I don't understand how anything in electrostatics, including electric potential and magnetic fields, is possible via the exchange of particles. Since particles are essentially fluctuations in these fields, in the static situation there are not particles, then how can there be force? Is electrostatics just an illusion?
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Qmechanic
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Mike Flynn
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6This might be an example of where interpreting internal lines in Feynman diagrams too literally might be causing more problems than it solves. – Charlie Mar 19 '21 at 21:45
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2Electrostatics doesn't need to be explained by the exchange of particles. (That's only how lots of bad sources say it works. As in any other subject that is both technically difficult and popular, bad sources are easier to find than good ones.) In quantum field theory, the electromagnetic field is still a field, albeit a quantum one. Quantum fields are not made of particles. Particles are one of the many possible manifestations of a quantum field, but most of a quantum field's manifestations are nothing like particles. – Chiral Anomaly Mar 19 '21 at 23:28
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Possible duplicates: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/142159/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Apr 10 '23 at 07:02
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It is widely overlooked that "electrostatics" is actually not even a solution of classical electromagnetism. There is no static configuration of charges that is stable. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw%27s_theorem. It should therefor not be surprising that quantum electrodynamics will also not make such a prediction easily. The only way to make "quasi-static" fields is to make a stable configuration of matter, first. – FlatterMann Apr 10 '23 at 07:26
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I gave a good answer here: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/758914/electrostatics-as-the-infrared-limit-of-a-sea-of-photons/758989 However, my answer got promptly down-voted by a physics crank and his sock-puppet. I'm not sure if I should file a complaint or just ignore the abuse. – Linas Apr 12 '23 at 17:38