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A comment on The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less. Parent comment

Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by jbattle on Friday May 17, 2013 @01:15PM (#5725551)
This got me thinking. If you are floating along in a void, and float past a virtual particle - you can legitimately say you are moving (of course you could instead say the virtual particle is moving).

Assume now the virtual particle winks out of existence. Have you suddenly stopped moving? Were you wrong/incorrect somehow to have chosen the particle as the rest frame? Has conservation of (your) momentum just been violated?

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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by Cushman on Friday May 17, 2013 @02:32PM (#5725971)
I'm no physicist, but my understanding is that observing a virtual particle is a contradiction in terms.
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Re:The theory of relativity in words of four letters or less by tekacs on Friday May 17, 2013 @05:57PM (#5726890)
Observing a virtual particle directly, surely is.
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