``The language of Dirac's theory of radiation'': the inception and initial reception of a tool for the quantum field theorist
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: ``The language of Dirac's theory of radiation'': the inception and initial reception of a tool for the quantum field theorist
zbMATH Open document ID: 1502.01035
author: Markus Ehberger
published in: Archive for History of Exact Sciences
publication date: 2022-10-18T00:00:00Z
review text: The paper gives a cogent reconstruction of how Paul Dirac came to interpret the various terms in a quantum-mechanical perturbation expansion as describing ``virtual'' processes, a view that the author calls ``picture of subsequent transitions''. This is relevant for current philosophical debates on whether such virtual transitions (and, in quantum field theory, virtual particles) have ontological significance.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 81-03
zbMATH DE Number: 7602937
reviewed by: A. S. Blum
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: s00407-022-00293-8
OpenAlex ID: W4283819035
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DOI: 10.1007/S00407-022-00293-8
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 7602937