Natural Science Forum / Physics / Particle Physics / February 2005

Is anyone having problems believing renormalization is normal? I
mean. Could it be "doctored" or sweeping under the carpet
problems of a theory that was inherently flawed as he put it?

La Violette said:

"The energy summation of all virtual particles momentarily
existing around a Particle also poses a problem since quantum
field theory predicts that a given virtual Particle cloud should
have an infinitely large mass. For example, in creating each
virtual photon the electron is assumed to "borrow" energy from
the uncertainty relation "bank.' Although this energy is assumed
to be "paid back" shortly thereafter to avoid violating the law
of energy conservation, there would always be a net reservoir of
virtual photon energy in the electron's photon cloud. When the
individual packets of energy associated with each virtual photon
are added up, however, the energy (and mass) of the electron
together with its virtual particle cloud is found to be infinite.
This blatantly contradicts experimental observation that shows
the electron as having a finite rest mass, whose energy
equivalent amounts to 510,000 electron volts.*

Physicists have attempted to resolve this difficulty through a
process called renormalization, or the ad hoc assumption that the
"bare" electron core has an infinite negative mass of just the
right amount to cancel out most of the infinite positive mass of
the electron's photon cloud and leave a net positive residual
equivalent to the electron~s observed mass. Further complicating
matters, this ad hoc finely tuned renormalization procedure must
be repeated for each force field that a particle is presumed to
generate, since the clouds of virtual pions, gluons, and other
particles required to mediate strong and weak forces and quark
binding would similarly produce singularities. Many physicists
find this technique unsatisfactory, since there is no reason to
justify the infinite negative mass assumption other than the
purported need to patch up the failing quantum electrodynamics
theory. Paul Dirac, a famous British physicist known for his 1928
pred iction of the existence of antimatter, played an important
role in developing the foundations of quantum electrodynamics.
But throughout his life he expressed his displeasure with the
business of renormalization. He felt it was no more than a poorly
executed attempt to sweep under the carpet problems of a theory
that was inherently flawed."