Talk:3091: Renormalization

It's been an hour. Does nobody know what this is about? Are we all dumb? Pgn674 (talk) 22:43, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not certain. Renormalisation is a concept from quantum field theory in which coupling constants take different values at different scales. I believe the intuition for this is that at longer scales, particles are shielded by a cloud of virtual particles which spring into 'existence' around them and take some of the apparent strength out of the interaction. The best I've got is that somehow this is like an electron hitting off of other imaginary electrons? Maybe the old, since a photon can be interpreted as an electron going backwards in time, there might only be one electron in the universe, it's just bouncing back and forth a lot? But in this case any electron interacting in any way with another electron would be 'hitting itself', so I don't see how that would be a renormalisation specific thing. 172.70.58.112 22:52, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Wait, I was dumb. Renormalisation is a self interaction, the interpretation in terms of virtual particles is irrelevant. I was over thinking it. Interacting with itself => hitting itself, simple. 172.70.58.150 22:59, 19 May 2025 (UTC)