In "The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" Richard Feynman uses a "stopwatch" to time the photon as it moves. For each photon path, the final direction of the hand is considered as a "vector", which is a rather strange step. Then all possible "vectors" are combined to end up with a "probability", which is is another strange step. All this appears as a simplified way to make the concepts of QED accessible to a non-expert audience like me. What are the more formal ways to describe this theory?
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1Feynman is essentially describing the path integral formalism of quantum mechanics – By Symmetry May 26 '21 at 12:19
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Most textbooks on optics have an alternative. – ProfRob May 26 '21 at 15:42
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@By Symmetry Thanks for redirecting me toward the founding principles. – JCRCAN May 26 '21 at 21:54
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@ ProfRob You are refering to textbooks on optics. Does it means that QED deals specifically with the optic domain? – JCRCAN May 26 '21 at 21:57
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Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/684719/2451 – Qmechanic Aug 15 '23 at 15:30