly.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Wednesday December 14 2016, @12:17AM
The headline is misleading, virtual particles are already well-established in quantum theory, and there is already considerable evidence for their existence, such as the Casimir effect. This is just one more piece of such evidence.
Also, according to current theory, gravity doesn't directly effect light at all, other than the fact that a photon's straight-line path appears to curve as it follows the spatial deformations. I believe there is no known mechanism by which it could alter the polarization of light, which normally only happens when photons interact with matter.
Moreover, if it *was* gravity doing it, then the results would likely look far different as gravity is a unipolar force that propagates uniformly in all directions (neglecting frame dragging, which is considerably more complicated), unlike the heavily directionality of a bipolar force such as magnetism.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Hartree on Wednesday December 14 2016, @12:24AM
The 1940s called and wanted to remind you of the Lamb Shift which is a change in energy levels in the hydrogen atom due to interactions with virtual positron electron pairs. It was first experimentally observed in 1947.
Willis Lamb got the Nobel prize in 1955 for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @01:47AM
They are real particles, they just get routed to God's Spam Filter really quick. You briefly see them flash on screen in Outlook.
Spam is the real Dark Matter and spammers the real Dark Energy.