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[–] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

Virtual particles appear and disappear in the course of interactions between real particles. The general phenomenon of particles appearing and disappearing in interactions happens with both real and virtual particles—but the interactions are such that momentum, charge, etc. are always conserved. So the things you should expect to see persisting in existence aren’t particles themselves, but those conserved properties.

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  • [+] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    Think of particles as bundles of conserved quantities like charge, energy, mass, etc.

    In interactions, these quantities can be shuffled around and re-bundled into different particles—but the re-bundling isn’t creating or destroying the conserved quantities themselves.

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