FEYNMAN · All the Paths at Once — Oversized Drop-Shoulder T-Shirt

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TEE-SCI-CN-FEY-02-M-BK T-Shirt

Piece

FEYNMAN · All the Paths at Once Oversized Drop-Shoulder T-Shirt

$ 2,345.00

Description

Feynman's 1948 formulation sums all the possible paths: the absurd ones cancel each other out and what remains is the one we observe. Printed here is that sheaf of trajectories.

A Author

Richard Feynman

B Subject

Quantum Physics

C Aesthetic

Diagram · Typographic

Exploration

In the 1948 formulation the particle does not choose a path: it is assigned all of them, each with a phase, and they are summed. The absurd ones point in different directions and annul one another.

What survives the cancellation is the classical trajectory, which appears not because it is the only one but because it is the one around which the neighbouring paths sum in phase.

The sum does not converge in the sense in which a mathematician asks for convergence. It is calculated by successive approximations and works with a precision no other method reaches.

In chromodynamics the series is of no use and is replaced by a lattice of points where the integral is evaluated by statistical sampling. That requires dedicated computing facilities for months.

It is a recipe that gives the right answer before being justified, and it has been that way for seventy-five years.

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